A Cold Reality

Black Ice: The Val James Story – Valmore James and John Gallagher (ECW Press)

Hockey is a worldwide sport, but it really is a small world. I was attracted to Black Ice – The Val James Story as a lifelong Buffalo Sabres fan and I was amazed at the number of familiar names and people that James crossed paths with not only as a native of Western New York, but also having spent over a decade working in Erie, Pennsylvania where James played with the Erie Blades of the EHL.

Black Ice tells a story that is astonishing on so many levels; starting with the amazing fact that James embarked on a professional career just six years after first strapping on a pair of skates and the incredible journey that career took him on, coupled with his sheer determination to overcome the racial animus and taunts that he was subjected to both on the ice and off.

James toughness, grit and willingness to never back down from a fight won him a legion of fans and the respect of his peers. James and co-author John Gallagher do an amazing job of weaving personal recollections with running commentary from team mates, opponents, coaches and front office personnel and truly retain the subjects voice throughout. They manage to transport the reader back into the big barns and shed arenas that James the hockey player grew up in. While the movie Slapshot was an exaggerated version of life in the EHL, James’ story and the cast of characters that populate it show that the movie was far off the mark.

While nearly everyone is familiar with Jackie Robinson’s tale of breaking the color barrier in Major League Baseball; very few are likely familiar with the unlikely story of a Florida born son of migrant workers who journeyed north with his family and ended up the first U.S. born, African American in the NHL. The Val James story is one that is truly long overdue in its telling. While Canadian born Willie O’Ree is credited as the first black player in the NHL, I think James’ story all the more incredible. His legacy and the trail he blazed deserve that acknowledgement.

 

A Ride on the Crazy Train

A Matter of Inches – How I Survived in the Crease and Beyond – Clint Malarchuk with Dan Robson (Triumph Books)

Goaltenders. By the very nature of their choice of professions, most people would readily apply the label CRAZY to them. Who in their right mind would willingly strap on some padding and then place themselves willingly between the goal and someone armed with a stick made out of some high tech material designed to allow the maximum velocity to be transferred to a roughly 6 ounce piece of frozen rubber, fired directly at them?

So, knowing the history of the event that forever changed Clint Malarchuk’s life on March 22, 1989 during a game in Buffalo, between the St. Louis Blues and Malarchuk’s, Buffalo Sabres when the Blues Ron Tuttle and Sabres defenseman Uwe Krupp became entangled and Tuttle’s skate carved a gash in Malarchuk’s neck. For the sake of full disclosure, I am a Buffalo native and have been a life-long Sabres fan and I thought I knew the whole story; I could not have been further away from the whole story that Malarchuck details in his book, A Matter of Inches – How I Survived in the Crease and Beyond.

I knew that the title A Matter of Inches, was quite literal; that Malarchuk came close to become a casualty of the game he grew up playing, but I didn’t realize that if he had been minding the goal at the other end of the rink, he would likely have died. The help and the access to those that saved his life that night was literally at his end of the rink, saving precious seconds when they mattered most.

Malarchuk provides not only a refresh of memories, of that event, but delves deeply into his early and ongoing struggles with depression, mental illness and alcoholism during the course of this raw, gut wrenching tale. Some may be put off by the manner that Malarchuk tells his story, but he truly pulls no punches and holds nothing back as he takes us into the locker room, into his life and into his mind. He displays a level of courage and honesty in the writing that is strikingly personal. Hockey fan or not, you will find this one utterly entertaining.