Title: Le fils du Grand Jim
First published: 1974
Description: This  fiction story is about Jim Kingsley, a Montreal born hockey player, more specifically a goaltender, who learned to play in his backyard with his father, older brother and sister to finally reach the NHL with the Canadians and become one the best goalies of all times. Great emphasis is put on the fact that Jim is very talented, and also athletically and psychologically gifted, which compensate for being physically rather small compared to other players he played with and against over the years on his way to the big leagues. Also a grade A student, Jim leads successfull engineer studies to follow his father's foot steps. Born in the early 40's, Jim, himself father of a boy and a girl, tragically finds death in a car accident in the summer of 1970 at the age of 29 during a vacation trip with his wife Aline.

This book is probably the first novel I ever read in its entirety. I was about 9 years old at the time and already a big hockey fan, especially of the Montreal Canadiens. Now nearly aged 45, I still have the very same copy I was given back in 1975 and I could never imagine finding a single mention of this book on the internet in 2011. This is the kind of story that put a definite mark in my life, probably because of the topic and how much I felt touched by the tragic ending. I would be very curious to share any information with whoever read this story, since I've thought for a long time being probably the only one on earth to still have a copy of this book. For any one who read that story, I hope you appreciated like I did and still do.
Time periods: Montreal, somewhere between 1940-1973.
LC classification: PZ23.G24 F5