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by Dave Bidini (Author)
Paperback - 312 pages (September 18, 2001)
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.ca Playing in
a rock and roll band may be a trip in itself, but Toronto-based
Rheostatics rhythm guitarist Dave Bidini sets out on a different kind of
world tour in his second book, Tropic Of Hockey: My Search For The Game
in Unlikely Places. (His first, On a Cold Road, offers a
bands-eye-view of Canadian road rigours.) Bidini is obviously
knowledgeable; he's contributed to several anthologies, including The
Original Six: True Stories from Hockey's Classic Era and Maple Leaf
Gardens: Memories and Dreams 1931-1999. In those books a lot of the
travelling is back in time--reveries about legendary NHL moments and
rivalries, Canada Cup battles, and of course, Maple Leafs heartbreaks. The
travelling in Tropic is more spatial than temporal; Bidini's quest
takes him to rinks in such far-flung locales as China and the Middle East. As a fan, Bidini has an infectious enthusiasm that can propel rabid
fans and the uninitiated alike into the mindset and emotion of the game,
if not exactly to unlikely places. "Hatred as well as love, lives in my
hockey heart, and I wouldn't trade one for the other," he declares. He
talks playoff-type trash like, "I thought I'd stumbled upon a sheik
look-alike contest," in the United Arab Emerites, or opining, "Their faces
were folded and pinched with age, as if they too might have been clubbed
with the odd puck," about some passers-by in China. And just like the
game, Tropic is rough and unforgiving, packing plenty of dud
one-liners but also some sporting zingers: "After the first period, the
Singapore goalie had touched more rubber than the Marquis de Sade." In the
end, Bidini's offbeat candour comes off as either insightful and witty or
petulant and boring, depending on your taste. --Sigcino Moyo
