Andrew K. (kuligowskiandrewt) -
Jamie McLennan spent his year playing backup goaltender for a number of NHL teams. During that process, he heard and lived a number of stories, most of which would never be known outside of that small circle of people who are members of the National Hockey League Players Association and their close friends. Until now.
In "The Best Seat in the House: Stories from the NHL Inside the Room, on the Ice ... and on the Bench", Jamie McLennan looks back on an enjoyable, if not Hall-of-Fame worthy, life in professional hockey. He looks back on colleagues and opponents some, like Jerome Iginla and Roberto Luongo (who wrote forewards for this book) are household names and potential Hall-of-Famers after they retire. Others, Rhett Warriner and Glenn Healy, may or may not be remembered by the average hockey fan. Still others, such as Peter Berthelson, may only be known to die-hard hockey historians and their immediate families. ALL of them, however, participated in the actions and antics of the pre-cell phone camera / pre-Twitter world that was the hockey career of Jamie McLennan.
Perhaps the only disappointment of this book was that McLennan also decided to use it as a vehicle to tell his own life story in what is often an incredibly sketchy and vague manner. For example, McLennan describes his rather nerve-wracking introduction to his team in Russia's Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). The last paragraph of that section states "At that point, I realized maybe I wasn't cut out for Russia ... I would like to say that's the only reason I lasted just six weeks in Russia, but there wree many factors in my departing quickly, including that they didn't love me either. ..." That's it 1 paragraph, 4 sentences in total, describe his entire playing career with the KHL. Darn it, Jamie there's a frickin' story there, and you couldn't take a page and tell it to us!! I think this book would have benefited by another 25 to 50 pages of additional biographical information to flesh out the author's story.
Still, it was a unique read I really appreciate hockey books that don't simply repeat the same things that a reader was able to learn from reading a couple of articles in the Hockey News at the time they originally happened.
RATING: 4 stars
In "The Best Seat in the House: Stories from the NHL Inside the Room, on the Ice ... and on the Bench", Jamie McLennan looks back on an enjoyable, if not Hall-of-Fame worthy, life in professional hockey. He looks back on colleagues and opponents some, like Jerome Iginla and Roberto Luongo (who wrote forewards for this book) are household names and potential Hall-of-Famers after they retire. Others, Rhett Warriner and Glenn Healy, may or may not be remembered by the average hockey fan. Still others, such as Peter Berthelson, may only be known to die-hard hockey historians and their immediate families. ALL of them, however, participated in the actions and antics of the pre-cell phone camera / pre-Twitter world that was the hockey career of Jamie McLennan.
Perhaps the only disappointment of this book was that McLennan also decided to use it as a vehicle to tell his own life story in what is often an incredibly sketchy and vague manner. For example, McLennan describes his rather nerve-wracking introduction to his team in Russia's Kontinental Hockey League (KHL). The last paragraph of that section states "At that point, I realized maybe I wasn't cut out for Russia ... I would like to say that's the only reason I lasted just six weeks in Russia, but there wree many factors in my departing quickly, including that they didn't love me either. ..." That's it 1 paragraph, 4 sentences in total, describe his entire playing career with the KHL. Darn it, Jamie there's a frickin' story there, and you couldn't take a page and tell it to us!! I think this book would have benefited by another 25 to 50 pages of additional biographical information to flesh out the author's story.
Still, it was a unique read I really appreciate hockey books that don't simply repeat the same things that a reader was able to learn from reading a couple of articles in the Hockey News at the time they originally happened.
RATING: 4 stars
