We Love Hockey

of the 2011 IIHF Ice Hockey World Championships:

Finnish player Mikael Granlund, just 19 years old, skates

around behind the Russian goal. Suddenly he

scoops the puck onto the toe of his blade, glides forward

past the side of the goal and slams the puck into

the net. The players and spectators go wild. It was a

once-in-a-lifetime goal, a goal that was an artistic

masterpiece, so beautiful that the Finnish post office

created a stamp to celebrate it. Contrast that story

with this one: in Sparta Prague’s home arena, Vladimír

Novácek steers the ice resurfacing machine around

the rink. What’s so special about that? Novácek has

been maintaining the ice for Sparta since 1968; he is

now 82 years old. His work doesn’t prompt much excitement,

and he certainly doesn’t have his own postage

stamp. Still, the young Finnish world champion

and the elderly Czech ice manager are united by their

dedication to the sport of ice hockey. Their stories and

many others are told in We Love Hockey. The very

personal and emotional vignettes and stunning photographs

make this book extremely exciting and give

it a very special place in the sports literature market.

It’s about the greatest and the smallest moments, the

men and women who are passionate about this sport,

and everything that makes ice hockey so fascinating.