Phil Esposito’s got stories – he’s got a million of ’em. You don’t play 18 years in the National Hockey League, score 717 goals, win two Stanley Cups, play in the 1972 Summit Series between Canada and the Soviets, and get inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame without acquiring some stories. With Thunder and Lightning, Esposito and co-author Peter Golenbock demonstrate that just because you’ve got a bunch of great stories doesn’t mean you’re a great storyteller.

The book is billed as “one of the wildest autobiographies ever written” that at times is “more than a little ribald.” It is lewdly humorous at times, but the material gets tired. Esposito was a hell of a hockey player and, after his playing career, led the charge to bring the NHL to Florida in the early 1990s in the form of the Tampa Bay Lightning. But at heart he’s just a lovable lug from Sault Ste. Marie who loves to play hockey and down a few brews with the boys.

Nothing wrong with that, but as far as adding to the overall knowledge of the game and its personalities, Thunder and Lightning falls short. There might be no B.S. here, but there’s also precious little reflection. Reflection, wit, an ability to see the game’s relative importance in the world, and a touch of scandal are what made pitcher Jim Bouton’s 1970 book Ball Four such a great read and the yardstick by which all “tell-all” books by athletes or former athletes are measured.

Esposito doesn’t tell us much about, say, Bobby Orr that we don’t already know. Same goes for the ’72 series between Canada and the U.S.S.R., though, to be fair to Esposito, that September series has been analyzed, serialized, memorialized, and documented to death. Canadians, many of whom weren’t alive when the series took place, already know the back story.

The most interesting parts of the book are Esposito’s attempts, as general manager of the New York Rangers in the late 1980s, to trade for stars Mark Messier and Wayne Gretzky long before they actually played for the Broadway Blueshirts. The intrigue, politicking, and dealmaking that surrounded Esposito and the eventual birth of the Lightning are compelling reading.