I loved They Don’t Play Hockey in Heaven!  Will you, or the goalie in your life, love it?  I don’t know, but for me it resonated on a number of levels.

Ken Baker is a Canadian who went to a US college to play hockey.  For various reasons he lost interest and stopped playing by the end of college.  Years later, while living in California as a writer, he got the itch to play again so he had his mom box up his goalie gear and ship it out to him.  He started driving to downtown Oakland to play in a men’s league comprised of former college players and Canadian expats who had settled in the Bay Area.

This basic synopsis is why I loved it so much, as I more or less did the EXACT same thing, even playing in the same men’s league in Oakland.  BTW, I’m sure there were good economical reasons the Seals didn’t succeed in Oakland but after parking across from Oakland ICE late at night I can suggest a few other reasons NHL hockey in Oakland is not a good idea.

But the basic premise of Baker’s story is where the similarities to my own story end.  Baker not only gets the bug to play but it turns out he could still play really well.  Well enough in fact he took his comeback further than even he had expected and ended up trying out for a professional team.

If you read the user comments on Amazon you’ll see a couple negative reviewers who clearly have no idea what it means to have a second lease on life after brain surgery and then to rediscover your passion for a sport.  Does Baker go over the top in describing his experience in Bakersfield?  Yes, a bit.  But if my playing days at Oakland ICE had resulted in resurrecting my long-forgotten dream of being a pro goalie I’d be writing about it like it was game seven of the Stanley Cup Finals every night!  If you’re looking for a year-in-the-life account of minor league hockey or an inspirational pursuit of a childhood dream They Don’t Play Hockey in Heaven will give you both!

The Hockey Sweater (Le Chandail in its original French) is not a goalie book but is still a classic for any and all kids who love hockey.  I remember reading it in my 7th grade French class and now cherish the opportunity to read it to my son.

Set in post World War II in the small Quebec town of Saint Justine, The Hockey Sweater is the story of a young child’s passion for hockey, the Montreal Canadiens and Rocket Richard.  Even if your young hockey player doesn’t cheer for the Habs or the Leafs (the hated enemy in this story) he or she will no doubt identify with the loyalty shown for a favorite team and idolized player.

Is this story becoming out of reach for a generation of kids who have grown up watching their parents order anything and everything online?  Maybe, but I hope not.  In the same way that “Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus” is a story we hold onto and recount at the right time to the next generation, The Hockey Sweater should live on as a right of passage for all young hockey players and their parents.

Certainly watch the National Film Board produced short film (embedded below) but I strongly recommend reading The Hockey Sweater with your child and transporting them to a world that may no longer exist.  Plus the ending is brilliant!

The Goalie Mask, written by Mike Leonetti and beautifully illustrated by Shayne Letain, is a great way to introduce young goalies to the legend of Jacques Plante and the story of how he first wore a goalie mask (hence the title!).  It might also help encourage your kid to be a goalie if you’re a tender and want your son or daughter to follow in your footsteps.

The Goalie Mask is the story of a young goalie, and Montreal Canadiens fan, who has earned the displeasure of his coach because of his inability to play the puck outside the crease.  The young lad’s father tells him to have his grandpa help him since he was a goalie as well.  In the course of giving his grandson some pointers he shares the story of how he was at Madison Square Garden the night Plante was hit in the face and returned to the ice with his mask.

For me there were two things I loved about The Goalie Mask:  1) the great illustrations showing the story of Plante donning a mask.  Especially now that we’ve celebrated the 50th anniversary of this historic event it’s a great way for young goalies to discover the history of their position.  2) the young goalie wears a standard helmet and cage, not a $500 fiberglass mask.  Hockey is an expensive sport; being a goalie makes it even more so.  A $60 helmet and cage is good enough for a young goalie… and leaves enough money left over to buy a good pair of used pads.

You’ll enjoy reading The Goalie Mask with your young goalie.  It’s a bit wordy for a really young child but if that’s your situation just do what I’m doing right now, ad lib the story to fit the illustrations!

I hadn’t been this excited for a goalie book since the release of Ken Dryden’s The Game over twenty years ago, and it didn’t disappoint!  Any goalie knows the basic storyline around Jacques Plante’s invention of necessity but Saving Face: The Art and History of the Goalie Mask talks to the men who turned the goalie mask into a science and an art.  The photos are superb!

Think of Saved as a fictional, fantasy version of Ken Dryden’s The Game.  It’s a little predictable but it’s goalie literatue!

Jack Falla was one of the best at telling a hockey story.  And he just happened to be a goalie himself so the central character in Saved,  is a Boston Bruins goalie.  Even though the real names of actual Bruins players aren’t used (that would be libel) it’s pretty easy to recognize characters based on Cam Neely, Bobby Orr and even Cammi Granato.

The Game is quite simply the best hockey book ever written.  Not so much about goalies as it is a goalie’s perspective on playing for what was, at the time, the best team in the world.  Ken Dryden’s account of life on the road and playing in the spotlight with such hockey greats as Guy Lafleur and Larry Robinson is a rare and insightful look into the lives of professional athletes.  The Canadiens of the 1970′s kept their core of great players in tact, something very difficult to do in today’s NHL, but it’s still a relevant accounting of life in the NHL.

Dryden is very honest in his descriptions of his teammates’ personalities as well as his own playing ability.  The Game reads something like a stream of consciousness thereby producing moments that cause the reader to take pause at an observation or laugh out loud at a lockeroom prank.

Dryden won 6 Stanley Cups in a career that only spanned a single decade; he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame (where his statue guards over the tribute to the Habs’ 100th anniversary); he served as the president of the Toronto Maple Leafs; he’s an elected Member of Parliament in Canada’s federal government.  Yet it will be this book, The Game, that touches the most people and serves as his lasting legacy.