Reviews (Page 2)

My 26 Stanley Cups: Memories of a Hockey Life, McClelland & Stewart, 2001, $34.99, by Dick Irvin, BCom'53.

Just when you think everything possible has been written about hockey, winter rolls around again and with it come a slew of new books on the subject. Broadcaster Dick Irvin has already written about goaltenders, coaches, referees and Montreal's sadly slipping franchise, the Canadiens. This time out, he reviews the Stanley Cup series he witnessed over the course of 55 years.

He saw his first Cup-winning game at the age of eight, as the son of the Toronto Maple Leafs coach. Dick Irvin Sr., who had been a talented player, later coached in Montreal and Chicago. "The coach's kid got his share of perks," says Irvin, like the latest Batman comics picked up by his father on road trips to the States, and cast-off equipment from NHL stars. Irvin says he didn't inherit his father's hockey skills and suspects that at McGill he made the Redmen squad "because we practised and played at the Forum. I'm told the school got a great deal on ice rental, and I'm sure Old McGill didn't want to take a chance on spoiling a good thing."

After graduation, he worked in sales for eight years, then decided to switch to teaching high school history. He got a job but never made it to the classroom, ending up instead "in front of a camera, not a blackboard."

For the can't-get-enough-hockey types, there are detailed summaries of playoff series. But for the less enamoured, there's enough insider stuff about the people in the game to keep it interesting. We learn, for instance, that when the short-lived California Golden Seals franchise was started by Charley Finley, the eccentric owner of baseball's Oakland A's, he made his players wear white skates. When he was told by National Hockey League officials that he couldn't be sole owner and operator of the team, Finley hired the young street kid who shined his shoes every day to be his vice-president. That kid later became rap star MC Hammer.

And though Irvin was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame's Media Section, his work wasn't always treated with respect by his employers. In 1970, Bobby Orr scored a Stanley Cup-winning goal, resulting in one of hockey's great moments and one of the sport's most famous photos -- that of Orr two feet off the ice and completely horizontal. Irvin later discovered that the Hockey Night in Canada broadcast he did of that game with Danny Gallivan had been erased. Apparently the CBC was short of shelf space so they cleared out some old tapes.

Irvin's memoirs are funny, fond and thankfully discreet. Too often today we squirm to learn that our sports heroes -- and the team owners who buy and sell them -- have feet of clay, and they bring hair-raising new meaning to the phrase self-indulgent. Irvin's book is entertaining without telling us more than we want to know.

DIANA GRIER AYTON

Foundations of Corporate Empire, Financial Times-Prentice Hall, 2001, $44.95, by Karl Moore and David Lewis.

Sumerian capitalists? Phoenician industrialists? Ancient Greeks practising laissez-faire economics? Romans operating multinationals? Foundations of Corporate Empire will not be confused with the latest trendy management recipe book or motivational mumbo-jumbo. Nor should it be mistaken for "business editions" of ancient texts like Sun Tzu's Art of War. What it does do is provide a historical perspective on the evolution of economic structures and business empires over 5,000 years of human commerce. (Yes, 5,000 years). Authors Karl Moore, a McGill professor of strategic management, and David Lewis, a Los Angeles-based historian and writer, sketch the history of international business from the Bronze Age to the Digital Revolution in this substantial book for the thinking capitalist. Replete with catchy section headings like "'Time is money': management restructuring and the Black Death."

Popular Mechanics for Kids - Make Cool Gadgets for Your Room and Make Amazing Toy and Game Gadgets, Greey de Pencier Books, 2001, $12.95 each, by Amy Pinchuk, BEng'83, MEng'85, PhD'88.

For the Engineering class of 2012 come two activity books based on the hit children's TV show, Popular Mechanics for Kids, that will have kids building spy cameras, flashing jewelry, or alarms for their bedrooms. The projects outlined in these books use inexpensive and easily obtained tools and parts, and the clear instructions, detailed diagrams, safety and troubleshooting tips guide youngsters every step of the way as they build interesting gizmos and gadgets. If you're tired of the kids staring at the Nintendo or computer screen, these projects will help while away several afternoons. Includes how-to tips on using glue, X-acto knives and wires, as well as a glossary of terms used. For kids aged 9-14.

Strange School, Secret Wish, Beach Holme Publishing, 2001, $9.95, by Bernice Gold, BA'43.

Set in 1927 on a railway car that chugs back and forth through Northern Ontario and serves as a school for remote communities, this book for children and young adults is based on the real Ontario railway schools that existed for decades. The provincial railroads served the hunting and trapping communities, and the school cars would travel through settlements, staying a week at a time, and teach children from grade one to eight. Two of the original cars are now in museums in Clinton, Ont., and St. Constant, Que., and were divided into the school and the living quarters for the teacher's family. Gold's historical fiction focuses on the character of the teacher's daughter, Jenny Merrill, living on the "strange school" and dreaming of becoming a great violinist. Jenny yearns for a violin she has seen in an Eaton's catalogue but can't afford. The story interweaves Jenny's quest for the violin, life on the railway school car, and the people of Northern Ontario in the 1920s.