Regular marked price: $22.95Discount Price: $18.36
Cost Savings: $4.59 (20%)Price fluctuation possible.
How soon does it ship: Normal ship time within one day
Shipping? Absolutely FREE if you qualify for Super Saver Shipping.
Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.96264
EAN num: 9780470838501
ISBN number: 0470838507
Label: Wiley
Manufacturer: Wiley
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 352
Printing Date: September 11, 2006
Publishing house: Wiley
Sale Popularity Level: 820858
Studio: Wiley
Other books you might be interested in perusing:
Editor's Notes and Comments:
Product Description:
In 1967 the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup in a stunning defeat of the mighty Montreal Canadiens in Canada’s centennial year. Thirty-nine years later (and counting), no other Leaf team has been able to do it again. As the years pass, the legend grows. The men who were the Leafs in 1967--a scrappy group of aging players and unsung youngsters--were the kings of this universe, the last hockey heroes to skate in the world's most important hockey city. They were the men with the right stuff who enjoyed the perks and privileges that went with it.
Sixty-Seven is not just another hockey book about that legendary team, but a unique and total look at the contradictions, the legends, the shame and the glory of '67. Within five years of that '67 victory, two key members of the team, Tim Horton and Terry Sawchuk, would be dead due to alcohol and drug-related issues. The man who had succeeded Smythe as King of Carlton Street, Harold Ballard, was in jail. The seeds of what would become a horrifying pedophile scandal a quarter-century later were being planted. All that had been built up over the course of decades was in the process of being torn down.
Sixty-Seven will tell previously untold stories, funny and tragic, from the inside of that unforgettable dressing room. And beyond the story of the team, it will tell the story of the times, a time of innocence before Vietnam and Watergate, the last year of the Original Six-Team NHL, and the last gasp of the hockey dynasty built by the legendary Conn Smythe. The story of Sixty-Seven extends well beyond that of a hockey team that found a way to win.
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
-
The 1967 Maple Leafs were the end of an era. Talk about poignancy, they were the last team to win the Stanley Cup in the "Original Six" era. The subsequent year the NHL doubled the amount of franchises, Bobby Orr achieved stardom and player acquisition changed.
Let alone the birth of modern Canada, Expo '67 in Montreal and the turbulence of that era in history.
Stellick and Cox have a wealth of raw material and they botch it badly. I gave it 3 stars simply because the story is so good, but it could have been much better.
I understand the way they told the story, alternating chapters about the 2-series Stanley Cup run with larger chapters telling before and after. But as written, the before and after chapters overwhelm the 1967 Stanley Cup narrative. Thus the 1967 team gets somewhat lost in the shuffle.
Plus, these before and after stories destroy any surprise that the reader may get when they read the 1967 team chapters. The context is completely lost and I found it quite annoying.
Reviewer Eric Paddon makes note that Alan Eagleson is given a pass in this book. Amen to that. Considering the book pulls no punches (justifiably so) in criticizing the embezzlement of funds and the child molestation scandal, the kid-gloves treatment of Eagleson is pathetic. The funny part of it is that Cox and Stellick allude to Eagleson's later sins, but don't say what they were. I was quite frustrated by that as well. After all, Leaf management's hard line against the union is cited as a major reason for their demise after 1967 and Eagleson was the face of that union.
The editors and authors equally share the blame in this book being as disappointing as it was.
Rated by buyers -
Damien Cox and Gord Stellick are both well-known within the hockey world, and both are intimately associated with the Leafs (Cox as one of the country's top 3 newspaper columnists based in Toronto, Stellick a former GM and current broadcaster). However, neither of these men are blatent "fans" of the team (unlike, for example, Don Cherry), so this book reads as impartial and balanced. In fact, while praising most of the players, the authors are downright critical of the management of the team. The overall thesis of the book is that the Leafs win in '67 caused the team's administration to remain buried in outdated managerial styles, when the game was fundamentally changing.
Basically, this book is more about the seismic shift in hockey that took place in the late '60s. Bobby Orr was revolutionising the position of defense, Alan Eagleson took up the union torch that Ted Lindsay failed to light, and the league doubled in size (which also caused teams to start looking to Europe for players). Against this backdrop, the Leafs were the last of the old-time teams. Management (and some players) was bitterly opposed to the union. In addition, corruption and nepotism surrounded the team, especially with regards to the junior system (the Rochester Americans farm team was more profitable than the Leafs, so that team was sometimes stacked at the expense of the Leafs). It is the conclusion that the Leafs management - especially Ballard, Stafford Smythe, and coach/GM Punch Imlach - destroyed the Leafs proud heritage through hubris and occasionally criminal activity, from which the team has yet to fully recover.
The book does, of course, cover the Stanley Cup playoffs for the '66-67 season on a game-by-game bases (the Leafs played 12 games in total), which act as chapter intermissions. The book jumps around in time and location, but generally each chapter focusses on some aspect of the Leafs or the hockey world in general. For example, there is a chapter on the family connections (the Conacher, Smythes, Imlachs, etc), one on the union, one on the defense corps. Certainly all the players on that team are given some space. The standard Leaf tidbits are also included - the story of Tim Horton's coffee/doughnut shop and his car-accident death, the story of Baun's overtime goal on a broken leg, etc. But most interesting are the lesser-known facts, e.g. how Bobby Orr was passed over by Imlach as an insignificant teenager.
However, all told, the book really just uses the Leafs team of '66-67 to describe the way the hockey world changed when expansion arrived. The book is better for it, and that is what makes it a valuable addition for any hockey fan, not just Leafs fans.
Rated by buyers 
-
You would think there would be nothing more to write about after the slew of books the Pal Hal era spewed out. Well, you'll be surprised as Damien Cox (one of the few T,O,-based writers who "gets it" and is not madly in love with the Laffs) with help from the Stellickian one put out possibly the finest analysis of the failure of the post-expansion Leafs.
Kudos for Cox focusing in on the true heroes of '67--Pappin, Stemkowski, Pulford, Pronovost and Hillman. Also, brilliant analysis of how the Leafs' scouting was not to blame but more their anti-union/anti-WHA stance of management for the failures of the team post-'67.
The book is written in a way that focuses on the games of each series in the '67 playoffs without getting bogged down in game stories. The game stories are very brief and act almost as jumping-off points for further discussions on other topics.
For example, who knew GM Punch Imlach kept better players down on the farm in Rochester because he had money invested in the franchise? Who knew disgraced player agent Alan Eagleson had ZERO WHA player clients? That should have been the very first sign he was in with the NHL owners despite being an NHLPA executive.
Definitely a must-read for any of us well West of the so-called "Centre of the Universe" who were inflicted with the Laffs on TV every friggin' Saturday night during the '80s. This is sweet revenge for all those nights stuck with Dan Daoust, Pat Boutette and Claire "the Milkman" Alexander skating (and I use that term loosely) across our screens.
Rated by buyers -
The Toronto Maple Leafs are a long, storied member of the NHL as one of the "original six" franchises, but their history in recent decades shows a futility that is starting to close in on the one known by Ranger fans like me for many years until 1994 (only Chicago has gone longer without a Cup). The last Toronto Cup came in 1967, which not completely coincidentally was the last year of the "Original Six" era of the NHL before the onslaught of expansion, and it is about this team that this book is chiefly concerned with.
The approach by Cox and Stellick is quite interesting. Chapters on the individual games of the playoffs are interspersed with a deeper look at the players of this team and their careers before and after 67, as well as the general history of the Leafs itself during this time and how things were not well in the ranks of management with poor decision making by GM-Coach Punch Imlach that in effect gutted the team's future, as well as the misdeeds of co-owners Stafford Smythe and Harold Ballard that also helped run the team into the ground in the years that followed. Cox and Stellick also recount the details of sordid tales of sexual abuse by Maple Leaf Gardens employees that weren't known for decades, that was also sadly part of the fabric of this last era of winning hockey in Toronto.
About the only quibble I have with the book is their whitewash of disgraced Players Union head Alan Eagleson, whom they interviewed in regards to his role in trying to form the union at the time. It almost seemed like that in order to talk to Eagleson for this book, they had to promise to go easy on him regarding his later disgrace and frankly that doesn't speak too well of them. Aside from that, this book is the best I have ever seen that offers some well-written insight into what the NHL was like in the last years of the Original Six era, and even the casual hockey fan should be able to enjoy it.
Find other books like this one:
