The 100 Greatest Players in NHL History: A new ebook from DGB and friends

Later this week, the NHL will unveil it's list of the Top 100 players in league history. But they're not actually ranking it, which seems to take half the fun out of the whole thing.

Well, I can't do much about the loser point or low-scoring games or most of the other things I complain about. But with the help of a few friends, I can do something about this.

Biscuits co-host Dave Lozo and I have teamed with Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshynski to present The 100 Greatest Player in NHL History (And Other Stuff): An Arbitrary Collection of Arbitrary Lists. It's an ebook that you can purchase from Amazon and iTunes, with other sources to come.

For the cost of a magazine -- $8 Canadian/$6 American -- you get:

• Our Top 100, counted down from 100 to 1.
  
• Writeups for each player -- you're pretty much guaranteed to learn something you didn't know about hockey history.
  
• Other arbitrary lists, including Gary Bettman's worst decisions, and my predictions for what the NHL will look like when it turns 125.
  
• A dissenter's section, in which the three of us rip into each other's worst rankings.
  
• Your personal favorite player, who is guaranteed to not be ranked high enough.
  
• The list Dave Lozo was born to write: 100 NHL players whose names sound vaguely dirty.

Download it today from:
- Amazon.ca
- Amazon.com
- iTunes

(More formats are on the way; I'll update here as they arrive.)

Once you own it, feel free to contact Dave, Greg and I directly to tell us which specific rankings were our biggest mistakes.

And as always, thanks for your continued support. This was a fun project to work on, and I hope you enjoy it.

A quick book update

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an update on The Best Of Down Goes Brown. Unfortunately, there was a good reason for that: There wasn’t much to say, because for the past few months the book’s been out of stock at all of the major online stores.

In some sense that was a positive, since it means people are buying the book faster than the stores can stock it. Having to hang up an occasional “sold out” sign isn’t a bad thing. But in this case, “occasional” somehow stretched into “pretty much permanent”. I heard from plenty of people who had to wait weeks and months to get their copies, or who had their orders cancelled altogether. That’s not cool, and you have my apologies.

So here’s the good news: As of this week, it looks like the book is finally back in stock at sites like Amazon and Indigo, and there’s a second printing on the way that should prevent this from happening again. If you had an order that was on hold, it should ship soon. If your order was cancelled, or you gave up waiting, you can try again if you’d like.

Here's where you can find it: Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Barnes & Noble | Chapters/Indigo

In the meantime, here’s some evidence that the book really does exist once again:

Well shoot, now I guess I'm going to have to learn how to read... (cc: @downgoesbrown to redeem my free RT) twitter.com/JapersRink/sta…

— JapersRink (@JapersRink) March 11, 2013

@downgoesbrown It arrived! I called in sick to work to read it. Told my bosses my Kasparaitis was acting up. yfrog.com/esxj1vsj

— Hockey Brunch in CHI (@HockeyBrunch) March 12, 2013

Super late Christmas present from my dad. #worththewait @downgoesbrown twitter.com/esien/status/3…

— Elizabeth (@esien) March 13, 2013

Yay! Add this to my weekend plans! @downgoesbrown twitter.com/kathrynhockey/…

— Kathryn H (@kathrynhockey) March 14, 2013

Five hockey books for your last-minute shopping

One of the cool things that happens when you write a hockey book is that… hey, have I mentioned that I wrote a hockey book? I totally did write a hockey book. I probably should have brought it up on twitter or something, because I’m sure people would have been interested in hearing more information about that.

OK, I’ll shut up.

But as I was saying, one of the cool things that happens when you write a hockey book (which I did) is that other people who write them too start sending you free copies. So this fall, in between bouts of vaguely annoying spamming, I’ve been reading some excellent hockey books.

If you haven’t finished your Christmas shopping yet (and let’s face it, you haven’t), here are five titles to consider stuffing a few stockings with this year.

Journeyman, by Sean Pronger

Sean Pronger spent a decade in the NHL, including brief stints with… well, everyone. This is his story, and while it doesn’t involve the thrill of a championship or detailed descriptions of what it’s like to win hardware at the NHL awards show, that’s kind of the point. This isn’t the typical superstar’s biography – Pronger takes you the life of an NHLer who’s often just barely hanging onto a job.

I enjoyed it thoroughly, although I admit I got a weird vibe from the chapter titled “That time my younger brother strangled the blogger who kept making fun of him” that just reads “Coming in the next edition”.

Read the rest of this post...

Toronto media stops figuratively beating up Leaf fans, moves on to literally beating them up

Move over, Leafs Abomination. There's a new contender in the lucrative "Bitter reporter does a hatchet job on the Maple Leafs" book market.

Why The Leafs Suck, by Al Strachan, apparently went on sale this week even though nobody I know has ever heard of it. The book will feature Strachan's insight into what's wrong with the Leafs, which no doubt means it will be an attempted evisceration of Pat Quinn.

But here's the fun part: As part of the marketing for the book, the promotion team has created a youtube channel with several videos that have been viewed literally dozens of times.

And you have to give Strachan credit here. While he's obviously not the first member of the Toronto media to fantasize about acts of random, brutal violence against Leaf fans, he is the first to actually put it on film.

Wow.

How did the meeting go where they decided to film this?

Executive: OK, what's the pitch here?
Marketing guy: I'm thinking we start off with footage of a Leaf fan being randomly beaten up, with absolutely no context or explanation of what's happening.
Executive: Can we use loud sound effects, and constantly vary the film speed for no reason?
Marketing guy: Of course!
Executive: OK, good start. Then what?
Marketing guy: Then we cut to a closeup of Al Strachan.
Executive: Great idea, the camera loves the guy. How do we bring it all home?
Marketing guy: I'm thinking we do interviews with homeless people.
Executive: Perfect! Get out there and film this!
Marketing guy: What's my budget?
Executive: Seven dollars.
Marketing guy: More than enough. Let's roll!

In all seriousness, this book could be a worthwhile read. Strachan has just the right mix of experience, insight, bitterness and good old-fashioned crazy to come up with something entertaining. Whether you love Al or hate him, you'd have to agree that he's not exactly shy about sticking the knife into an enemy, real or perceived. A full book of finger-pointing could be a lot of fun.

And if the whole author thing doesn't work out for him, it looks like he can always turn to a career in snuff films.

(Glove tap to DGB reader Lowell for letting me know about the videos.)