Coffey, Wayne (2005) The
Boys of Winter New York: Three Rivers Press.
Opening lines: “Year before
I ever heard of Lake Placid or the Olympics, before I knew the mname of a
single Russian Hockey Player, I was a kid in Massachusetts who wanted to be the
next Bobby Orr. I grew up skating on Holmes
Pond, which took its name from our next door neighbor, Mrs. Holmes, who owned
it.”
Among the holes in my reading knowledge, sports-related gaps are
some of the biggest, and the hockey-related knowledge hole yawns open like a
deep canyon, so when my amazing former student Evan recommended this book about
the 1980 US Olympic team, I was glad to read it. I was not surprised to find the story
fascinating.
The author, Wayne Coffey, has a remarkably readable style as he tells the story of the American Team’s Journey to the final game and describes the game itself that changed the way the world thought about American hockey teams. But Coffey does more than this. Within each chapter he also digresses repeatedly to tell the life stories of each play on the American side and most of the players on the Russian team. In fact, he not only relates how the players got to skate on the ice while the world watched, he also describes what has happened to them since. The hockey descriptions are excellent and Coffey does a really nice job of describing strategy (which would be really useful for Phys Ed classes), but honestly, the most enjoyable part of the book for me was seeing the amazing variety in temperaments, backgrounds, training styles, and approaches to life that the different players had.
The author, Wayne Coffey, has a remarkably readable style as he tells the story of the American Team’s Journey to the final game and describes the game itself that changed the way the world thought about American hockey teams. But Coffey does more than this. Within each chapter he also digresses repeatedly to tell the life stories of each play on the American side and most of the players on the Russian team. In fact, he not only relates how the players got to skate on the ice while the world watched, he also describes what has happened to them since. The hockey descriptions are excellent and Coffey does a really nice job of describing strategy (which would be really useful for Phys Ed classes), but honestly, the most enjoyable part of the book for me was seeing the amazing variety in temperaments, backgrounds, training styles, and approaches to life that the different players had.
This book is probably best from high school readers. There are some descriptions of drinking and messing around, but nothing that would be likely to cause the book to be challenged. It would be a great addition to an English classroom’s library, but I think it could be even more valuable for use in a PE class, or for a PE teacher to keep on hand for interested students.
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