Many early readers of Stories About Storytellers have remarked that they finish reading it only to rush to pick up one of the other books Doug has so lovingly described. So to make it easier, this recurring feature revisits some of those books and reminds you why they’re worth a read. Last time, we revisited Paddle to the Amazon by Don Starkell, and this we’re featuring . . .

The Game by Ken Dryden (1983)

The CBC Canada Reads competition was won last year by my friend Terry Fallis and his political satire The Best Laid Plans. (Try to catch up with it and its successor, The High Road. Terry has a gift for easy, funny writing with distinct and memorable characters who make the events of the plot fly by, with the good guys winning in the end. Yay! And this fall there will be a new Terry Fallis book, Up and Down, also edited by yours truly.)

This year I had hopes that books edited by me would win Canada Reads two years in a row, since Ken Dryden’s The Game was a hot contender. My emotions were split, because I was the publisher (although not the editor) of my good friend Dave Bidini’s book On a Cold Road. But when Dave’s book fell by the wayside in the harsh voting, I was able to root wholeheartedly for the book that Ken and I worked on way back in 1983.

Looking at my copy today, I’m impressed by the confidence that led me to write on the book’s back cover, “You are about to read one of the best books ever written about any sport.” I still believe that to be true. And I remember that the late Trent Frayne wrote in the Globe that it was “the sports book of the year, and of the decade, and even of the century!”

Ken and I (as readers of my book know) are such good friends that I was able to play a practical joke on him, involving a Preston Manning imitation. I am still touched by what he wrote in my copy of The Game: “For Doug . . . We have gone through a lot for a long time. I hope you’re as satisfied with the end result as I am. Thank you for all your help and patience.”

I’m delighted that Canada Reads (and Ken’s book lost narrowly in the last round, although it won the popular vote) has brought The Game to the attention of a whole new generation of readers.

For Doug’s tales of Ken Dryden (including his Preston Manning prank) see 311-314 of Stories About Storytellers.