The Best Game You Can Name

by Dave Bidini

Bidini returns to the game he loves best

In 2004, Dave Bidini laced on his skates and slid onto the ice of Toronto’s McCormick Arena to play defence with the Morningstars in the E! Cup tourney. While thrashing around the ice, swiping at the puck and his opponents, Bidini got to thinking about how others see the game. Afterward, he set off to talk to former professional players about their experiences of hockey. The result is vintage Bidini — an exuberant, evocative, highly personal, and vividly coloured account of his and his team’s exploits, interwoven with the voices of such hockey heroes as Frank Mahovlich, Yvan Cournoyer, John Brophy, Steve Larmer, and Ryan Walter.

All aspects of the game are up for grabs in The Best Game You Can Name — the sweetest goals, the worst fights, the trades, the off-ice perks and the on-ice rivalries, not to mention the rotten pranks. Bidini and the former players offer sometimes startling observations about the fans, coaches, owners, other players, and the huge rush of being on the ice, stick in hand, giving everything you have to the best game you can name.

Genres: Hockey, Sports, Nonfiction, Canada

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

DAVE BIDINI is the author of nine books. His play, "The Five Hole Stories," was performed by One Yellow Rabbit and toured Canada in winter, 2009, and his two "hockumentaries," The Hockey Nomad and The Hockey Nomad Goes To Russia were Gemini-nominated films, and The Hockey Nomad won for Best Documentary.

Bidini is the recipient of numerous National Magazine Awards, and is a weekly columnist in The National Post. In 1994, his former band, Rheostatics, won a Genie Award for the song 'Claire' (from the film Whale Music), and two of their albums were included in the Top 20 Canadian Albums of All Time. His first hockey book, Tropic of Hockey, was named one of the Top 100 Canadian Books of All Time by McCllland and Stewart, and his baseball odyssey, Baseballissimo, is currently being made into a feature film.

He is a board member of Street Soccer Canada, and has attended two Homeless World Cups, traveling with Team Canada to Melbourne and Milan.

David Bidini lives in Toronto with his wife, guitarist Janet Morassutti, and their two children.

Reviews

[Chuck Slack · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Dave Bidini's approach of telling the stories and showing the joy of recreation hockey interspersed with the stories of professional payers captures the love of the game. An entertaining read.

[Bradley Proctor · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fabulous read for hockey and music fans. The narrative recounting the Morningstars’ run for the Exclaim Cup is interrupted with tales from NHL legends, interviewed by Dave Bidini from the Rheostatics.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well that was quick!

Terrific read! This is almost exactly the book I was hoping "Hockey Night Fever: Mullets, Mayhem and the Game's Coming of Age in the 1970s" would be. Great old stories from former players, coaches, fans, etc. And not the normal old stories that EVERYONE has heard before.

Had it just been that it would have been fine, but likely would have gotten tedious after awhile. I've read books like that before. But, here, Bidini relates his own rec. hockey team's story during their annual "E! Cup" and intersperses it throughout the book between all the old pro's reminiscing. He's done it brilliantly. He makes his own story just as interesting and intriguing as all the others in the book and gives you a break from the constant bombardment of anecdotes at just the right times.

Really enjoyable! Thanks for the book Brett!

[Brendan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could do without some parts of it, but somewhat entertaining

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dave Bidini is just a bard in terms of how he writes about Canada's beautiful favourite sport. Reading him makes me want to lace up my skates and hit the ice so badly.

This book is really just an excuse for nostalgia and story-telling, loosely bound around his experience of playing in a hockey tournament of professional musicians and music-industry folks from around Canada (an eclectic group indeed!)

Bidini weaves poetry the way Lemieux weaves through defenders, that is to say, often intentionally obtusely, and yet it is all the more captivating because of it.

I love Bidini's writing because it simultaneously increases my love of both hockey and literature.

[Joe Seliske · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic Bidini. His descriptions of events in the first person in language that is "normal" makes the book a page turner. The combination of the exploits of the Morningstars in the Exclaim! Cup Hockey championships with comments from "vintage" hockey stars talking about the way the game was is the perfect way to keep things flowing. When I am in the middle of a Bidini book I sometimes mention it to friends and colleagues. Usually, no-one has ever heard of him or the Rheostatics. Too bad for them.

[Steven Green · Rating 5 out of 5]

Started this book this past Fall just before a job change and a 425 km move to the Ottawa Valley. Picked it up for a few chapters and then back to the business at hand more than once. Finished it off this week with a twinge of sadness that it was over. Another great hockey offering from Dave Bidini, I’d read the telephone book if he wrote it!

[joel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a relatively new student to hockey, this has a ton of old timers I'm not very familiar with. That aside, anyone who knows hockey and canadanian indie rock will enjoy.

[Debi Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book if you are a hockey fan - many funny parts.

[Marc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hockey-schlock is still hockey-schlock, even from an emerging sports writer who can name drop Canadian celebrities due to his notable musical legacy