Articles, Hockey

Last-Minute Gifts for the Family Hockey Fan (Lockout Edition) – Part 1

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Each and every year, people clamour about various malls and websites, frantically trying to find those perfect gifts for loved ones. If those family members, friends and lovers are hockey fans, things are pretty easy, really: depending on your budget, you could get them game tickets to see their favourite NHL team in person. Or you could lay out some green for a variety of logoed merch, from key chains to car seats, from team socks to customized skates. You’ve got the choice between jerseys, herseys, shirseys and underpants. The sky really is the limit.

This year, of course, the game is different. Or, rather, the game… isn’t. Such is the general disdain for the NHL/NHLPA shitshow that many tried and true hockey fans are boycotting any and all NHL products, even at deeply discounted prices. One of my friends recently found out his fiancée bought him a pro quality vintage Vancouver Canucks jersey — something he’d been salivating over for a couple of years now — and insisted she return it from whence it came. He said he’d rather get nothing under the tree than know a couple hundred bucks had flowed into NHL franchise coffers.

So what do you do? After the jump, check out the first Last-Minute Gift Idea for the Family Hockey Fan, courtesy of Pucked in the Head.

Pucked in the Head is taking part in the 2013 Ride to Conquer Cancer. You can help us reach our fundraising goal by throwing a few bucks at our campaign, at http://www.conquercancer.ca/goto/jasonkurylo2013.

1. The Game, by Ken Dryden

Ken Dryden's The Game consistently shows up on Best Sports Books lists, even 29 years after its publication. Every hockey fan should read his takes on the Red Army, the 1970s Habs, and the special treatment afforded athletes in western society.
Ken Dryden’s The Game consistently shows up on Best Sports Books lists, even 29 years after its publication. Every hockey fan should read his takes on the Red Army, the 1970s Habs, and the special treatment afforded athletes in western society.

More than a few people have called this the single best sports book ever written. Not that I’ve read all the competition, but count me among ’em. Dryden, of course, was the Stanley Cup-winning, Conn Smythe-winning, Calder Trophy-winning, Vezina Trophy-winning, law degree-getting goaltender behind the Montreal Canadiens dynasty in the 1970s.

He published this thoughtful volume in 1983, but 29 years later, The Game still informs, provokes and entertains. It frankly looks at the sparkling personalities (and less impressive characteristics) of the powerhouse Habs, dissects the 1972 Summit Series from both sides of the Canada-Russia divide, and makes sweeping predictions about the future of the game — many of which have since come to pass.

Since leaving the ice, Dryden has been involved in publishing, education, business, law, sports management and, eventually, politics. He has written six books: three about hockey (Face-Off at the Summit, The Game, and Home Game: Hockey and Life in Canada), and three others spanning education (In School: Our Kids, Our Teachers, Our Classrooms), national identity (Becoming Canada) and a character study (The Moved and the Shaken).

Look for more Last-Minute Gifts for the Family Hockey Fan over the next few days.
Part two, for example, is here: Dave Bidini’s Tropic of Hockey.
Naturally, part three would come next: tickets to other teams in other leagues.
Part 4 – Animated bliss: Roch Carrier’s The Sweater, is here.