Gabby: Confessions of a Book Reviewer

All your comments about the book and/or the book signing are welcome here. To kick off the discussion, here is TEB’s report on the first Capitals game of the Boudreau Era.

Just finished reading it. Thank god for daylight savings (I have work tomorrow) but I couldn’t put it down, even though I knew how it all ended, with two game 7 disappointments in two seasons.

It makes me hate Avery that much more, but at the same time makes me love our players for wanting to stick up for BB but having the ability to control themselves. Game 7 of that series is my fondest hockey memory and it was a really bright spot through tough times.

Imma give it a 9/10 needs more Stanley Cups.

Read the Post review from Mike Wise here.

And see the line @ Kettler here.

I picked the cheap shipping on Amazon, so it isn’t here yet. I’m blown.

Good stuff – thanks for FanPosting this.

I’m going to rec this, so that it eventually stays on the front page for a while.

There were probably at least a hundred other things I could or should have been doing yesterday, but instead I was reading. I think most of the best parts of the book were probably already posted here in the teasers, but it’s still an interesting look inside Bruce’s head.

As a parent of children no longer living at home, his opening line about the wake-up call absolutely rang true. If the phone is ringing at an odd hour, you’re almost afraid to pick it up.

And it is entirely possible that he is secretly married to Tomas Fleischmann

Hardy har har, and totally true. I do wonder a little if he’s a bit too loyal for his own good. He admits how it hurt him professionally by sticking with the Leafs instead of going with options that were more financially lucrative and may have gotten him to stick in the NHL. When he talks about how he uses his experiences to motivate his players, it really is a parent trying to explain to his children why they should listen to him. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.

It’s all still jumbled in my head still, I see a few re-reads coming in the next few days. Hey, at 200 pages, it doesn’t take that long!

We skimmed through the book while standing in line, and it was like reminiscing about the past couple of years with Boudreau himself. A lot of “Oh yeah, remember that game??”

Haven’t finished it yet, but it’s an incredibly fascinating read if you’re even a casual fan of the Caps/Hershey Bears.

I know there was at least one other Rink Rat there today. We really need to develop some gang code to flash at these things so we can say “hey”.

You might be joking, but I really wish we did have something. Although I wasn’t at the signing, I am at Kettler fairly regularly, and any time I go watch practice I wonder if I’m sitting next to someone I’m friendly with online and don’t even realize it. I’m tempted to print this on a big luggage tag for my skate bag or something like that…

if you manage to find this in a bookstore, can you post where? Thanks. I hate ordering online.

Just got the book today and read the first few chapters. I have to say, I’m not impressed. It’s super interesting for diehard Caps fans, but it’s not a well-written book. I would not recommend Gabby to people who aren’t of Rink Rats-caliber fandom.
It seems strange Don Cherry would write the (fairly generic) foreword, considering his relations with Caps fans and Ovechkin.
And there’s also the whole “BB should’ve waited to write this until he retired, or at least won the Cup” thing.
From a purely rabid Caps fan perspective, though, it’s great.