Regular readers here know that I have a policy of reading a book relevant to the game I am attending when riding a bus or train there. Last night I took the train to see a Rangers-Canadiens game and had this book loaded on my Kindle. It was a quick but excellent read - was finished before I arrive in New York City. Here is my review of “Beyond Ken Dryden.”
Title/Author: “Beyond Ken Dryden” by Oren Safdie
Rating: 5 of 5 stars (excellent)
Review: For some people, athletes and their teams can be more than just entertainers. Some of these people can take comfort in turning to sports to help deal with whatever is troubling. For a young Oren Safedie, that came during the 1970’s when his favorite hockey team, the Montreal Canadiens, won six Stanley Cups led by Hall of Fame goaltender Ken Dryden.
This short memoir, covers a portion of Safedie’s childhood, tells how the Canadiens and Dryden were his escape from two traumatic events at that time. His family lost everything in a house fire and his parents divorced, which would be terrible for any child, but even more so for Safedie, given the tone of his description of the events.
But what ties these events together with hockey is how Safedie weaves actual play by play into the book, especially when there’s a fight between his parents when his father is on the phone with his mistress and Safdie’s mother overhears it. When the parents get in a fight over this, the book alternates lines between the parents’ argument and play-by-play of game 4 of the 1976 Stanley Cup Finals when the Canadiens swept the Philadelphia Flyers to win the first of four consecutive championships.
That is just one of the examples to link hockey to Safedie’s youth and events that took place. There’s humor as well. I laughed out loud when Safedie refused to go to the wedding when his father remarried and calling the new stepmother “Mike Milbury” because of the Boston star’s dirty play. Or linking the retirement of Dryden to when his father left the house. I felt that this was a very creative way to write a memoir.
Because it covers just a short period of his life, the book is a short but excellent read. If a reader wants a different type of memoir linking the author’s life to real time sports, this is a good choice.
I wish to thank the Literary Press Group of Canada for providing a copy of the book via NetGalley. The views expressed in this review are strictly my own.
