Ken Reid - One Night Only: Conversations with the NHLs One-Game Wonders

This is a book for beer leaguers. For every kid who ever laced up their skates. Its for everyone who had to pick up a net and move it when somebody else yelled, Car!

This is a book for everyone who ever dreamed of making it but didnt and for everyone who ever dreamed of hitting the NHL ice for just one night or just one shift.

Like countless other Canadian kids, I dreamed of one day playing in the NHL. Those dreams quickly disappeared, when at the age of eight, I was assigned to a Novice 2 team instead of the uber-talented Novice 1 squad (at least I thought they were uber-talented). It was around that time that I decided to find a way to still be a part of the hockey world even though I wasnt good enough to play in it. Luckily for me, I found my way into sports broadcasting.

But that idea of strapping on the blades at the games highest level has never really left my imagination. As a kid, you dream of scoring the winning goal in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, but as you grow older reality begins to set in. Not everyone will get to do that. And then maybe you settle on just making it to the NHL for a few years. But not everyone can do that either.

Im sure there were many others who, like me, settled on this thought: Id give anything to play just one game in the NHL.

In fact, about 350 men, give or take, managed to do just that play in a single NHL game, not one game more. One Night Only comprises the stories of men who made it all the way to the best league in the world if only for the briefest hockey moment.

So, was their one game a dream come true? Or did they feel more like Cinderella, their dreams cruelly snatched away? Were they bitter? Or were they simply satisfied to have defied the odds by making it to the sports pinnacle?

Back in my minor-hockey days, a hockey school would visit my hometown in Nova Scotia at the start of each season. It was called Coach International. Every year, we were told an NHLer who had some Nova Scotian roots, Trevor Fahey, ran the school. I dont remember ever seeing Mr. Fahey, but Im sure he was there he just didnt stand out among the other instructors decked out in their maroon Coach International track suits. It wasnt like it is now; after a session with the guys from Coach International, we couldnt just head home and google the names of our instructors. I knew Bobby Heighton played for the Pictou Jr. C Mariners but Trevor Fahey always remained a bit of a mystery. Many years later I learned that Trevor Fahey played in one contest for the New York Rangers in 196465. It was his only NHL game. He went on to play university hockey (imagine that, suiting up in university after making it all the way to the NHL) and was one of the first Canadians to head over to Russia to study how that country produced such great hockey players.

Fast forward to just a couple of years ago. I was up late one night, racking my brain for ideas. Hockey Card Stories was in stores and I was rummaging through my past, looking for something else to write about. I had been debating between writing another hockey-card book (Im going to, for those who have been asking) or taking a different path. I was thinking of some of the guys from my neck of the woods who had made it to the NHL, when I thought of Trevor Fahey again. Suddenly I wanted to know more about him.

What was it like to make it all the way to the NHL for one game? A dream come true? Or was it heartbreaking? Could he even remember the actual game? Does it in any way define him all these years later? A quick online search showed me exactly how many men had played just a single game. I figured I was on to something.

A few days later in our wardrobe room at Sportsnet, Jeff Marek asked me about my next book idea and I told him. He said hed had exactly the same idea. The original plan was for Marek and I to write this book together, but that didnt happen. Jeffs a busy guy. Luckily for me he did write the foreword. (Thanks, Palm Isle.) It was good to find out that, like Jeff, Im not the only freak out there whos not only obsessed with the superstars of the game but also the super stories of the game.

So I started making phone calls, tracking down the men who suited up in the worlds greatest hockey league for just a single night. Playing detective and finding out where these guys are now was a lot of fun, but the true thrill of putting together a book like this is getting to know the men who, if for only the briefest moment, fulfilled all of our childhood dreams.