My 26 Stanley Cups: Memories of a Hockey Life

Dick Irvin was nine years old when he saw the final game of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time. He didn’t know, then, that he would spend most of his professional career watching, describing, and commenting on professional hockey. As the play-by-play announcer for the Montreal Canadiens for some 30 years, and as a member of the CBC’s Hockey Night in Canada broadcast crew for almost as long, Dick Irvin has seen thousands of NHL games. Some he witnessed from an improbably perfect vantage point at the end of the team bench. He saw many more from the broadcast booth in all the storied arenas of the NHL, from the Boston Garden to the Chicago Stadium – but especially from the Forum in Montreal.In this book, Dick Irvin weaves together strands of hockey history with his own stories of professional hockey’s greatest moments, from the 1940s, through the Original Six era, the rough-and-tussle 1970s, the successive dynasties (Habs, Islanders, Oilers) of the 1980s, to the present age of limitless expansion. Dick Irvin has watched and been close to many of the game’s giants – those on both sides of the boards – and he shares his knowledge and keen insight with the reader. My 26 Stanley Cups is a unique contribution to hockey lore, and for hockey fans, an unequalled treat.From the Hardcover edition.