Thunder and Lightning: A No-B.S. Hockey Memoir by Phil Esposito

Legendary NHL bruiser and loudmouth Phil Esposito's Thunder and Lightning: A No-B.S. Hockey Memoir reads like a transcript from a classic barstool bull session. And that's a good thing.

Espo is in the Hockey Hall of Fame, he's an Order of Canada inductee--and a Canada Post stamp-boy, to boot. Yet he reveres no sacred cows, including himself, in these particular pages.

While insight into his on-ice travails and numerous scoring records is scant, there is plenty of rumble and flash in behind-the-scenes glimpses of Espo's life and times with the Boston Bruins, New York Rangers, Team Canada , and post-playing days. Alas, "If I've offended anyone, tough shit. I'm not sorry."

The off-ice follies--drinking is usually involved--runs the gamut from womanizing to fork stabbings to a near-fatal water fight.

Quite uncouth at times, the memoir is mostly a rollicking ramble that amuses with bluntness and grandstanding: former NHL exec and convict Alan Eagleson as "a crook and a liar" and the late ABC sports commentator Howard Cosell as "a sleazy old geezer."

But there are also words from the heart: "Nothing hurt me more than having founded the [ Tampa Bay ] Lightning and having the fat cats with more clout, power, and money take my team away from me."

Somewhat sadly, that's what ultimately resonates: the spectre of Espo as yet another sporting great who stays too long and is in the end mentally, if not physically, devoured by the game he "loved more than anything else."

-- sigcino moyo

original publication: AMAZON.ca : Editorial Reviews