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Champions: The making of the Edmonton Oilers
The incredible story of the Edmonton Oilers and their Stanley Cup victory (and successive victories!) just 6 years after being incorporated into the NHL.
356 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1988
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 17, 2021
Yikes. It's a good thing I grew up in Edmonton in the 80s, attending a ton of Oilers games and all the Stanley Cup Parades. If not for a vested interest in the content, this book would have been intolerable.
The writing. Is. Horrific. Countless typos and egregious spelling errors. Glaring punctuation errors (the period goes *outside* the parentheses). Consistent verb-adverb order mistakes ("always are," "never were," "always is..." NO. The verb comes before the adverb, not after). An endless series of grammatical errors. On every page I found myself wondering - was there no editor assigned to this project? Zero quality control preceding publication? In short, I feel like Kevin Lowe should have stuck to hockey.
In addition, the description of the outright racism shown to Grant Fuhr upon his arrival on the team was absolutely painful to read, particularly since Lowe seemed to feel it was all a big funny joke, "all in good fun," and assumed that Fuhr was fine with it. Just because he didn't speak up doesn't mean he was fine with it. These descriptions were particularly gross as read through a 2021 lens. Yes, it was 1988, and yes, there were hardly any Black players in the NHL at that time, but absolutely nothing would excuse the way the other players treated Fuhr - the name calling, the assumptions, the outright racism. Having idolized this team as a kid, it was really sad for me to lose respect for the players in just a few pages.
As I said, because I grew up with the Oilers, my hometown team, I did find some of the content and behind the scenes stories interesting. Unless that applies to you too, I cannot recommend this book.
The writing. Is. Horrific. Countless typos and egregious spelling errors. Glaring punctuation errors (the period goes *outside* the parentheses). Consistent verb-adverb order mistakes ("always are," "never were," "always is..." NO. The verb comes before the adverb, not after). An endless series of grammatical errors. On every page I found myself wondering - was there no editor assigned to this project? Zero quality control preceding publication? In short, I feel like Kevin Lowe should have stuck to hockey.
In addition, the description of the outright racism shown to Grant Fuhr upon his arrival on the team was absolutely painful to read, particularly since Lowe seemed to feel it was all a big funny joke, "all in good fun," and assumed that Fuhr was fine with it. Just because he didn't speak up doesn't mean he was fine with it. These descriptions were particularly gross as read through a 2021 lens. Yes, it was 1988, and yes, there were hardly any Black players in the NHL at that time, but absolutely nothing would excuse the way the other players treated Fuhr - the name calling, the assumptions, the outright racism. Having idolized this team as a kid, it was really sad for me to lose respect for the players in just a few pages.
As I said, because I grew up with the Oilers, my hometown team, I did find some of the content and behind the scenes stories interesting. Unless that applies to you too, I cannot recommend this book.
September 7, 2026
Good book. Best one on oilers so far.
January 26, 2014
The first 4 chapters of this book were fun for me to read because it dealt with a subject matter (1880-1920 professional hockey leagues) which I previously did not know much about. The middle of this book intrigued me because it dealt with the formation and the duration of the WHA. I realized after reading this how much the WHA changed the way that the NHL ran their league business-wise and in terms of how they dealt contractually with their players. Finally the last half of this book dealt with the 1980s Edmonton Oilers which was an enjoyable nostalgic walk down memory lane for me.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews