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Hockey Now!

by Mike Leonetti,Dan Hamilton, photog.

Hockey Now! follows a couple of time-honoured formulas for hockey books for young readers – it uses lots of full-colour pictures and short bios, and organizes the bios according to player position and role on the ice. Leonetti’s brief descriptions amount to a retelling of well-known facts about each player. Hamilton’s photos are technically excellent, and he has a nice habit of capturing players’ facial expressions that go well with their narratives. But this is pretty standard stuff.

The book’s saving grace is that it’s rooted in the history of hockey. Many of the player profiles include small inset photos of players from the past, with captions that link them historically to the player being profiled. For example, the double-page spread on Mats Sundin, a Swede and the current Toronto Maple Leafs’ captain, includes an inset photo from about 20 years ago of Borje Salming, and a caption explaining that Salming was a Swedish star for the Leafs who was once offered the team’s captaincy but turned it down – although he later advised Sundin to take it.

This look-back approach ultimately adds to the book’s value and is the one feature that will make parents and older fans smile. An excellent tool for imparting some history of the game to younger readers, the book shows young readers the historical precedents to much of the action they are seeing today.

 

Reviewer: Paul Challen

Publisher: Firefly Books

DETAILS

Price: $19.95

Page Count: 168 pp

Format: Paper

ISBN: 1-55209-397-2

Released: Nov.

Issue Date: 2000-1

Categories:

Age Range: ages 10+