Customer Reviews

Ice : New Writing on Hockey

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I have this habit of leaving things that I am finished with -- CDs I've copied to my hard drive, clean old clothing, small household items that still work, books I've read and don't want to keep -- on park benches here in NYC on the theory that someone can still use the item and may like it better than I did. Many other residents do something similar curbside, as if the city were one big free flea market.

Such will be the fate of my copy of "Ice: New Writing on Hockey." Hockey is a terrific sport, all the more so as spring and the Stanley Cup playoffs approach. But it has never gotten its "Bang the Drum Slowly" or "The Natural" (baseball) or "A Fan's Notes (football). "Ice," a collection of short stories, essays, and poems, doesn't even come close. Amid way too many images of frozen ponds and getting up at 5 AM to drive long distances to kids games (many of the works here stress the family connections of hockey, another of the wonderful things about the sport) only a couple entries are worth a second read -- e.g. Hockey Night in Metabetchouan, Hockey Nights and Naked Ladies, and -- perhaps only because I'm a Red Wings fan -- Return of the Dogman -- and even these are marred by a curious compulsion to wrap up the piece with an unnecessary one or two line coda.