Stephen Smith

Why did a couple of Zacks feel the need to shed their gloves this October in Edmonton to fling fists at each other’s heads? Could be, I guess, that Zack Kassian, a winger for the Oilers, disparaged Zack MacEwen’s manhood, mother, or mien. It was the NHL’s pre-season still, so maybe MacEwen, then a Vancouver…

In case you hadn’t heard, hockey is failing fast, bound for oblivion. But then again, wasn’t it always? Ask any old pro a couple of years beyond his prime, and he’ll tell you straight up: the game today isn’t what it was when he was young and chasing pucks. The Hall of Fame defenceman Eddie Shore had been retired for almost a decade in 1949 when he bewailed the players who’d succeeded his generation of…

I tend to talk on the ice. I’m speaking here not of the regular chorus of swearing and middle-aged male complaint that is the usual soundtrack of your typical Friday morning pick-up hockey game—this has more to do with narrative. As the guys I play with will testify, if I’m not the one who’s going to score a…

If you’re someone who’s mothered a famous hockey player, chances are that you have not subsequently gone out and written a book about it. Is this because your parental pride is more private than, say, a father’s, your fulfillment so much the quieter? Or because you don’t feel the same urgent need to explain your…

Hard to say just when the ghosts got into the Montreal Forum. We know that they were definitely ensconced in the rafters of that bygone rink by 1989, if only because the upstart Calgary Flames, in town that spring to challenge the Canadiens for the Stanley Cup, are on the record talking about having to conquer…