The Series Ken Dryden
The Series: What I Remember, What It Felt Like, What It Feels Like Now
Cover of “The Series: What I Remember, What It Felt Like, What It Feels Like Now” by Ken Dryden, 2023 Heritage Toronto Book Award nominee. Jacket art by Melchior DiGiacomo and Getty Images. Book desig
Author: Ken Dryden
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart, Penguin Random House Canada
September 2, 1972, Montreal Forum, Game One: The best against the best for the first time. Canada, the country that had created the game; the Soviet Union, having taken it up only twenty-six years earlier. On the line: more than the hockey players, more than the fans, more than Canadians and Russians knew. So began an entirely improbable, near-month-long series of games that became more and more riveting, until, for the eighth, and final, and deciding game—on a weekday, during work and school hours all across the country—the nation stopped. Of Canada’s 22 million people, 16 million watched.
Ken Dryden, a goalie in the series, a lifetime observer, later a writer, tells the story in “you are there” style, as if he is living it for the first time. As if you, the reader, are too.
About the Author:
Ken Dryden was a goalie for the Montreal Canadiens in the 1970s, during which time the team won six Stanley Cups. He also played for Team Canada in the 1972 Summit Series. He has been inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. He is a former federal member of parliament and cabinet minister, and is the author of six books, including The Game, Home Game (with Roy MacGregor), and Game Change. He and his wife, Lynda, live in Toronto and have two children and four grandchildren.