Merry Christmas! Review of “Seniors to Juniors”

Merry Christmas to those who are celebrating today! 🎄As those who do celebrate know, it gets very busy to prepare for the season and that was certainly the case for me, so I haven’t posted here lately. But finally, with a little downtime before the guests arrive at my place, I wanted to post this review of an audiobook I recently finished on a hockey team I did not know was still around - the Waterloo Black Hawks. Here is my review:

                                 

Title/Author: “Seniors to Juniors: A Collection of Waterloo Hockey Stories” written and narrated by Tim Harwood

Rating:  4 of 5 stars (very good)

Review: The United States Hockey League (USHL) is a junior hockey league for players age 16-20 and has been around for several decades. The most successful franchise through its history is the Waterloo (Iowa) Black Hawks with 9 championships. This audio book written by Tim Harwood (who also is the narrator) provides a good look at the team and several of its players over the years.

Using various sources such as the team’s website and its magazine, Harwood puts together a good collection of various stories. Like any collection, there are some clunkers as well as the good ones, but overall, this was quite interesting. I was hooked at the beginning with the story of one of the best alumni of the Black Hawks, Joe Pavelski, who was a member of the 2020 Stars team that reached the Stanley Cup Finals and enjoyed an 18 year NHL career with the Stars and San Jose Sharks. Stories like that one and those of the Black Hawks history, such as when they got a new arena, were the best of this collection. 

One aspect of non-fiction audiobooks I always appreciate is that when the author is also the narrator, it lends an aura of authenticity to the book. That certainly was the case here as the narration was not only crisp and easy to listen to, but it also gave off a vibe of certainty. Meaning to me, the author was very knowledgeable on the subject and it could be told in his voice. It was a quick, enjoyable listen as I drove to see college hockey games.

I wish to thank Mr. Harwood for providing a copy of the book.  The opinions expressed in this review are strictly my own.

Link: https://www.audible.com/pd/Seniors-to-Juniors-Audiobook/B0G365YNTN?eac_link=MgFQqqlqU2Gs&ref=web_search_eac_asin_1&eac_selected_type=asin&eac_selected=B0G365YNTN&qid=mUDs49qXXC&eac_id=133-8902370-9982300_mUDs49qXXC&sr=1-1 

Review of "Sudden Death: The Incredible Saga of the 1986 Swift Current Broncos"

When a member and author in the hockey books Facebook group I belong to posted a note about this book on the 30th anniversary of this bus crash on December 30, I knew that I wanted to find out more about this event.  Being an American who is not familiar with the Canadian Junior leagues, I only knew that this bus crash killed four players and the team had many future NHL stars.  Reading about it was an eye-opener - I am grateful for Todd Denault for bringing this book to my attention.

Title/Author:

“Sudden Death: The Incredible Saga of the 1986 Swift Current Broncos” by Leesa Culp with Gregg Drinnan and Bob Wilkie

Tags:

Ice hockey, Juniors, tragedy

Publish date:

September 15, 2012

Length:

216 pages

Rating: 

5 of 5 stars (outstanding)

Review:

On December 30, 1986, a bus carrying the Western Hockey League’s Swift Current Broncos skidded off the Trans-Canadian Highway in a snowstorm, killing four of the team’s players. The Broncos are a Canadian junior team in which the young men are teenagers with dreams of playing in the NHL.  A witness to the crash who also helped injured players, Leesa Culp, wrote this powerful book to tell the story about that night and some of the players who were on that bus. 

There are many reasons that this tragedy is still remembered thirty years later. One is the sheer amount of talent on that team.  Five players were drafted by NHL teams, four of them (Joe Sakic, Peter Soberlak, Ryan McGill and Bob Wilkie) within the first 44 selections.  Another talented player on the team, Sheldon Kennedy, was also profiled in the book as well because the triumph of the team winning the 1989 Memorial Trophy as the best junior team only three years after the tragedy was overshadowed by his revelation that coach Graham James had been sexually abusing Kennedy. 

That sad story is discussed at the end of the book and just like the crash, the story needed to be told. But it did not take away anything from the stories of the crash survivors, one of whom was a co-author of the book, Bob Wilkie. To read about what those young men endured without counseling and how they came back to not only finish the season but to start a championship run two short years later is truly amazing.

The four players killed (Trent Kresse, Scott Kruger, Chris Mantyka and Brent Ruff, younger brother of current Dallas Stars coach Lindsey Ruff) are always on the minds of the players throughout the book and each one has a brief write-up.  Because the book is about the surviving players and also Culp, who was invited to all reunions and events that involved the players on that bus, the stories were all the more moving in their authenticity and genuine emotion. 

One last aspect of the book that I appreciated is that as an American hockey fan who is not familiar with the Canadian junior leagues, the book also was a good introduction to the player’s life in the juniors.  It talked about the billeting families, the travel and the practices.  Because these are young men in their teenage years, seeing it through their eyes as told to Culp was an education and has made me wish to learn more about these leagues.

Anyone interested in the Canadian junior leagues, this team or even just hockey in general will enjoy this book – highly recommended.

Book Format Read:

E-book (Kindle)

Buying links:

https://www.amazon.com/Sudden-Death-Incredible-Current-Broncos-ebook/dp/B00ADOAFYO/ref=sr_1_1_twi_kin_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1485102970&sr=8-1&keywords=sudden+death+swift+current+broncos

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sudden-death-leesa-culp/1110840125?ean=9781459705449