Customer Reviews

Scotty Bowman: A Life in Hockey

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This is one of the worst books I have ever read in my entire life. On top of the author being extremely boring, he can't even get his facts right. There were numerous errors in the book. The most blatant being the author stating that Mike Vernon won the 1989 Conn Smythe award when in fact is was Al MacInnis. Another error I found was in starting goaltending. The book says that Garth Snow started game one of the 1997 Stanley Cup finals, when in fact it was Ron Hextall. If I picked out these simple errors in the book, how can I believe any of the other information in it? The author and publisher should be ashamed of themselves for letting hockey fans read such a book. The author is a disgrace to hockey. Don't waste your time reading this book.

Those intrigued with the Bowman legend-mystique will not find the answer to the perennial question "What makes Scotty Bowman tick?" here. This is not a biography and Hunter does not set out to entertain. Next to no attention is paid to Bowman's childhood, youth, or even to what drew him to the game in the first place. Rather this book is a straightforward, if somewhat dry, portrait of post-expansion hockey and Bowman's role in it. Its chief strength is its history of the architecture of the franchises in which Bowman has spent his career. Any gleaning the reader may be pick up as to the creation of Bowman's character or the methods of his success are, at best, inferred (although Hunter does put forth a convincing case to dispel the myth that Jean-Guy Talbot ended Bowman's playing career). Plenty of quotes from Bowman's associates are included, both pro and con (Bowman himself declined to be interviewed for this work). Yet for a volume that appears to be well documented, steeped in statistics and numbers, I found at least five immediate errors, not the least of which are the year of Bowman's birth, and the 1989 Conn Smythe Trophy winner (it was Al MacInnis -- a fact easily verified in the NHL record book -- not Mike Vernon, as Hunter surprisingly states.) If I found these errors, how many others will other readers find, and how reliable is the rest of the information?

This ridiculous effort lacks any meaningful depth on Scotty Bowman and is loaded with a long stream of convoluted hockey history, some of which is factually incorrect.

Hard to figure some of the vitriol surrounding some of the other customer reviews. Yes, there are a few very minor factual errors that an astute editor should have caught and that an author with Hunter's reputation should have known. But this is a worthy read for anyone interested in the game's greatest coach. Without Bowman's full authorization, it is impossible to get a complete picture of the man ( I know that several of his players were not forthcoming because he did not authorize the work ), but Hunter does a good job setting the scene for the hockey world that Bowman came out of, and how different it was from the hockey world that he eventually mastered.

This work is a good, if incomplete, look at the legend.

This book was horrible. I can't believe I actually made it through the 100 pages. The author talks WAY too much about the history of the league and some of the teams and not nearly enough about Scotty. In short, it was a terrible waste of time and money.