Calling the Shots: Memoirs of an NHL Referee

by Bruce Hood

The author, a hockey referee for for twenty-one years, looks back on his career and describes how the NHL has changed

Genres: Hockey, Sports, Nonfiction

242 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1989

Reviews

[Chelsea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book. Hood really helped me see another realm of on ice life. It gave me a new found respect for all officials. “They’re just doing their job” - Bruce Hood 💙🏒

[Teebz Hbic · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review for Calling the Shots can be found on Hockey Blog In Canada.

[catechism · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know how sometimes there's a rickety table set up at the grocery store that's covered in terrible books from the 80s that no one wants? Maybe they cost like a nickel for some charity. This book came to me from just such a table.

I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't characterize it as particularly good. It starts with Hood's account of the Good Friday Massacre, and then maybe one-third of the book is a straightforward count of his life as an NHL ref. The rest of it is like a grab-bag of stream-of-consciousness chapters about random things: the formation of the Officials Association, his thoughts on players, that time he got punched in the face, how much he loves Los Angeles, a detailed list of all the injuries he sustained, his suggestions for hockey sweaters, etc. The hockey stories & other minutiae from the 60s & 70s is really fascinating, and I feel like this is a fun book to flip through on occasion. There is no real point to actually reading it straight through, though. It is not that sort of book.