Tropic of Hockey: My Search for the Game in Unlikely Places

One hot afternoon in 1998, Dave Bidini - who loves hockey, watches it, plays it, and breathes it - found the Stanley Cup final so tedious to watch that at one point he clicked channels to Martha Stewart - and never switched back. This made him wonder where in the world the game might exist free of the complications of professional sport. He set out to find the tropic of hockey.

His quest took him to a rink on the seventh storey of a mall in Hong Kong - a rink encircled by a dragon-headed roller coaster - and to the gritty city of Harbin in northern China, where a version of hockey has been played for 600 years; to Dubai in the desert of the United Emirates, where hockey is brand new and incredulous Bedouin drop by the Al Ain rink to touch the ice; and to Transylvania, where the game is a war between Romanians and ethnic Hungarians, who were introduced to hockey by a 1929 newsreel of Canadians chasing the puck.

Bidinis encounters with odd-sized rinks and players of wildly different talents and experiences have inspired him to interweave his stories of hockey in unlikely places with funny and eyebrow-raising stories about places and players back in Canada. As a bonus, readers are also treated to some striking observations about the game, its fans, and the testosterone, the profanity, and the moments of grace that enrich it.

Dave Bidinis first book, published in 1998, was the popular and critically acclaimed On a Cold Road, about what its like to tour Canada as a rock and roll band. When he is not writing or travelling the world or playing left defence for his rec team, the Morningstars, Bidini is rhythm guitarist for the Rheostatics. The band has released ten albums to date, including Music Inspired by the Group of Seven, the soundtrack to the film Whale Music, which yielded the hit song “Claire,” and The Story of Harmelodia, a childrens album. A contributor to The Original Six: True Stories from Hockeys Classic Era and to Maple Leaf Gardens: Memories and Dreams 1931-1999, Dave Bidini lives with his wife and daughter in Toronto.