>FEATURE
THE BEST GAME YOU CAN NAME
Dave Bidini
McClelland & Stewart, 290 pp.
Hello hockey fans! The regular season is finally here! And, for a nation that survived a whole year without its beloved sport, that news comes as a huge relief.
Dave Bidini, rhythm guitarist for Canadian rock heroes The Rheostatics, author and amateur hockey player, describes what the puck-stick-ice combo does to the blood as pure alchemy. His latest masterpiece, The Best Game You Can Name, is a wonderful tribute to domestic hockey that not only personalizes Bidini’s visceral connection to the game by following his team, The Morningstars, in their journey to obtain the 2004 E! Cup – a Toronto tournament put on by the Canadian music magazine Exclaim! – but also gives several players and coaches the chance to talk about everything from their first shift on NHL ice, to their worst injuries and their favourite arenas.
"Part of the challenge is to see the game in a poetic light, but also not become entranced by that poetry," says Bidini, who has written two books about hockey. "The tendency with sports writing is to write a little bit too romantically about the game. Hockey Night in Canada is bad for that – getting the violins out, all that frozen-pond bullshit."
More a fan of Canadian rock than Canadian sport, I cracked the book only to discover that I recognized almost everybody mentioned in it. I didn’t automatically regurgitate their affiliation, position or stats, but it struck me that these NHL guys are the definition of household names.
"In Canada, you can write a book, as I did, with mostly fourth-liner guys and people are going to know who they are," says Bidini. "Because (Canadians are) freaks when it comes to hockey, you’re gonna know Gary Unger, you’re gonna know Eddie Mio, because you collected the cards, you watched the games." Even if you didn’t, chances are your sibling, parents or friends at school did, and their enthusiasm spilled over into your life.
"The cosmic unconscious, knowing that half a population is doing the same thing at the same time on this Saturday night – I can’t think of very many other traditions that are like that, except church on Sunday morning," says Bidini. "It’s a far more exciting kind of church, I think."
Bidini’s ability to turn phrases that are intensely personal and positively hilarious makes his stories extremely entertaining. He attributes part of that to songwriting and, with respect to this book in particular, the players’ stories and mythology of the game. "All those things are rooted in interesting storytelling," he says. "And because some of the players’ stories are so great, they challenge my narrative to make sure it has the same richness."
One story that didn’t make it into the book was about Ray Muron, a former coach, owner and founder of the Colonial Hockey League. After talking to him a couple of times, Bidini realized he wasn’t really getting any material that would find its way into the book, but Muron phoned him back a few days after their second interview to add one last thing.
"He told me that the only time he’d ever cried in his life was when he had to fire a coach – this coach Rudy Migay, who was the coach of the Tulsa Oilers," says Bidini. "He said he didn’t even cry when his wife died, but he cried when he had to fire this guy. I couldn’t find a place for it in the book, (but) that was a beautiful little moment."
Although he knows that he will never be part of the professional hockey world or experience what it’s like to step on the ice as an NHL player, Bidini communicates his understanding of and passion for the game in every word. Having now studied the sport from a global perspective (The Tropic of Hockey) as well as in his backyard with this book, all the angles might be covered.
"I do think that I’m probably at the end of something," he says. "I don’t think I actually need to write about hockey anymore. I think I’ve already pretty much said what I want to say about the game. But, he adds, "never say never – and I do have these six erotic hockey stories I’d like to publish at some point…." |
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