It's Our Game

by Michael McKinley

If every hockey player’s dream begins on a frozen pond, it reaches its pinnacle in a packed arena facing off against a bitter international rival. Could be the mighty Soviets. Could be the vainglorious Americans. Doesn’t matter, as long as the guys, and more recently, the women, who come from the farming villages, logging towns, and bustling cities of Canada show up to play the game the way we invented it to be played. That’s the way it’s been for a hundred years.

No game matters more than the one that pits our best against the world’s best. From the earliest days of the past century, when milkmen still did their rounds in horse-drawn carts each morning, to the Sochi Olympics, where both the men and women stood on their blue lines with gold medals around their necks as the Canadian flag was raised.

This beautiful book, with rare archival images, celebrates a hundred of the greatest moments from Hockey Canada, the organization that has given Canada its most cherished hockey memories. It’s Our Game is the definitive account of a century of Canadians working to be the best at the sport they love most.

Genres: Sports

256 pages, Hardcover

First published October 28, 2014

About the author

Michael McKinley is an author, filmmaker, journalist, and screenwriter. A Vancouver native, he was educated at the University of British Columbia, and then at the University of Oxford. As a journalist, he has written for publications on both sides of the Atlantic, and has won national newswriting awards. He has produced several television shows for CNN, History, and the CBC, and is the author of several books, among them Codebreakers: The Secret Intelligence Unit that Changed the Course of the First World War (with James Wyllie) and Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery, the companion book to the CNN TV series he created with David Gibson. He lives in New York City.
https://www.amazon.com/Michael-McKinl...

Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Penny McGill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book needs it's own shelf, I think, in the goodreads world. This is the kind of book that you buy (bring home from the library) and leave on the kitchen table and everyone in your house picks it up and then reads a bit, talking about their favourite parts and then it sits on the coffee table for a few more days and the same thing happens all over again. This is the beauty of a good non-fiction title - it has something for everyone and it has that gorgeous photography style that just drags you in. Time passes as you flip through the pages and you realize that same book has grabbed you again as you walked past it.

Now this subject matter grabs everyone in our house, right away, but I think the same can be said of many beautiful 'coffee table' books. They are a pleasure to have in your house because they can allow you to drop by on your own schedule and be entertained and then wait there patiently until you return. Something like this has the depth of many years behind it so there is even that great chance to compare eras as you discuss the history of hockey and the great moments for spectators, players and the executives who make money from the game. There is a lot in this book and, although it's going back today (drat that holds list) it will come back to our house again and spend some time on the different tables and be a part of our family conversation again.