Putting a Roof on Winter: Hockey's Rise from Sport to Spectacle

by Michael McKinley

Combining rich period detail, gripping narrative and thrilling hockey action, Putting a Roof on Winter brilliantly explores the changing identity of a game that has become, for those who love it, the meaning of life in winter.

Genres: Hockey, Sports, Nonfiction, Canada, History

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Michael McKinley is an author, filmmaker, journalist, and screenwriter. A Vancouver native, he was educated at the University of British Columbia, and then at the University of Oxford. As a journalist, he has written for publications on both sides of the Atlantic, and has won national newswriting awards. He has produced several television shows for CNN, History, and the CBC, and is the author of several books, among them Codebreakers: The Secret Intelligence Unit that Changed the Course of the First World War (with James Wyllie) and Finding Jesus: Faith. Fact. Forgery, the companion book to the CNN TV series he created with David Gibson. He lives in New York City.
https://www.amazon.com/Michael-McKinl...

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Reviews

[Paul Haspel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Placing ice hockey in the context of its Canadian origins turns out to be an apt way to frame a history of the game. Michael McKinley, a Vancouver-based journalist, keeps the focus of his book Putting a Roof on Winter on the role of hockey in Canadian national life, from the time when the first indoor game of hockey was played in 1875 at a skating rink in Montreal. So quickly did hockey gain popularity among Canadians from sea to sea that Canada’s Governor General, Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley (or Lord Stanley of Preston), commissioned in 1892 what he called the "Dominion Challenge Trophy" - a prize that would one day come to be somewhat better known as the Stanley Cup.

Lord Stanley always loved hockey – after returning to Great Britain in 1893, he arranged a hockey game at Buckingham Palace, with the future King Edward VII playing on the “Palace” team, while a “[d]oubtless unamused…Queen Victoria looked on from the safety of a balcony, mulling the grim future that would befall the monarchy should this rough and fast colonial game claim her sons” – but it is strange to reflect that “the man who made possible Stanley Cup glory for the young country of Canada never saw a contest for the cup that bore his name” (p. 53).

The book's title, Putting a Roof on Winter, refers to the strategic and tactical changes that occurred when hockey, once a wide-open game that was played on frozen ponds and lakes, moved indoors and was played within the more confined space of arenas; among other things, putting the players in such close quarters inevitably made hockey as hard-hitting as it is fast-moving. And as indicated by the book's subtitle, Hockey's Rise from Sport to Spectacle, McKinley chronicles how hockey quickly became not only Canada's national game but an integral part of Canadian culture.

Chapters about the establishment and early years of the National Hockey League are followed by chapters that detail the histories of the three most successful Stanley Cup-winning teams in NHL history: the Montreal Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Detroit Red Wings. The three less successful of the NHL's Original Six teams -- the Boston Bruins, the Chicago Black Hawks, and the New York Rangers -- do not get chapters of their own, though there is a fine chapter regarding the importance of Boston's number 4, defenseman Bobby Orr, in revitalizing the game of hockey during the 1970's.

Through McKinley's diligent research, one learns how the Red Wings rose from humble beginnings to become the winningest U.S. team of the NHL. It is interesting to read of the Canadiens as not just hockey's most successful team but also les glorieux – a club renowned for the style and grace with which its members played the game, and a team that brought pride to the people of the province of Québec at a time when the Québécois people still faced significant discrimination within Canadian life.

And the Maple Leafs chapter is illuminating in its depiction of Conn Smythe's unbending personality. Always fierce in his ways, Smythe survived German prisoner-of-war camps during the First World War; and when he came home to Toronto, he later recalled telling himself that “Four years of my life were gone, and I hadn’t done a thing yet….But I was going to make up for it, of that I was damn sure” (p. 106). The devoutly Protestant Smythe made a point, after purchasing the old Toronto St. Pats, of changing the team's Catholic-sounding “St. Pats” name to “Maple Leafs” and putting the team in blue rather than green sweaters.

Twenty years later, when the Second World War began, Conn Smythe “made his 1939 Leafs take military training with the Toronto Scottish regiment, and he urged all of his players to join a militia” (p. 203). Throughout his long and often controversial career, Conn Smythe presented his Toronto team to Canada and the rest of the world with a fierce determination that the anglophone Maple Leafs, rather than the francophone Canadiens, would be the club known as "Canada's Team."

Throughout Putting a Roof on Winter, McKinley captures well the drama of hockey, the way in which it combines speed and strength, in passages such as this one that describes a one-handed goal that Gordie Howe of the Red Wings scored against the Canadiens:

First, Howe faked out Montreal’s peerless defenseman Doug Harvey, who desperately spun and draped his stick over Howe as he charged the net. The six-foot, 200-pound Howe took one hand off his stick and used it to lever Harvey onto the toes of his skate blades. Then, with only one hand half-way down his stick, Howe swept in front of Jacques Plante, who followed the puck. Howe saw daylight and roofed the puck hard into the net, the bulging twine straining as if it had caught a cannonball. (p. 151)

Putting a Roof on Winter concludes with a thoughtful chapter titled "Our Game" that looks ahead to the changes that hockey would undergo once the Cold War ended and players from the former Soviet Union and its erstwhile satellite states were able to play in the NHL. Writing from a loyally Canadian perspective, McKinley states that "Hockey was our game. What we didn't know was that it was our game to lose" (p. 244).

The "Summit Series" of 1972 between Canada and the Soviet Union is not widely known among U.S. hockey fans; but in Canada, the manner in which the more finesse-oriented Soviets took a lead over the bruising Canadians, and for a time seemed likely to defeat Team Canada, became virtually a national crisis from Gander to Victoria. While Team Canada battled back and managed to win the series 4-3 (with one tie), the Summit Series served notice that ice hockey, the great Canadian game, had become truly an international game.

Well-written and well-researched, illustrated with helpful photographs of everything from an outdoor hockey game in the Yukon Territory in 1900 to Bobby Orr "taking flight" after scoring the goal that won the Stanley Cup for the Boston Bruins over the Saint Louis Blues in 1970, Putting a Roof on Winter makes for a fine read for the history-minded hockey fan. Published by Greystone Books of Vancouver, this book does well at situating hockey within Canadian society and culture.

And I hope that author McKinley, a Vancouver Canucks fan, will someday get to see his favourite team join the 1915 Vancouver Millionaires and the 1925 Victoria Cougars in bringing a Stanley Cup home to British Columbia.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well written book that has extensive details on the early formation of hockey. Includes details that are hard to find in any other book. Great for learing about the pre-NHL history of the game, as well as some of the lesser known, and shadier, aspects of the Original Six era. Also offers a short description of the Summit Series, possibly one of the most defining tournaments in sports history.

The only problems I had with the book were few and far between. A lack of a bibliography stands out, which would have been nice for someone hoping to look further into the subject at hand. I also sawk, in one chapter at least (about Cyclone Taylor), what looked like a clear case of plagerism, with a whole paragraph lifted out of another book written about Taylor (Cyclone Taylor: A Hockey Legend, by Eric Whitehead). There were also several factual errors, with the author giving the wrong years for players winning awards in nearly every occassion. One that stood out for me was stating that Syl Apps was the first winner of the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year in 1937 when Carl Voss was the inaugural winner in 1933. This happened several times, and by the end I was becoming concerned that if the author couldn't get these simple dates correct, what other parts of the book are wrong, specifically parts that aren't so easy to find a source for.

Regardless, the book is excellent for anyone looking to learn how hockey rose from nothing to become the sport that it is today.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very interesting overview of the first 100 years of hockey history dating from the first organized game that looked like modern hockey in Montreal in 1875 (along with a review of hockey's development prior to that) to the late 20th century version, with an emphasis on the development of hockey as a spectator sport. This is a very well-written and readable book. There are a number of interesting anecdotes from years gone by that I had never read in any other hockey book, but the lack of bibliography or citations, plus the fact that I've never seen the author's name on any other hockey book, left me wondering if he had unearthed some fascinating historical hockey treasures, or was simply repeating word-of-mouth legends. Overall, though, this is a very good overview of the development of professional hockey through its infancy to present-day.

[Paul Haspel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Published by Vancouver-based Greystone Books, Putting a Roof on Winter places strong emphasis on all that is Canadian about the sport of ice hockey. Author Michael McKinley focuses on the role of hockey in Canadian national life from the time when the first indoor game of hockey was played in 1875 at a Montreal skating rink. So quickly did hockey gain popularity across Canada that Canadian Governor General Lord Stanley of Preston commissioned in 1892 what he called the "Dominion Challenge Trophy" -- a prize that would one day come to be somewhat better known as the Stanley Cup.

The book's title, Putting a Roof on Winter, refers to the strategic and tactical changes that occurred when hockey, once a wide-open game that was played on frozen ponds and lakes, moved indoors and was played within the more confined space of arenas. And as indicated by the book's subtitle, Hockey's Rise from Sport to Spectacle, McKinley chronicles how hockey quickly became not only Canada's national game but an integral part of Canadian culture.

Chapters about the establishment and early years of the National Hockey League are followed by chapters that detail the histories of the three most successful Stanley Cup-winning teams in NHL history: the Montreal Canadiens, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Detroit Red Wings. The three less successful of the NHL's Original Six teams -- the Boston Bruins, the Chicago Black Hawks, and the New York Rangers -- do not get chapters of their own, though there is a fine chapter regarding the importance of Boston's number 4, defenseman Bobby Orr, in revitalizing the game of hockey during the 1970's.

Through McKinley's diligent research, one learns how the Red Wings rose from humble beginnings to become the winningest U.S. team of the NHL. It is interesting to read of the Canadiens as not just hockey's most successful team but also les glorieux, a club renowned for the style and grace with which its members played the game, and a team that brought pride to the people of the province of Québec at a time when the Québécois people still faced significant discrimination within Canadian life. And the Maple Leafs chapter is illuminating in its depiction of Conn Smythe's autocratic ways (a devout Protestant, he made a point, after purchasing the old Toronto St. Pats, of changing the team's Catholic-sounding name and putting the team in blue rather than green sweaters) and his determination that the anglophone Maple Leafs, rather than the francophone Canadiens, would be the club known as "Canada's Team."

Putting a Roof on Winter concludes with a thoughtful chapter titled "Our Game" that looks ahead to the changes that hockey would undergo once the Cold War ended and players from the former Soviet Union were able to play in the NHL. Writing from a loyally Canadian perspective, McKinley states that "Hockey was our game. What we didn't know was that it was our game to lose" (p. 244). The "Summit Series" of 1972 between Canada and the Soviet Union is not widely known among U.S. hockey fans; but in Canada, the manner in which the more finesse-oriented Soviets took a lead over the bruising Canadians, and for a time seemed likely to defeat Team Canada, became virtually a national crisis from Halifax to Victoria. While Team Canada battled back and managed to win the series 4-3 (with one tie), the Summit Series served notice that ice hockey, the great Canadian game, had become truly an international game.

Well-written and well-researched, illustrated with helpful photographs of everything from a circa-1900 outdoor hockey game in the Yukon Territory to Bobby Orr "taking flight" after scoring the goal that won the Stanley Cup for the Boston Bruins over the Saint Louis Blues in 1970, Putting a Roof on Winter makes for a fine read for the serious and history-minded hockey fan, one that situates hockey well within Canadian society and culture.

[Jeff Koslowski · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great read for the serious hockey historian. The early chapters contain material not often written about and are thus desired. Once you get beyond the embryonic stages of indoor hockey, the Stanley Cup, and the NHL, the author picks and chooses teams and dynasties that he thinks helps to shown the progression of the game as a spectacle. These chapters are nice but if you like the 1800's/early 1900's history, it's a lot of the same stuff you've seen in other works. An interesting point he does reference is the expansion of the game across Canada thanks to the railroad and the industrial revolution. You see similar ties to the expansion of baseball.

Overall, a good read and highly recommended for sports fans but a must for hockey fans.

[Michael Mckinley]

The first indoor hockey match took place in 1875–and since that fateful date, the sport has occupied a central place in North American life. Here are the gods and villains of the game, those whose exploits won cheers, drew forth curses, and sometimes even elicited tears.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked it, for the most part. Lots of grammar/spelling/copy-editing mistakes, though. But the subject matter was excellent.

[Gerry · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, which was well-researched and interesting to read. I have to dock it half a star, though, due to numerous typos. Whoever proofread this must have been multitasking.