Orleans Weekly Journal
Published: Friday, December 14, 2007 

An inside look inot Canada's favourite game

Canadians love to watch hockey. Canadians love to play hockey. But more than anything else, Canadians love to argue about hockey. That’s the premise of a new book co-authored by Orléans resident David (Dave) Naylor, who covers sports for The Globe and Mail. The book, entitled McCown’s Law: The 100 Greatest Hockey Arguments, written with renowned sports-radio host Bob McCown is a must read if you have even a passing interest in the game or business of hockey.

And it is the perfect gift or stocking stuffer for your couch-potato, hockey-watching husband, your beer-league hockey playing brother-in-law, your teenage kids who play too much Xbox and don’t read enough or for that great hockey mom who seems to know more about hockey than anyone on the street.

I first met Dave Naylor 20 years ago when he was a sports writer for The Charlatan at Carleton University and yours truly was an average university point guard playing for the Ravens. His writing was incisive, his research was impeccable, and his love of sports was evident in everything he wrote.

Dave is now happily married with two kids and lives around the corner from me in Fallingbrook-Pineridge. He may have lost some hair, but his writing is better than ever. And The 100 Greatest Hockey Arguments is chock full of great writing that is insightful and entertaining. But this isn’t surprising since Dave has been called the “best pure sports reporter in Canada.”

In chapter three, the authors ask if hockey fights matter. Not when the games are on the line according to Naylor and McCown. Are Montréal or Toronto fans the greatest in the NHL? They don’t even rank in the top five according to Naylor and McCown in chapter 91. Minnesota is first, Ottawa is second with Detroit, Calgary and Vancouver rounding out the top five.

But perhaps the true genius of this book is that it challenges some long-standing hockey myths that have been bantered back and forth in arenas, basement rec rooms and across pitchers of beer at Broadway, the Cumberland Arms or Johnny Canuck’s for years.

For example, we all know that you need those tough North American players to gut it out and score ugly to win at playoff time as opposed to those soft, finesse-playing Europeans, right? Well, sorry Don Cherry nation, Naylor and McCown blow this myth out of the water in chapter 29.

Ditto for the issue of fans that long for the good old days of hockey when it was a pure game and the players respected each other. Read chapter 62 and today’s goons and enforcers look like altar boys, really!

Or how about a fantasy match between our ’72 Team Canada heroes and US Miracle on Ice team from the 1980 winter Olympics? The logic dissecting this game is in chapter 63.   For the rest, you will have to buy the book.