Stephen Harper’s hockey book released to solid reviews

It’s being marketed as a tale for hockey obsessives. But what it is, really, is something better and more interesting and, from the perspective of book sellers, probably less saleable: a history of Canada in the early years of the last century, before the old world was washed away by The Great War.

Mr. Harper’s book reads a bit like a PhD thesis, which is to say that it is well researched, and sometimes heavy going. He seems to be aiming to write the definitive take on these events, so minor details aren’t left out. The pacing of the narrative sometimes suffers. But the Prime Minister does a good job of taking you back to the country, and the time, that gave birth to the national game.

The book is no mere collection of thoughtful essays or policy recommendations, as one might expect from a sitting politician.

Rather, it is a 320-page scholarly history of an obscure period in Toronto hockey more than a century ago, with footnotes and bibliography. It is as if President Obama published a densely researched study of early basketball in Chicago.

Harper has written a finely detailed history of the struggle between professionalism and amateurism in early 20th-century Ontario hockey.

In “A Great Game,” Harper had the assistance of a full-time researcher and the editing help of the distinguished Canadian sportswriter Roy MacGregor, but the work is his. It includes insightful examinations of class and religion and the roles they played in a country that still saw itself as a pillar of the British Empire, all viewed through the prism of hockey at the dawn of the pro era.

It was clearly not Mr. Harper’s intention to draw grand parallels to the modern game, or to psychoanalyze the Canadian hockey fan. But there is precious little analysis here of anything, and not much “perspective” either, and so one pines for it. There is evidence of “passion,” certainly: Only a true love of the subject matter could sustain the creative force necessary to create such a savagely dull tome. But that’s about it.

Indeed, Mr. Harper has given us a remarkably meticulous academic account of events that, when considered after reading and distilling them, are objectively fascinating. I suspect that’s what he set out to do, and it would be churlish to begrudge him the accomplishment or to pretend I expected a thrill-a-minute page-turner. He says he wrote it himself, and I absolutely believe him. But with a looser analytical lip and some judicious editing — if not a ghostwriter, full stop — the Prime Minister might have given us something considerably more enjoyable.