frozen in time

Reviewed by John Wong, Washington State University

28 january 2015 archive

frozen in time

Frozen in Time sets out to tell the story of the Minnesota North Stars from its beginning as an expansion National Hockey League (NHL) franchise in 1967 to its relocation to Dallas, Texas in 1993. Its author Adam Raider has been covering the NHL for over a decade and Frozen in Time is his third book on the NHL. Raider's motivation in writing this book is due to "hockey fans, perhaps more than fans of any other sport, have a wonderful appreciation for the history of the game" and he wants to take the readers on a journey "into hockey's colorful past …." (p. ix) The book is divided into ten chapters with only the first four devoted to the story of the team. Chapters five to seven consist of biographies of personnel associated with the teams. A brief chapter eight discusses the facility in which the North Stars played. Rivalries with other teams are depicted in chapter nine and the story ends with another very brief chapter of the new (1997) NHL Minnesota (Wild) franchise.

Of the first four chapters chronicling the North Stars, the first is devoted to a very brief (four pages total) history of hockey in Minnesota and it introduces those who were responsible for the application of an NHL franchise in 1967. Raider then divides the team's story into three periods (no pun intended) with chapter two covering the years between 1967 and 1978, chapter three from 1978 to 1991, and chapter four from 1991 to its move to Dallas in 1993. Loosely, Raider's view of the three periods can be summarized as growing pains, so close to greatness, and abandoning ship respectively. His narrative of the team's fortunes takes after Charles Coleman's massive The Trail of the Stanley Cup (1976) detailing important and interesting events such as trades, games, title chases, etc., chronologically. Fans of hockey and those who are nostalgic about the North Stars will not be disappointed as Raider skillfully brings the team's exploits alive on these pages in a crisp manner. Did you know, for example, that one of the Hanson brothers, a character in the hockey movie cult classic, Slap Shot, played for the North Stars? The author also places snippets of occurrences within the league; although it is not explained why they are there or how they are related to the story and herein lies a major weakness of the book.

Despite the subtitle's claim that Frozen in Time is a history of the team, the entire narrative has little context; hence it is probably more appropriate to call it a chronicle rather than history. Take, as an example, the difficulties that owner Norm Greene had with getting a new, publicly-funded arena which eventually led to the relocation of the team. It would really give a richer understanding of Greene's facility problem had the author considered the changing practice of cities clamoring to lure major league franchises by building stadia and arenas with public funds to a private-public partnership funding model beginning in the late 1980s as America entered into recession.

Unlike many previous hockey publications, however, Frozen in Time includes a bibliography. Raider drew his sources from secondary literature (other popular histories), newspapers, and websites. This is indeed a much welcomed practice as it is generally impossible to know where the authors of these works get their information. Although Raider indicated that interviews were part of his sources, they were not listed in the bibliography however. Despite the presence of a bibliography, no citations were used throughout the narrative making it difficult to ascertain the origin of the information.

Notwithstanding the lack of context and citations, Frozen in Time can be useful to hockey historians as Raider has done much of the leg work in the telling of the North Stars story. Over half of the book is filled with factoids such as player statistics, team records, and trades. For anyone researching on the North Stars, Raider's work will be a most welcome source. Moreover, like The Trail of Stanley Cup, Frozen in Time is not necessarily aimed at an academic audience. If you are a hockey fan or, more specifically, a fan of Minnesota hockey, Frozen in Time should be part of your collection.

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