Description:
If Stan Fischler wasn't present at hockey's creation, he arrived on the scene soon after. He saw his first game, he likes to remind you, before Pearl Harbor was bombed, and began cashing checks as a hockey writer before the Montreal Canadiens launched their dynasty in the early 1950s. Nearly half a century later, he's fed up with what he sees: "[T]he new NHL era--one where luxury boxes became more important than ordinary seats, where venerable arenas like Chicago Stadium were replaced and the new ones named after corporations, and where players were traded not because of a stickhandler's skill, but rather because of what the player was earning or wanted to earn." And that barely scratches the ice. Sound familiar? That's Fischler's point. Like baseball, football, and basketball, hockey finds itself watered down, spread too thin, and filled with as much action in the law courts as in the arenas. Fischler tells the story of hockey in the first half of the '90s; it's not a pretty one, filled as it is with greed, strikes, lockouts, management fiascoes, on-ice free-for-alls, and a revolving door in the commissioner's office. Moving into the late '90s, it gets worse: Fischler next focuses on Nashville's attempts to woo the Jersey Devils south before winning an expansion franchise, the Whalers move from Hartford to North Carolina, the sale of the Islanders to a buyer who didn't have close to the necessary money, the concentration of power in the Players' Association, and the 11th-hour bail-outs of Pittsburgh and Tampa Bay. What makes this all so fascinating is Fischler's stunning reportage, and his own willingness not to just stay objectively cool on the sidelines. Fischler loves the game, and he's hopeful. "The NHL does not like to hear ... criticism," he makes clear, "but those of us with a stake in the game believe the problems must be addressed." His passion doesn't just crack the ice, it melts it. --Jeff Silverman
| 
