Boss: The Mike Bossy Story

Rating:
Summary: Great insight to a great player!
Review: For someone who didn't speak much to the press, it was extremely interesting to get inside Mike Bossy. It was great to relive all his outstanding accomplishments. A must read for hockey fans.

Rating:
Summary: The Mike Bossy Story
Review: I read this book years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think that with time he has begun to fade into obscurity, but when I was growing up he was truly one of the great players--and as far as I'm concerned, always will be.

Rating:
Summary: The Mike Bossy Story
Review: I read this book years ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think that with time he has begun to fade into obscurity, but when I was growing up he was truly one of the great players--and as far as I'm concerned, always will be.

Rating:
Summary: Great insight to a great player!
Review: In his autobiography, Boss - The Mike Bossy Story, which was published in late 1988, Mike Bossy takes readers through his life and NHL career. The book is logically organized, easy to read and full of insights. He discusses his pre-NHL playing days, his NHL career, his memorable years with the New York Islanders, and his career-ending injury.

Chapter 1 talks about the genesis of Bossy's career-ending back injury, which occurred during a 1987 practice session. He also offers ideas for improving hockey.

Chapters 2 and 3 talk about his childhood in Montreal and his teenage years. He mentions how he met his future wife.

Chapter 4 details life in junior hockey. The title of this chapter, Survival, summarizes what Bossy went through to get to the NHL.

Chapter 5 talks more about his junior career and about how the Islanders drafted Bossy. It is still hard to believe that Bossy, despite all the goals he scored in junior hockey, was only the 15th pick in the first round of the 1977 draft, and that two teams passed drafting Bossy twice. There is a humerous passage in this chapter about the negotiations with the New York Islanders over Bossy's first contract.

Chapter 6 briefly touched on Bossy's disasterous 1977 honeymoon in the Caribbean, before discussing Bossy's first year in the NHL. He scored 53 goals, setting a record for rookies (which would stand for 15 years), and easily won the 1978 Rookie of the Year award.

Chapter 7 is the funniest section of the book. Bossy details his great relationship with teammate Bryan Trottier and some of the more memorable laughs he and the team had during his playing days.

Chapter 8 details how the 1978-1979 Islanders suffered a crushing defeat in the third round of the playoffs at the hands of their arch-rival New York Rangers, even though the Islanders finished first overall during the regular season. Many Islanders in the early and mid-1980s would say that their demoralizing defeat in 1979 (when they were expected to win the Stanley Cup) would make them fear losing.

Chapter 9 talks about the 1979-80 season. For a change, the team did not do well in the regular season, finishing sixth overall. But the Islanders tuned themselves up late in the season (via a trade that brought Butch Goring) and stuck together in the playoffs (against three favored teams, Boston, Buffalo and Philadelphia). In the playoffs, the Islanders dominated overtime, winning six games and losing only one. Bossy describes the uninhibited joy and elation that came with the Islanders first Stanley Cup championship, won on May 24, 1980, on Bob Nystrom's overtime goal.

Chapter 10 discusses Bossy's personal goal of trying to score 50 goals during the team's first 50 games, a feat last accomplished in 1945. Bossy tied the record, in dramatic fashion, by scoring twice in the third period of the 50th game. Bossy would later state this was his greatest individual accomplishment. The Islanders culminated the season by winning their second straight Stanley Cup. Bossy also describes the sadness over his father's death.

Chapter 11 talks about the team's thorough domination of the NHL both during the regular season and the playoffs in 1981-82. Bossy culminated the playoffs by winning the Conn Smythe Trophy, awarded to the most valuable player in the playoffs. Bossy descibes a goal scored while he was completely airborne in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals against Vancouver. Bossy had been bodychecked and, while falling to the ice with both feet off the ice, reached with his stick and shot the puck past a sprawling goaltender and a scrambling defenseman. Only one word describes this: incredible.

Chapter 12 discusses the 1983 and 1984 seasons. In 1983, the Islanders became only the second franchise to win four Stanley Cups in a row. Bossy details how, in the third round of the playoffs against Boston, he scored all four of his team's game-winning goals and nine goals overall. This was one amazing accomplishment. When the playoffs were over, Bossy finished with 17 goals during the playoffs, the third straight year he had scored 17 goals in the playoffs. It is needless to say just how huge a factor Bossy's goals were to the team's playoff successes year after year. The Islanders basked in the glory of their fourth straight championship during the summer of 1983. In 1984, the Islanders were aiming to tie Montreal's record of five straight Stanley Cups. Bossy details each round of these pressure-packed playoffs, when the hockey world focused on the Islanders. During the third round of the playoffs, dynasty faced off against dynasty: Montreal (the dynasty of the late 1950s) versus the Islanders (the dynasty of the early 1980s). The Islanders prevailed in six games, for their 19th consecutive playoff series victory, a record that still stands in 1999 and that no team has come close to matching. Unfortunately, an exhausted, battered and injured Islanders team was defeated by a younger, hungrier and healthier Edmonton Oilers team in the 1984 Stanley Cup Finals.

Chapter 13 details Bossy's participation in the 1984 Canada Cup. Although Team Canada won the tournament, Bossy had a lousy experience.

Chapter 14 discusses how Bossy suffered his crippling back injury and the frustrations he went through in 1986-87, his final NHL season. Bossy desperately wanted to score 50 goals again during the regular season, but his injured body prevented him from doing so. Bossy finished with 38 goals, the lowest output of his career. Nonetheless, Bossy still holds the NHL record for most consecutive 50-goal seasons (nine), a record which no player (including Wayner Gretzky and Mario Lemieux) has tied or broken and which should stand well into the 21st century.

Chapter 15, the final one, details how Bossy sat out the 1987-88 season to rehabiliate his injured back. He mentions numerous futile visits to doctors and specialists.

Overall, this book, Boss - The Mike Bossy Story, is excellent. Bossy's accomplishments: 573 regular season goals, 85 playoff goals, 1,126 points, four Stanley Cups, nine straight regular seasons of 50 or more goals, etc., are legendary. His book is able to present all these facts and other interesting matters to the reader in a refreshing way.

Thank you, Mike Bossy, for a wonderful career and book.

Rating:
Summary: the greatest sniper
Review: Mike Bossy is perhaps the most unappreciated star in the history of New York area sports. Perhaps it is because he played on Long Island and not NYC, Bossy is forgotton. Meisel and Bossy do a fine job. I hope copies of this book are out there for those of you hockey fans who are looking for a fun book to read. The book also takes serious turns, as the other review here says. It was an accurate review.