Ken dryden the game

Hockey star and M. Leonard "Red" Kelly has a special gift for the page boys at their Christmas party. Harbour Grace, Newfoundland gives an enthusiastic welcome to the hometown boy who won the Stanley Cup in When Bob Cole is snowed in, Hockey Night in Canada calls on the women's hockey champ for commentary in Hockey stars and young players gather at the Open Ice summit to brainstorm on improving Canada's game.

In , the first ever women's world championship in hockey is contested in Ottawa. Using our plagiarism checker for free you will receive the requested result within 3 hours directly to your email. Jump the queue with a membership plan, get unlimited samples and plagiarism results — immediately! The whole doc is available only for registered users. Pages: 3 Word count: Category: Books. Get a custom sample essay written according to your requirements urgent 3h delivery guaranteed Order Now.

Dryden It is interesting to note that the book is written in a format of diary, though sometimes it is difficult to get the main idea of the author. Dryden The biggest part of the book is devoted to admirable view of ice hockey play ay the professional level. Works Cited Dryden, Ken. The Game. Boston, MA: Thomson Place, A Midsummer Nights Dream.

A Tale Of Two Cities. Alice In Wonderland. Beauty And The Beast. Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde. All rights reserved. Copying is only available for logged-in users. First published in , and reissued for its 30th Anniversary in , The Game recounts one week at the end of the regular season. We follow Dryden—the goalie for the Montreal Canadiens—on airplanes and buses, in locker rooms and motels, and on ice for practices and games. The Canadiens have just won three consecutive Stanley Cups, as well as two Cups earlier in the decade and , and Dryden is coming to grips with his decision to make this season his last between the pipes.

Not only was he at the top of his game, he was the most decorated goalie of his era. He won a total of six Stanley Cups, five Vezina Trophies best goalie , the Calder Trophy best rookie , and the Conn-Smythe Trophy most valuable player in the Stanley Cup Playoffs , which he actually won the year before he won the Calder. After winning the Stanley Cup in his first post-season appearance in the year he won the Conn Smythe Trophy , Dryden, unable to negotiate a contract to his liking, sat out the entire season, opting instead to finish his law degree.

We meet an incredible cast of characters: the Canadiens inscrutable and stodgy manager Scotty Bowman , outspoken defenseman Guy Lapointe , prolific goal scorer Guy Lafleur, among others, many of whom would later join Dryden in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

We experience life behind the scenes of an NHL team that has grown complacent with its success, and despite its talent, is having trouble finding the motivation to win. The city of Montreal and the Montreal Forum are also so well-drawn they are almost characters in and of themselves. While playing all those games with his friends, the young Dryden, like many another Canadian boy from Halifax to Victoria, would find time to indulge his own dreams of future NHL stardom: I would stand alone in the middle of the yard, a stick in my hands, a tennis ball in front of me, silent, still, then suddenly dash ahead, stickhandling furiously, dodging invisible obstacles for a shot on net.

It was Maple Leaf Gardens filled to wildly cheering capacity, a tie game, seconds remaining. And he would not be the fast-shooting wing or centre on the breakaway, but rather the goalie trying to stop that player on offence from scoring.

Indeed, it all sounds rather like a bit of a lark. Then, after giving them one more year as I was obliged to do, I would merely stop playing and they would stop paying. Dryden recalls a home game at the Montreal Forum, when a Detroit Red Wings player scored a goal that Dryden knew he should have stopped.

With hockey stardom, Dryden explains, things often seem unchanged in terms of everyday life specifics like his home, his car, his clothes, the food he eats. In those aspects, he could be any year-old Torontonian living and working in Montreal. Yet Dryden has more money, and a team of finance professionals to help him manage it, and money changes everything. For me, money, which seemed always a by-product, distant, even unrelated to the game, has taken on new importance.

A cause of great bitterness and division, it brought me to retire for a year; a cold-eyed standard against which I judge my relationship with the team, and against which I am now judged. It should be no surprise that The Game was named one of the best English Canadian books of the 20th century. Dryden played in goal, rather than on offence, but The Game hits every goal at which this gifted author aims. View 1 comment. It is certainly the best sports related biography I have ever read to this point in my life.

As much as I enjoy Baseball biographies of former players of years gone by; this book by far outdoes them all. As a young lad growing up in Ontario Canada and prior to moving as a kid to Southern California — Ken Dryden was for me at the time a person I liked to despise — this of course due to my allegiance to the Toronto Maple Leafs. A game of tradition, history, a rich past it is apparent the expansion changed the game forever.

Dryden is first and foremost not a boaster of his sports accomplishments; he prefers to draw attention in his book to those around him who played positively with a work ethic incumbent upon any profession.

I have a personal opinion that Hockey Goalies in North America are more acutely in tune with their MLB Catchers counterpart — the bending is more frequent in Hockey than soccer and the position requires a tighter space to operate within about the same space a catcher deals with only a bit higher and wider than the strike box.

Home plate or a Hockey net require control and precise ability. Was great to read a sports book where there was no wife beating, no alcohol or steroid abuse, no arrests, and no need for intervention of any form at any part of his life.

A brilliant Sports Biography — plain and simple. This is the 30th anniversary edition of the first edition printed in ; reprinted with an added chapter in View all 9 comments. Jul 29, Adam rated it it was ok Shelves: present , sports. I don't get it.

I really don't. Dryden is not THAT good of a writer, and while there are some magical passages here, and some great descriptions of Montreal and Canada at the time, on the whole the thing is a bit of a slog. Maybe it's cause I don't like the Habs.

On to Dave Bidini's hockey books, then. View all 4 comments. Dec 25, Scott Holstad rated it did not like it Shelves: biography-autobiography , sports. Hell, I hardly read anything about sports in it! Dryden is so uninspiring a player and so uninspiring and dull a person that I have no idea how he accomplished the few, puny things he accomplished in his pathetically few years in the league. Most of my favorite players have played 10, 12, 15, 18 years in the league.

Eight years? By whom? What the hell did he do that was so damn great??? I know he helped Montreal win five Stanley Cups in eight years. He did win at least three Vezina Trophies for best goalie, which says something, but even then, he levels criticisms at himself in this book that make you wonder how the hell he won the damn things. He apparently split time with another goalie. He got lit up repeatedly by opposing players.

Was he really a money player? Hard to tell from this book. Hardly cared at all for it. Excuse me, but WTF? Instead, he went to an American college, which was highly unusual at the time. And this is the reason. Who are these reviewers? Why are they so impressed with this book? I mean, who plays eight years when they are allegedly at the top of their game and part of a dynasty. He writes that he could see the wheels coming off the Montreal dynasty his last year, so basically he bailed on the team rather than sail through rough waters.

Like a real champ. What a winner. Would definitely want him in my foxhole. Like hell, I would! Most definitely not recommended under any circumstances! View all 5 comments. There are hockey books.. I tend to lean toward the ones with unbelievable stories rather than the few that read like Arnold Schwarzenegger's abysmal Total Recall commentary track.

I believe that is truly what sets this apart from other sports books. Dryden is more concerned with who his teammates are as people first - what drives them and sets them apart from any other Joe Schmoe holding a stick and flying across the rink. Dryden digs into his own psyche and explains how everything happening both on and off the ice would effect him mentally. He discusses his fears and insecurities and even a crisis of identity in believing that his teammates are just so good that his role in a win or loss feels largely irrelevant at times.

This is of course painfully modest considering he backstopped the Habs to six cups in eight years while collecting five Vezina trophies in the process. You would be surprised to see how little faith people often have in themselves or their performance. He discusses his controversial decision to retire at only 31 - an age where most goalies are only just hitting their prime.

Still feeling good and on the top of his game, Dryden decides to go out before everything falls apart. This seems to be a sticking point for many people when discussing his legacy.

Look at all he accomplished in just eight seasons! What left is there to prove? Dryden is far from egotistical. He speaks honestly about losing his drive to continue on as well as his fear of being traded. There are two post scripts - one written in for the 20th anniversary and one written in for the 30th.

Neither really offer up that much and feel tacked on to sell copies. Blair One of the best hockey books out there. Feb 12, Sarah rated it liked it Shelves: canadian-content , read-in , non-fiction. Published in '83, this book assumes that I will have been part of the 70s, part of the 2 channel television world, part of the hockey world.

That is a fine assumption at the time. However, as I picked this up as a book that nearly won Canada Reads, that's not good enough. That assumption lay thickly between me and the words of the book. So many passages are just words - names, descriptions, references I don't get. I wanted to like this book. I wanted to learn to like hockey better. I liked Ken D Published in '83, this book assumes that I will have been part of the 70s, part of the 2 channel television world, part of the hockey world.

I liked Ken Dryden better, instead. When he was talking about hockey, I was lost for the most part. It just drifted past me. When he talked about The Game, ie, about teams and sports and being an athlete and fans and owners and aging and life, then I was with him. Anger and frustration can be released within the rules, by skating faster, by shooting harder, by doing relentless, dogged violence on an opponent's mind, as Bjorn Borg, Pete Rose, and Bob Gainey do.

If Freud was right and anger released is anger spent, then a right hook given is a body-check missed, and by permitting fighting, the NHL discourages determined, inspired play as retaliation.

View 2 comments. Jun 14, Sean Fowle rated it really liked it. Dryden's writing is not without its cynicism, but for the most part what he writes comes across as genuine and that cynicism is just a part of how Dryden viewed the game and much of what surrounded it. When Dryden is writing about his teammates and other players it is raw, often harsh, and wonderful. Their character and charisma leap off the page and you get a great sense of what this team was in the 70s and what the game meant to them.

However, it isn't quite the same with Dryden regarding h Dryden's writing is not without its cynicism, but for the most part what he writes comes across as genuine and that cynicism is just a part of how Dryden viewed the game and much of what surrounded it.

However, it isn't quite the same with Dryden regarding himself. Maybe he's holding back, maybe it's deliberate, or maybe he just isn't as interested in himself as he is in others.