Sports Literature

I love sports books. I find that the best books are written about baseball. However, I have just finished a great book about hockey, Dave Bidini's The Best Game You Can Name. It reads as two books combined into one. The first is a rendition of life with his rec league hockey team, The Morningstars, composed mostly of Toronto area musicians. The more compelling second part of the book consists of stories of NHL players past. One entry is particularly poignant. It was written by poet Richard Harrison and it relates a story of Maurice "Rocket" Richard near the end of the Rocket's life:

"Because I'd written Hero Of The Play, I was asked to write four poems in honour of the game's fantastic four: Howe, Hull, Beliveau, and Richard. Nelson Saunders of the Calgary Booster Club told me the club was going to bring them to Calgary as guests for the Sportsman of the Year Banquet, an annual awards night where the club recognizes the lifetime achievement of one of its own. The banquet, with its star attractions, is a fundraiser for athletic programs all over the city. After the reception, I took my seat at a table of eight in the dining room. The ceremonies would begin after dinner. Two of the people at my table were a father and son who both idolized the Rocket. The son had a photograph of his go-cart, which had been painted bleu, blanc, et rouge with a big number 9 on it. He wanted to get Richard to sign the picture after the celebrations were done. But Richard was very ill, from the cancer and the flight and the medicines. In the brief chat I'd had with him, he'd said his legs were gone from the treatments he'd been receiving. He was tired, and he couldn't stay for the whole event. Before the speeches and the auctioning of his sweater began, he had to return to his room to rest. It was the last time I and almost every one of the eight hundred in the room ever saw him. As he rose from his chair, we rose from our seats. Before he began to make his way to the other end of the huge, dimly lit dining room, he motioned to our table, for the boy to come to him. When the child came back, he was clutching a hockey card and the photo of his go-cart, both signed. Then Richard made his way across the hall, pausing every so often to steady himself on his weakened legs and to acknowledge all of us who were applauding. Then the big doors opened and the light from the hotel shone in the entrance so that when he turned to wave to us one last time, he was a silhouette framed in gold. Then he was gone."