Hockey night in the Dominion of Canada: A novel

by Eric Zweig

339 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

By the age of ten Eric Zweig was already a budding sports fanatic who was filling his school news books with game reports instead of current events. Eric’s first book, Hockey Night in the Dominion of Canada (1992), was an historical novel set in the early days of professional hockey. He has been working with Dan Diamond and Associates, consulting publisher to the National Hockey League, since 1996. As a freelance writer, Eric is the author or co-author of many non-fiction sports books for adults and children. He is a member of the Society for International Hockey Research and the Society for American Baseball Research. A former member of the Toronto Blue Jays grounds crew, he still has a champagne bottle from the club’s first American League East Division title celebration in 1985.

Reviews

[Michel Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like hockey, history and books by Erik Larson, this is your book. Great tie between hockey and the attempted assassination of the Prime Minister of Canada.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sadly this gem of a book had only one review when I posted my own. Fact-based novel featuring some of the greatest hockey legends from 110 years ago: Frank and Lester Patrick, sires of the first family of hockey; Newsy Lalonde, Art Ross, Bad Joe Hall and the immortal Cyclone Taylor. The era of no forward passing and an extra man called the "rover" on the ice. Sadly again, we don't seem to honour these names as the Americans do with baseball legends of the same era like Cobb and Wagner.

At this time (circa 1910) the Renfrew Millionaires were the greatest hockey team every assembled, riding the silver boom that saw pro hockey teams even in faraway Haileybury and Cobalt in Northern Ontario. But small town Renfrew, west of Ottawa became centre of the hockey universe for a short while. This is a story of their Stanley Cup quest, along with a subtext of the strained politics of the time and a Winnipeg anarchist determined to change history. The role of the Boer War and tensions between French and English are related in the early chapters.

Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, opposition leader and future PM Robert Borden, Governor-General Lord Grey, Renfrew hockey fan and future Ottawa mayor Charlotte Whitton add historical substance to this entertaining novel.

So hockey fans, did Cyclone Taylor really score a goal skating backwards?