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Old-timey Hockey Tales!
The first tale is an account of the death of Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Bill Barilko and the last involves the events surrounding the 1955 suspension of Montreal Canadians star Maurice “Rocket” Richard. The Barilko story has competent cartooning, but after reading the piece several times, I couldn’t think of one good reason why this was a comic and not simply a written article. The cartooning looked beautiful, but beyond a general aesthetic quality it didn’t serve to enhance the story much. The piece on Richard was a text article, accompanied by a sketch of the subject and a tiny thumbnail strip at the bottom that had nothing to do with the story. While each entry is entertaining and informative in its own right (you can tell Ullman did his homework) neither hits the mark.
Despite these faults, Ullman really does a fantastic job with the main feature, a six page biography of Detroit Red Wings hall-of-famer goalie Terry Sawchuk. The account takes us from Sawchuk’s Winnipeg childhood through his Stanley Cup glory days and into his self destructive later years, and Ullman takes particular care in aging Sawchuk throughout the strip. Hockey can be a tough and outright brutal sport, not to mention the fact that Sawchuk was a goalie in an era where safety equipment such as heavy pads and facemasks were neither required nor considered important. As his career drags on, the caricature of the athlete goes from baby faced rookie to a bruised and battered pro who piled on a crippling amount of alcoholic and mental abuse to the physical punishment of the ice. Despite the fact that Sawchuk was an angry and abusive drunk to strangers, friends, and family, Ullman succeeds in presenting him as a sympathetic and tragic figure.
While the strength of Ullman’s Sawchuk tale makes this book more than worth the $2.00 price, the shortcomings of the secondary material indicate how much more we could be getting from the author. With any luck, Ullman will release a longer biographical work regardless of the focus as he obviously has the ability to make the past emotionally rich and accessible. Grade: 3/5
-- Kiel Phegley
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Ullman’s book presents three true stories of hockey’s golden age from the late 40s through the early 50s. Each of the three stories focuses on a specific player, however the first and last pieces could more easily be referred to as anecdotes, leaving the reader wanting a little more story and substance.