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Rating: 
Summary: The Ice Bowl and other unrelated incidents
Review: Basically a good account of the seasons of the Packers and the Cowboys leading up to the 1967 NFL Championship Game. However the author throws in a lot of unrelated information that appears to filler material. It was if the author decided that the 1967 season and the "Ice Bowl" would not be enough material for a book. That is not the case because the author focuses on the recollections of a few key players. There were many other players, fans, coaches, sportcasters that the author did not consult, or referenced with little detail. For example, he notes that Don Meredith complained about the game not being a fair test of football because of the weather. He could have noted that Meredith also stated that the icy field took away ninety percent of the Cowboys offense (Dallas Times Herald) You hear a lot from Pete Gent, but nothing from other more notable figures. He also uses stereotypes to describe the cities of Dallas and Green Bay. In his description, Dallas was a place full of ultra right-wing millionaires rolling in their own money and Green Bay was a place where people live wretched lives only brightened by their beloved Packers. The author often uses awkward references to events like the Vietnam War to start his chapters. It was like he was couldn't decide whether to write a football book or a David Halberstam-like account of the era. He should have stuck to football.
Rating: 
Summary: Leonard Pinth-Garnell would love it!
Review: In the early years of "Saturday Night Live," Dan Ackroyd played a character named Leonard Pinth-Garnell, who would host a show called "Bad Ballet" or "Bad Theater" or whatever. They'd present a truly awful play or whatever, then cut to Leonard Pinth-Garnell applauding and saying "Awful! Dreadful! Simply terrible!" and roll the credits over footage of someone dropping the script into a trash can.
Well, if Leonard Pinth-Garnell ever wants to do "Bad Book" he can start with this one!
After learning of Ed Gruver's highly-rated book about the Ice Bowl, I looked for it at my local library, forgetting Gruver's name. That's how I picked this book up. Big mistake.
By the time I'd gotten into just the prologue, I felt like the kid in "The Emperor's New Clothes," wondering how anyone could like this book. So I came to Amazon, looked the book up, saw the existing reviews, and realized I'd gotten the wrong one.
Here are the things, JUST FROM THE PROLOGUE AND FIRST CHAPTER, that made me hate this book:
1. "All about me" - Author Mike Shropshire just keeps sticking himself into things. "Here's what I did... so and so told me..." I'm much less interested in reading about the author than I am reading about the game.
2. Lame jokes - for example, two jokes about pot smoking. Tony Kornheiser and often Jerry Izenberg, citing just two examples, show that one can write informatively about sports while being funny. Shropshire manages neither while attempting both.
3. Getting the facts wrong - Page 15: He says that the Cowboys and Packers played for the 1966 NFL title on December 30, 1966. Actual date was January 1, 1967. Page 18: Packers beat the Chiefs 34-10 in first Super Bowl. Actual score was 35-10. This is nitpicky stuff, but when, again and again, Shropshire messes up information readily available, I take what he says with an increasingly-larger grain of salt.
I will now look for the Gruver book, and I expect to enjoy it. I can also recommend "Instant Replay" by Jerry Kramer and Dick Schaap, which also covers the game and the 1967 season, just much better than Shropshire's book; and "When Pride Still Mattered" by Dave Maraniss, which has an amazingly detailed and riveting chapter about the game.
To write such an awful book about such a compelling topic must have been hard work, but Shropshire managed it.
Rating:
Summary: Needs to get the facts right
Review: Mike Shropshire needs to do a better job doing his homework! On p. 37 he notes Tony Canadeo as the Packer president in 1967. Canadeo never was. Dominic Oleniczyk was from 1958 through 1982. Name mispellings, such as referring to Packer OT Bob Skoronski as "Skronski" (p. 46) hurt the author's credibility. He refers to "St. Thomas Hospital" on Webster St. in Green Bay on p. 6. I am sure he meant to refer to it as either Bellin or St. Vincent, which are the only two hospitals on that street. He also listed the "Tropic" (actually "Tropics") on p. 81 as a common Packer haunt in the '60s. This was a strip joint in town at the time. Did the editors care enough to check out facts before this book went to print? Author trashes the present-day Cowboys in first chapter and paints Green Bay as a town full of drunken slobs as he searches for a bar to watch the Super Bowl. Slow developing, but still worth a read for those fans interested in the glorious '60s. I just wish the author would have done a little more research when compiling the facts.
Rating:
Summary: Needs to get the facts right
Review: Mike Shropshire needs to do a better job doing his homework! On p. 37 he notes Tony Canadeo as the Packer president in 1967. Canadeo never was. Dominic Oleniczyk was from 1958 through 1982. Name mispellings, such as referring to Packer OT Bob Skoronski as "Skronski" (p. 46) hurt the author's credibility. He refers to "St. Thomas Hospital" on Webster St. in Green Bay on p. 6. I am sure he meant to refer to it as either Bellin or St. Vincent, which are the only two hospitals on that street. He also listed the "Tropic" (actually "Tropics") on p. 81 as a common Packer haunt in the '60s. This was a strip joint in town at the time. Did the editors care enough to check out facts before this book went to print? Author trashes the present-day Cowboys in first chapter and paints Green Bay as a town full of drunken slobs as he searches for a bar to watch the Super Bowl. Slow developing, but still worth a read for those fans interested in the glorious '60s. I just wish the author would have done a little more research when compiling the facts.
Rating:
Summary: Ditto on previous review
Review: The previous reviewer stole much of my thunder, but I'll throw in my two cents' worth anyway.
"The Ice Bowl" is a magazine article stretched into book length. The actual game is covered in a couple dozen pages near the end. The rest of the book is, as the previous reviewer noted, filler. Examples: Several pages are devoted to Bubbles Cash, a forgotten, top-heavy Dallas stripper. What did she have to do with the Ice Bowl? Nothing. Midway through the book, the reader learns about Texas Stadium, and about overly privileged children from the affluent Dallas suburb of Highland Park. What do these have to do with the Ice Bowl? Nothing. The author drops names of Texas towns that (unless you're from the Dallas area) you've never heard of: Waxahachie, Wills Point, etc. What do they have to do with the Ice Bowl? Nothing. The book is absolutely crammed with extraneous material such as this. Also, the author's style is grating. Try this introduction to the account of the second half of the game: "The players were not certain whether the winners would be claiming the NFL championship or the Stanley Cup [reader can insert mental rim-shot here -- Bada-bing!]. Between periods, they [who -- the players?] should have brought out the Zamboni machine ...Instead of blowing that $80,000 on his underground dirt-warmer, Vince Lombardi probably should have intalled guardrails [Bada-bing!]. Any activity beyond the middle of the gridiron resembled the practice runs by the Jamaican bobsled team at the Calgary Olympics" [Bada-bing! Hey! I got a million of 'em! You folks from out of town?]. This sort of "I'm a humorous sportswriter" shtick is very tiresome. Especially if -- as in this book -- it's not even funny.
If you can find the book at a library, pick it up and read the couple of short chapters on the game. You might pick up a little new information. Otherwise, find a copy of the Dick Schaap/Jerry Kramer classic "Instant Replay". Now THAT book is a 5-star.
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