For almost 30 years, Barry Melrose was THE voice of hockey in the United States. The former player and coach was a fixture on ESPN’s hockey broadcast from the mid-1990s to the early 2020s. For most of his tenure, he was the lead studio analyst for ESPN’s NHL 2Night.
Sadly, Melrose passed away earlier this year due to complications with Parkinson’s disease. That prompted me to read his book “Dropping the Gloves: Inside the Fiercely Combative World of Professional Hockey.” The book is co-written with author Roger Vaughan and has a foreword by Wayne Gretzky.
Notes
Title: Dropping the Gloves: Inside the Fiercely Combative World of Professional Hockey
Author: Barry Melrose & Roger Vaughan, with a foreword by Wayne Gretzky
Pages: 256 pages
Size: 6″ x 9″
Format: Hardcover, Paperback & Kindle
Buy it at Amazon
Publisher: FENN-McClelland & Stewart
“Dropping the Gloves” goes from Melrose’s early days as a youth hockey player growing up in Kelvington, a small town in Saskatchewan, and through his life as a pro player, coach at the various ranks, and TV analyst until 2012, when the book was first published. He also touches on his abbreviated comeback as an NHL coach in 2008, before returning to broadcasting for good in 2009. The 2013 paperback edition includes a bonus Afterword chapter where Melrose gives his takes on the 2012 NHL lockout, the league making visors mandatory, and hits to the head.
The book is a fairly linear progression of Melrose’s life: junior hockey stardom, getting drafted by the Montreal Canadiens, playing in the WHA during the league’s final years, then playing in the NHL and AHL, and then transitioning into coaching. He also talks about becoming one of hockey’s greatest talking heads.
But Melrose goes off on a lot of tangents in his book – probably too many for my liking. (And those who listen to my podcast know I love to go off on tangents.) For example, he talks about a teammate standing up for him against an obnoxious hockey fan, then segues into how hockey players are tough – but also polite. Haven’t we heard Don Cherry, Wayne Gretzky, and umpteen others more or less say the same thing over and over? Melrose also talks about coaching Gretzky in L.A. but seems to talk less about that experience. and more about stuff like why superstars need to be coached differently, or about the locker room dynamics between players and coaches.
That’s nice knowing, for sure, though I’d rather know about what it was like to be the coach of the Kings during the team’s bankruptcy and owner Bruce McNall going to prison.
Unfortunately, Melrose is also a little too modest. While everything and everyone he talks about is interesting, I wish he talked more about himself in “Dropping the Gloves.” He also doesn’t share many stories about his (as of press time) 15+ years at ESPN.
Excerpt that Epitomizes “Dropping the Gloves”: I had always been one of those guys who had to work hard to make the team at the start of the season, and who had to battle to keep his job. But I had confidence. I knew that I should be in the NHL, but I never had illusions about my talent level. I knew I was always a couple of bad games away from the AHL.
I was still a fighting defensceman. I wasn’t just a fighter. I held my own as a player. But fighting was part of my role. Dropping the gloves and taking guys on never got old or difficult for me because I knew I had to do it. There’s an old saying in hockey: “When a crusher becomes a rusher, he will soon be an usher.” That simply means when a tough guy forgets what his job is, he will soon be out of the game. I’ve seen that saying played out more than once, so I knew what I needed to do to stay in hockey. And I was willing to do it. I would have done anything to stay in hockey.
What I like about “Dropping the Gloves”: Melrose’s book is light and breezy, and feels like a quick read, despite his actual story being 234 pages long. You learn how he grinded out an 11-year pro hockey career. He also shares his coaching philosophies and how they differ at the NHL, minor league, and junior levels. Eight pages of black-and-white photos help to illustrate his career.
What I do not like about “Dropping the Gloves”: Honestly, I was a bit disappointed in how little depth the book had overall. While Melrose does talk a lot about coaching, a most of his playing career is glossed over. For example, he mentions his trade from the Winnipeg Jets to the Toronto Maple Leafs, goes off on tangents for 12 pages, and then gets back to his first game as a Leaf. He then goes off on other tangents, then rounds out the chapter with a page and a half about his three seasons in Toronto. His three years and 173 games with the Leafs – where he played most of his NHL career – is summed up in about four pages.
“Dropping the Gloves” is an easy and enjoyable read that is more about Melrose’s own musings about all things hockey than an actual autobiography – though he does talk about his life and career enough for the book to qualify as such. This is the kind of book you can knock out in a couple of sittings.
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