The Game blog

Blog: The Game, by Ken Dryden Charlie Deacon

Regarded by some as the greatest hockey book ever written, "The Game," by Ken Dryden is an interesting story of life as a professional athlete. Dryden was the goalie for the Montreal Canadiens between 1971 and 1979, and played on the best team in hockey history. Dryden discusses famous rivalries, the lives of himself as well as his teammates, life living in Montreal, and playing hockey under the famous coach Scotty Bowman. Dryden also details what it was like playing for a team with both French-Canadian and English players, and the issues that this caused. This is an interesting book because Dryden uses numerous examples of his own experiences to help the reader understand what it's like to be a professional athlete.

Although Dryden is obviously not a professional writer, he is still an intelligent person and has interesting opinions on a lot of different topics. The way he describes his teammates is especially good, because he writes in a way that makes it easy to understand what all these guys were like. Dryden uses many metaphors and other rhetorical devices to describe what his life was like, especially when he visits other cities and talks about what it was like to play on the road. Dryden is certainly part of the minority when it comes to hockey players who can write books, and if it were someone else writing the book I don't think it would be nearly as effective.

As I said before, there are a lot of interesting things Dryden has to say about his life. These are a few examples of phrases I liked from the book:

"Talbot brought his stick down again, harder, this time on Bowman's head. Bowman went down, his skull fractured, his career over."

"...He showed his membership card to the man at the desk and gave him some money... The man never looked at the card, or at the money. He looked at me, quickly recognizing who I was..."

"A hundred letters per week, more than 3,000 letters a year - 'You're the best,' all but a few of them say."

The latter two quotes refer to Dryden's own personal experiences, which I think are interesting because it shows how popular Dryden was in Montreal. The first quote is an interesting one because Dryden is talking about his coach Scotty Bowman, who at a young age had his career ended by another player hitting him in the head with his stick. It is because of personal stories like these that I would recommend this book to any sports fan.