I always like to find books about the Canadian Football League as while the sport is close to that in the United States and the NFL, there's just something about the CFL that attracts me to not only watch some games and the Grey Cup, but also to read anything I can find on it. This book is a reason that I do so, as I enjoyed this book on the 1991 Toronto Argonauts.
Title/Author: “Year of the Rocket: When John Candy, Wayne
Gretzky, and a Crooked Tycoon Pulled Off the Craziest Season in Football
History” by Paul Woods
Rating: 4 of 5 stars (very good)
Review: When a college football star
signs with another professional league that is not the NFL, it usually makes
big news. This was the case in 1991 when
Notre Dame star Raghib "Rocket" Ismail signed with the Toronto Argonauts
of the Canadian Football League (CFL).
This book by Paul Woods is a very good account of that 1991 season for
the Argonauts, which would not have happened without two other famous
celebrities with ties to the team.
Those celebrities were Wayne Gretzky and John Candy, who
along with Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall (who was Gretzky's owner at the
time as he was a player on the Kings) purchased the floundering CFL and
promised to make the team better. Their
first step was to sign Ismail. This was
done not only to make the Argonauts better but also to bring much more exposure
to the league and eventually expand it to the United States.
Some of those goals were accomplished, thanks to the
generous cash flow of McNall. Not only
was Ismail's contract much higher than the limit on salaries placed on CFL
TEAMS, but there were also other incentives such as $100 bonuses paid to
Argonaut players. That season, thanks to
not only Ismail, whose main contributions were exciting kick returns (the description
of his return touchdown in the 1991 Grey Cup championship game is my favorite writing
in the book about action on the field) but also a dominant offense led Toronto
to the championship.
What also makes this book quite good is that Woods did NOT
limit the book to being about the Rocket, McNall, Gretzky and Candy. Many players and coaches on that Argonauts
team have nice write-ups and for those who want to get a good picture of what
the state of the CFL was at that time, this book does that as well. American readers may not be familiar with all
the names, but will still enjoy this book about a championship team that took
an entire nation by storm.
I wish to thank Sutherland House for providing a copy of
the book via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.