Change is Good

Hockey, for the casual fan – the guy who catches the highlights while at the bowling alley bar or tunes in for a period when the local team hits the playoffs – can be defined by one all-encompassing element of play: the fight.

That diehard fan? Fighting, save for the occasional benches-clearing melee that lasts the entire third period (like that unforgettable Flyers/Senators brawl from 2004), is passé and even a time waster. For the diehard, it’s all about the speed, the slapshot, the butterfly save, the hat trick. The play and the score is what truly matters. And Ken Dryden, former Montreal Canadiens goalie and Maple Leafs president, now author, would agree. With his latest, Game Change, Dryden skates deep into another issue: concussions that come as a result of body checking, and yes, fighting.

Game Change is an entertaining, enlightening read. The book is also an important one, and topically so. In Game Change, Dryden explores the life and career of Steve Montador, an everyman defenseman who played for six NHL teams and whose career ended as a result of multiple concussions. Montador died in 2015 after suffering from the effects of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease commonly known as CTE, an acronym anyone who saw the Will Smith movie Concussion should recall.

Dryden cleverly disguises his treatise with an enjoyable look into hockey history, how the game started, and how it has evolved. Within is also Montador’s story: how he played, how he trained, and most importantly, how he loved the game. Yet, similar to the fighters and goons of the game, Dryden does not pull any punches as he throws down his gloves to present his call to arms: no hits to the head. No excuses.

Dryden writes like a hockey player. His sentences are short and clipped, he often repeats highlights he finds important to ensure the reader takes notice. He is also passionate, writing from the heart, even when he is taking about the mind. To do so, he presents interviews not only from scientists and doctors who share his philosophy of changing – and only slightly at that – the game of hockey to preserve the quality of life for the player, but also talks to players. Former Bruin Marc Savard, Flyers captain Keith Primeau, and someone named Sidney Crosby all share their stories and fears and recovery from post-concussion syndrome, how it has changed their play, and their lives.

Game Change is written for the casual fan, but the diehard will enjoy the deep cuts. More importantly, and even more important than hockey, the respect for life offered within is shown as a universal constant. That players, with their athleticism, their passion, their talent, are much more than just a product. Theirs is a life that should be cherished and celebrated. Dryden believes that is a constant on which everyone can agree. Unless, of course, you are NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.


As Always,
theJOE

The Big Get-Nothing

Small Time Crooks

Woody Allen has always been prolific and like any artist, he goes through times of mountain top enrichment only to plateau for a period. Or a decade. Like in the early aughts following the jazz-cool  Sweet And Lowdown and before the sexy Match Point, when Allen cranked out a movie a year, and most of them were mediocre. Like Small Time Crooks where he, Tracey Ullman, and Michael Rappaport plan to rob a bank via a cookie shop they were using as a front… only to blindly figure out that the cookies brought in a higher payroll than the initial bank job.

So what does a Woody Allen film have to do with Paul Di Filippo’s latest, The Big Get-Even? Well for one thing, talking about Woody Allen films, even his less-than-enchanting ones, is a helluva lot more interesting than reviewing this unexceptional novel. And for another, the plots are thematically similar, along with a finale so blatant even the blind director from Hollywood Ending (ugh) could see it coming in off the horizon.

The Big Get Even

The Big Get-Even is a heist caper, a grift, that although the high points fit the genre, it meanders around at a leisurely pace. No snappy chatter. No sticking-it-to-the-man. And really, no likable characters either. I don’t feel sorry that the arsonist – an arsonist – is cheated out of his ill-gotten gains. I don’t understand how the whining lawyer is elevated to that of a Clooney-esque stud. I don’t appreciate that the contribution of all three women in the story is solely – and only – for sex.

The first part of the story is actually interesting. Di Filippo lays out his characters of Glen (lawyer) and Stan (arsonist), and builds the premise of the plot. That journey had merit as the story began to build. You could see the lightning preceding the on-set of the storm. But then nothing. Just dark clouds resulting in poor vision and a damp time. No fun. No electricity. And a con as dull as Will Smith’s Focus.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Blackstone Publishing for the ARC… even though I think I was hustled into providing a review. And without even getting a cookie.


As Always,
theJOE