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Having covered the last two Olympics and every World Championship since 2000, Lucas Aykroyd is one of the world's leading ice hockey experts.
Here the Canadian journalist picks five books every hockey fan must have. Click to view Top 5 Hockey Books.
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Best for Kids (The Hockey Sweater, Roch Carrier) |
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 For children, the only thing worse than receiving a present you really didn't want is getting one that makes you a joke to the other kids. Award-winning Canadian author Roch Carrier's most famous children's short story fictionalizes this predicament perfectly.
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Originally published in French in 1979 and told in the first person from the perspective of a small-town Quebec boy, the story takes place in the winter of 1946. For our hero and his peers, playing ice hockey on frozen outdoor rinks is as fulfilling as life gets: "We lived in three places — the school, the church, and the skating-rink—but our real life was on the skating-rink."
The Hockey Sweater conjures up an era in which Maurice "Rocket" Richard, the top goal-scorer of the Montreal Canadiens, is worshipped not just for his hockey exploits but also as a French-Canadian cultural icon: "We all wore the same uniform as Maurice Richard, the red, white and blue uniform of the Montreal Canadiens, the best hockey team in the world."
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The Delights of Disappointment |
 So when the boy's No. 9 Maurice Richard sweater wears out and his mother sends off for a new one through the Eaton's mail order catalogue, it's easy to imagine his shock and disappointment when the order arrives and turns out to be a blue-and-white Toronto Maple Leafs sweater by mistake. (At this time in Canada, there were only two NHL hockey teams, the Canadiens and Leafs. For a Montreal fan, donning a Toronto sweater would be as heretical as a Manchester United supporter putting on a Manchester City jersey or a Boston Red Sox fan wearing the pinstripes of the New York Yankees.)
Couldn't they just return it in exchange for the correct item? With the rebuttal of our young hero's mother, Carrier amusingly illustrates the mindset of Francophone Quebeckers about the socially and economically dominant Anglophone Canadian majority: "If you don't keep this sweater which fits you perfectly I'll have to write to Monsieur Eaton and explain that you don't want to wear the Toronto sweater. Monsieur Eaton understands French perfectly, but he's English and he's going to be insulted because he likes the Maple Leafs. If he's insulted, do you think he'll be in a hurry to answer us?"
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Suits You, Sir |
 Rather than taking the risk of not being able to suit up for hockey, the protagonist reluctantly keeps his Toronto sweater and ventures out to face the derision of his peers. The denouement hilariously mingles traditional French Catholic piety with the overriding zest for hockey among Quebeckers.
You'll need to buy The Hockey Sweater for your favourite book-loving child to find out just how it ends. The National Film Board of Canada also made the story into an acclaimed 10-minute cartoon, and the first quotation used in this review appears on the back of the Canadian five-dollar bill.
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To buy this product try one of these retailers. They are competitively priced and reliable:
Amazon.co.uk - The UK arm of the world’s biggest book store
Amazon.com - The US arm of the world’s biggest book store
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