Ice hockey, perhaps the greatest and most demanding of sports (do you sense a bias?), rarely has been the subject of fiction. For this reason, if no other, Peter LaSalle's collection of stories, "Hockey Sur Glace", is remarkable in itself. But the seeming anomaly of the book's mere existence only draws the light more brightly on these deeply affectionate, elegantly written, warm and human stories about the way hockey indelibly marks the lives of those who play it, those who watch it, those who live their lives at the rink or on the icy ponds of long northern winters. "Hockey Sur Glace" is, to be sure, an uneven collection of stories (with a few short poems interspersed). The best of the lot are the first two, "Hockey Angels" and "Le Rocket Negre". But while the other stories are somewhat less than remarkable, all of them bear the mark of strong feeling for a sport which, perhaps more than any other, suffuses the lives of those who play it. If you play hockey, or have children who play hockey, or if you just like the sport, reading this slim collection of stories will be time well spent.

A book by and for north people, who grew up in cold winters, whose toes froze on the walk back from pond to home, and who built the small fires of kindling and scrap wood to stay warm as afternoon faded and the hockey game went on. I hadn't thought for years about the way we carried skates, even those of us who didn't play much, by their laces slung over the blade of the hockey stick, but Peter LaSalle gets that detail and so much else about the game and the era, late fifties to early seventies mostly, exactly right. The problem is the stories themselves are lightweight and entirely too similar in tone and substance. The first two -- Hockey Angels and Le Rocket Negre -- are the best of the book, closely followed by three poems, particularly A Pond-Hockey Pledge. So, overall, a slight read, but still, for those of us who come from this place and this era, there's a sweet feel of things gone by here, and it's nice to see hockey written about, and this book can be good consolation in late spring when your team has been unceremoniously booted from the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The intertwining of hockey and life is well done in this book. Great for anyone who loves and lives the game.