The Last Hockey Game

"Tonight, fans in the Maple Leaf Gardens would groan and cheer and panic in unison." On May 2, 1967, the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs faced each other in a battle for hockey supremacy. It was game six, with Toronto leading the series 3-2, and only the fifth time in twenty-five years that the teams had played each other in the Stanley Cup Finals. But this time, it was much more than a game. From the moment Foster Hewitt announced, "Hello, Canada and hockey fans in the United States," the match between Toronto and Montreal became a turning point in sports history. That night, the Leafs would win the Stanley Cup. The next season, the National Hockey League would expand to twelve teams. The players would form an association. Hockey would become big business. The "Original Six" would become a thing of the past. It was the last hockey game. Placing us in the announcers' booth, in the seats of excited fans, and in the skates of the players, Bruce McDougall scores with a spectacular account of every facet of that final fateful match. As we meet players such as Henri Richard, Tim Horton, Terry Sawchuk and Jean Béliveau, as well as coaches, owners and fans, The Last Hockey Game becomes more than a story of a game. It becomes an elegy, a lament for an age when, for all its many problems, the game was played for love as much as money.