Doubleday Canada, 2008

Reviewed by Matt Kydd

"This combination of ballet and murder." – Al Purdy, Hockey Players

Don Cherry’s book shows us what hockey is: a wild combination of beauty and brutality. One moment he’s describing the mysterious elegance and magic of Bobby Orr’s hockey vision, and the next moment, he’s remembering how John Wensink bit Rick Seiling in the back, when Seiling turtled during a fight ("He really did! Seiling had to go for tetanus shots, the whole thing"). One story praises the sportsmanship and grace of Jean Ratelle ("He was like a priest"), while another describes an unnamed buddy administering the "Caterpillar Treatment", which means that you shove the point of your stick blade into an opponent’s stomach, making him curl

up in a ball when he hits the ice. One moment he’s singing the praises of his mother’s love and support, and the next he’s telling what it was like to have a guy trying to bite his thumb off during a fight ("The harder I hit him, the harder he bit"). In this book, the beautiful moments and the brutal moments are all mixed up together, which is a perfect reflection of the real nature of the game.

Nobody knows what to make of Cherry. He seems to be sentimental and even religious (he says that he once heard God speak to him while he was praying), but he’s also an outspoken advocate of fighting, hard-hitting, and take-no-prisoners hockey. Maybe this strange mixture of sensitivity and toughness is what gives him the perfect hockey mind, the perfect hockey vision, which allows him to see the light and the darkness of the wild game. It’s not like he’s perfect. There are times when he’s been obviously wrong, such as when, a few years ago, he compared the goaltending styles of Patrick Roy and Ken Dryden, but usually he shows a very profound understanding of the complicated sport.

Some good decisions were made in the planning of this book. First of all, Cherry and Strachan decided to let Cherry’s unorthodox grammar remain, without making it "proper". The reader can really hear Cherry speaking.

The second good decision was that they made no attempt to impose any kind of order on Cherry’s stories. They just let the book flow from story to story without trying to arrange it chronologically or by subject matter. Cherry isn’t a novelist or a historian; he’s a master story-teller, and this is how story-tellers work, jumping from scene to scene and the listener has to work to keep up. It may be hard to follow, but so is hockey. Putting the stories in any kind of order would be like that American TV network making the puck glow – it would reward the stupid. At the end of the book, you feel like you’ve sat at a bar with Cherry, had a few "pops", and heard some random stories.

What sets hockey apart from other sports is how wild it is, how close the game always is to going over the edge and getting out of control. Hockey is a game played on the edge. Cherry’s book reflects this aspect of the game by challenging the reader to appreciate the grace of the game, but also the blood, sweat, and tears of the game. It’s a beautiful game, but, man, it’s pretty ugly sometimes too. Cherry enjoys both sides of the story.

In the midst of this wild game, Cherry finds what he calls "moments to live forever." He uses this phrase from time to time in his video series, and, in the book, he remembers a specific event as a moment to live forever. When his Rochester team clinched first place (mainly because of Wensink glaring at the opposition from the bench), the team went out to celebrate at a pub. Listen to how glorious and immortal Cherry sounds describing the party: "I was sitting there like a king. Bobby Ellett got me a tray of cheese and we’re sittin’ there drinkin’, singin’ sings, havin’ fun. First place overall. It doesn’t get any better. First place, having a few pops with the guys. We were like a band of pirates...Moments to live forever." What more could you wish for than a few moments like that in your life?

Another "moment to live forever" (not that Cherry called it that) happened after he had won the old WHL Championship with Vancouver. In the dressing room after the game, he and his friend decided to enjoy the moment as much as possible, so they sat there in their sweaty equipment for three hours after everyone else was gone, drinking champagne. They realized that, once you take your equipment off, the game’s over. So they just sat there together. Brilliant. They were champions.

And as long as we’re talking about amazing moments, visualize this scene that Cherry watched from behind the bench: Brad Park and Bobby Orr, together on the same team for part of a season, working the point on the powerplay. Just try to picture it. That pairing can only be described as a hockey miracle. But it happened, and Cherry was there. Moments to live forever.

The book has moments that are pretty hilarious too, mainly because the humour is based in the brutality and over-the-edge nature of hockey. He describes how a Bruin named Bobby Schmautz used to go crazy sometimes. When he got mad, Schmautz’s eyes would start "twirling". In Vancouver, Cherry heard a boy in the stands look at Schmautz and say, "Dad, look at that man’s eyes. Look at that man’s eyes!"

Another good moment is when Cherry and Bobby Orr go to tell Phil Esposito that he’s been traded. As Orr stands over by a big window, Espo says, "Grapes, if you tell me I’ve been traded to the New York Rangers, I’m jumpin’ out that window." Cherry says, "Bobby, get away from that window." The book’s full of great lines like those.

The main problem with the book is the packaging. The cover photo is a cheesy picture of Cherry giving the thumbs up while surrounded in a cloud of snow, kicked up by a couple of Mississauga Ice Dogs. The picture has been recycled from the Don Cherry Rock’em Sock’em 11 Video cover, though more snow has been added so that you can hardly see the Ice Dogs in the background. Maybe the Ice Dogs would have been an unpleasant reminder for Cherry. The packaging suggests a bunch of fast-paced stories of hard-hitting hockey action, like Cherry’s video series. But the book is quite a bit more than that, and could be disappointing to people who aren’t interested in a deeper vision of the world of hockey. The first story is about Cherry’s use of the English language, which might not interest a lot of hockey fans. He tells stories about his father’s kindness to a mentally disabled person. He talks about apartment hunting, the world of TV broadcasting, walking his dog, and other things which might not interest the average rock’em sock’em fan. My own opinion is that a more suitable cover would have been one of the pictures inside the book, like the great photo of a very young Don Cherry celebrating with his Barrie Flyers teammates after winning the Memorial Cup. This cover would give the reader a better idea that the book was more like a penetrating vision into the world of hockey than a highlight video. I think this book could be appreciated by people who are not hockey fans for the glimpse it gives into the often-brutal world of hockey. It could very well be that, in the future, people might look back at this book and see it as a great part of Canadian culture and literature, expressing forcefully the joy and sadness of Canada’s game.

The book could possibly be enjoyed by young fans, but I think the stories (many of them about drinking and violence) can be more easily appreciated by slightly older, more travelled hockey fans.

The book ends on a sad note, with Cherry showing that he still looks back with pain at the fact that he never became a full-time NHL player. He hopes that his dad, looking down on him from heaven, is proud of him now. It seems that Cherry was chosen to make the NHL, not as a player, but in a more important role: the greatest hockey story-teller there is. And for all those critics who don’t understand him, well, as Cherry would say, that’s your problem. Hockey’s a wild game of beauty and brutality. A lot of people will never understand it.

To end on a hilarious note: it’s good to remember that – whatever he may say - Cherry is actually not right all the time. When talking about Barry Melrose, Cherry ends the story saying, "He’ll do a great job in Tampa." Actually, Melrose basically exploded the whole team in a matter of weeks. Oh well. No-one’s perfect.