Sens at Land’s End

So awesome are my reading skills that I have not just one but two hockey books to report on today. Of course, one of those books was full of pictures, but I don’t think that makes me any less impressive.

Puck Lit Project Review #6: Scoring: The Art of Hockey by Seymour Segal (images) and Hugh Hood (text)

Plot Summary: There is no plot. It’s a collection of hockey drawings by Seymour Segal with commentary by Hugh Hood. There is also an introductory essay by Hood which tells the story of how the images in the book came to be and explores some connections between sports and sex. And oh yeah, this is billed as a collection of “erotic art” with a hockey theme.

Genre: Hockey Art, Hockeyrotica?

Hockey Content: The drawings all feature people either watching or playing hockey or wearing hockey equipment.

My Thoughts: First of all, I wouldn’t describe the art in this book as erotic at all. Scary is more like it. I can’t explain why anyone would see this art as sexual except that there is some nudity, and perhaps that’s all it takes for people to see sex? Most of the drawings have a dreamlike or nightmarish feel to them. This isn’t like the art you’ll see on the wall at the Hockey Hall of Fame (not that you would ever expect to see erotic art on the wall there — unless maybe Wayne Gretzky painted it — but you know what I mean). It’s a collection of abstract and sometimes disturbing images in which shapes shift into other shapes and nothing is quite normal. The drawings have names like “Reflection” and “A Quiet Moment” rather than “Two on One,” which would be a perfect name for a sexy hockey drawing. (After a 67’s game, I once heard an OHL player say to two girls “How about a little two on one?” On another occasion, I heard a guy try to pick up a girl using the classic “I play Junior B” as his line. Seriously, guys.)

Interestingly, Segal completed this series of drawings a few years after suffering a catastrophic head injury while playing goal. This probably explains the weird violence of the drawings as well as the presence of goalie pads in many of them.

Rating: 1 puck out of 5. I don’t care for the drawings for the most part and I don’t quite see the point. I’m no art connoisseur though.

Puck Lit Project Review #7: Midnight Hockey: All About Beer, the Boys, and the Real Canadian Game by Bill Gaston

Plot Summary: Though my plan was to read hockey fiction this summer, I enjoyed book #5, The Good Body, also by Bill Gaston, so much that I have deviated from the plan here by reading Gaston’s non-fiction account of his hockey-playing exploits. The book is an ode to hockey, specifically oldtimers hockey, which apparently involves lots of beer.

Genre: Hockeyography, Reflections on Hockey, Amateur Hockey, Humour

Hockey Content: Gaston talks about his own hockey games and deals with many other aspects of the game such as team names, the hockey smell, the similarities between hockey and yoga (which I had never thought about before, but yes, I totally see it now), and what goes on in the locker room. There is also a brief section which recounts how no less an authority than David Suzuki has concluded that the hockey player is the most highly evolved life form on the planet.

Choice Quotation: “Have you ever noticed that the Stanley Cup is shaped like a huge, godlike beer bottle?”

My Thoughts: My favourite section of the book was probably the one about locker room humour. Some of the stories in there had me laughing out loud, or at least trying to laugh silently because I was reading at work and my workplace is morgue-like in its quietness. One story involving a tray of meat stands out as possibly the funniest. The book is mostly made up of anecdotes, most of them funny, about things Gaston has witnessed or participated in during his oldtimer career.

It also serves as the author’s hockey autobiography. He relates stories from the time he spent as a playing coach in a league in France as well as his days playing for the UBC Thunderbirds (UBC shout out). Basically, it’s a collection of hockey stories and a meditation on why people play the game.

Rating: 4 pucks out of 5. Some of the stories in the book are totally ridiculous and stupid and they will make you question the sanity of everyone involved. But if you love hockey, and I assume you do, this book will make you laugh.