Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2005 By Lucas Aykroyd Let’s be honest. What you hear from coaches during a typical media interview is not always enlightening or stimulating. Usually, generic talk about “good habits,” “consistency,” “sustained pressure,” and “staying positive” dominates. The focus is on getting two points in the next game. Big-picture issues and […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2005 By Lucas Aykroyd With gold medals at the women’s and U18 IIHF World Championships this month, USA Hockey is riding high once again. But for Americans, probably no triumph will ever top the 1980 “Miracle on Ice” victory, where the USA knocked off the Soviets 4-3 and went on […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2005 By Lucas Aykroyd Some historical legends are so shrouded by time and hearsay that we barely know anything about their reality. Robin Hood, the siege of Troy, and the power play percentage of the 1893 Montreal AAA would fall into this category. Other legends, however, skate among us to […]

Originally published on IHWC.NET in 2003 By Lucas Aykroyd Finally, here’s a book that both Don Cherry and Klaus Zaugg could love. Most books about international hockey contain a bias toward either the North American or European game. Typically, authors just don’t know as much about the way hockey is played on the opposite side […]

Originally published on EuroReport.com in 1999 By Lucas Aykroyd EuroReport is proud to present an advance review of Pavel Bure: The Riddle of the Russian Rocket, the new unauthorized biography by Vancouver writer Kerry Banks. Banks is an award-winning journalist and sports columnist with Vancouver’s Georgia Straight. He has published five sports trivia books and […]

Originally published in The Torch in 2007 By Lucas Aykroyd Anyone entering Bill Gaston’s office in the University of Victoria’s Fine Arts Building would need a novelist’s eye for detail to discern how much the man loves hockey. Granted, the 54-year-old Writing professor displays the hockey cards of two Junior A teammates with the 1970s […]

Originally published in Rinkside in 2005 By Lucas Aykroyd On a chilly winter night, there’s nothing like curling up by the fireside with a good book. So why not choose something about the world’s most exciting sport? Long gone are the days when hockey was stereotyped as the refuge of gap-toothed illiterates. Art Farrell, the […]

Go to the Net: Eight Goals That Changed the Game By Al Strachan Published by Doubleday Canada 304 pages, 2005 For those who don’t read the Toronto Sun, Al Strachan has probably been best-known in recent years for his on-air feuding with ex-Vancouver Canucks general manager Brian Burke on Hockey Night in Canada’s Satellite Hot […]