Carey Price
Carey Price
BACK AND FORTH
In September 2007, Carey arrived for his third Canadiens training camp. Coach Guy Carbonneau wasn’t sure if he was ready. Would another AHL season be better for the young goalie? But Carey was determined to make it to the NHL that year. He worked hard in training camp and was chosen as the backup goalie to Cristobal Huet. Carey was staying in Montreal!
Carey made his NHL debut on October 10, 2007 in the Canadiens’ third game of the season. They were facing off against the Pittsburgh Penguins and their young superstar Sidney Crosby. Although Crosby and Carey had been drafted in 2005, Crosby had been playing – and scoring big! – in the NHL for two full seasons. That night Crosby had a whopping six shots on net . . . and Carey stopped every one. The final score was 3-2 for the Habs – Carey’s first NHL win!
Carey Price is the sixth title in the “Amazing Hockey Stories” series, the previous books being Connor McDavid, Hayley Wickenheiser, P. K. Subban, Mitch Marner and Alex Ovechkin, and the first to feature a goalie.
A quick read, Carey Price is essentially organized chronologically; however, it begins with a chapter titled “Improbable” in which author Nicholson references Price’s acceptance speech at the 2015 NHL Awards where he accepted the Vezina Trophy as the league’s best goalkeeper:
“People would say it’s very improbable that I’d make it to this point in my life. I made it here because I wasn’t discouraged. I worked hard to get here, took advantage of every opportunity that I had. I would really like to encourage First Nations youth to be leaders in their communities. Be proud of your heritage, and don’t be discouraged from the improbable.”
Nicholson then takes readers back to Price’s childhood in Anahim Lake in British Columbia’s Cariboo region and carries his hockey story forward through his time in the Western Hockey League, the American Hockey League, and finally the National Hockey League, where, since 2007, he has been a significant member of the Montreal Canadiens’ goaltending tandem. Additionally, the text also references the various international tournaments in which Price donned a Canadian jersey to represent his country. The book essentially ends with the beginning of the 2021-22 NHL season with Price’s entering the NHL’s player assistance program. As an aside, a September 13, 2022 article in the Montreal Gazette reported that “Carey Price isn’t expected to play any games for the Canadiens this season and his career could be over at age 35 because of a knee injury that limited him to five games last season.”
Like the other offerings in the series, Carey Price contains four multi-page graphic novel-like sections created by illustrator D. A. Bishop. These are interspersed among the text chapters with the first featuring a hockey episode from Price’s childhood hockey-playing days, the second a critical semi-final game in the 2007 World Junior Ice Hockey Championship, the third his goaltending during the 2014 Winter Olympic Games, and the last highlighting Price’s play in the sixth game of the 2021 North Conference Finals. The reader-friendly main text is augmented by numerous captioned, full-colour action photos of Price at various points in his lengthy hockey career. Many of the text pages also contain “trivia” speech bubbles, with an example being “Shane Doan, who had a 21-year career playing for the Coyotes franchise, is Carey’s second cousin.” Other speech bubbles are paired, with one containing a question and the other the answer, For instance:
Other than hockey, what are Carey’s favourite games?
Foosball and Hungry Hungry Hippos.
Though Carey Price may not be picked up as quickly as Connor McDavid and Mitch Marner, biographies featuring current, goal-scoring younger stars, Carey Price’s contents offer readers a look at what it’s like to play a position where everyone’s eyes are always on you, cheering your saves while quickly criticizing you when the opposition lights the lamp.
Dave Jenkinson, CM’s editor, lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.