Roy MacGregor has been called "the best hockey writer in the country," and we finally have a collection of his very best hockey writing, revised and updated. For nearly 40 years Roy MacGregor has brought hockey, our national sport, alive on the page. From tales of the game's greats (Guy Lafleur, Jean Beliveau, Marcel Dionne) to today's stars (Sidney Crosby, Alex Ovechkin, Daniel and Henrik Sedin), his magazine and newspaper coverage has revealed so much about these and so many other personalities, in moments of promise, victory and defeat. While many of these stories play out on the ice, some of the most compelling take place on the home front (Mario Lemieux's battle against cancer, the many tribulations of Bob Gainey), and MacGregor's prose shines especially when focused on the human side of a sport defined by superhuman feats of speed, aggression and power. Wayne Gretzky's Ghost is a personal book, and also a book of challenging ideas: that Wayne Gretzky, through no fault of his own, was the worst thing to happen to hockey; that CBC's Hockey Night in Canada has lost sight of what it is; that goaltending has become a position out of all proportion to what was intended. And who could offer a better perspective on the game than a writer who, playing as a youngster, had to face an onrushing phenom from Parry Sound named Bobby Orr, or who spent a year ghostwriting a national newspaper column for the Great One himself? When it comes to hockey, Roy MacGregor has seen (and in some cases, done) it all.

ロイ・マクレガーは、ホッケーをカナダの魂として描き出す稀代の物語作家です。本作の魅力は、英雄たちの超人的な活躍の裏にある、病や葛藤といった人間的な横顔に肉薄する文学的洞察にあります。氷上の格闘技に潜む「生」の脆さを捉える彼の筆致は、スポーツライティングの枠を超えた深い感動を呼び起こします。 また、レジェンドの功罪を問う批評精神と、自身の私的な記憶が交錯する構成も圧巻です。単なる記録ではなく、競技という鏡を通して「時代の変遷」と「人間の真理」を凝視するその姿勢は、読む者の心を激しく揺さぶります。叙事詩のような深みを持つ本作は、読者を熱き思索の旅へと誘う至高の一冊です。