THE MICHIGAN DAILYSu J

NDAY, ,SAN. 15, 1

WORLD

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Ex Libris
BY JOSEPH cIes

Mister Red Dutton Dishes Out
Tips On The Game Of Hockey

____.,

al

An undeniable surfeit of what have
been dubbed, (by Paul Gallico, I
think), the "Rover Boys Abroad"

HOCKEY, Fastest Game On Earth by
Mervyn, (Red) Dutton, Manager,
New York Americans. Funk and
WVagnalls, New York, 1938.

series has appeared in the past two or By MEL FTNEBERG
three years. The phrase refers to the Manager Dutton has transplanted
autobiographical sketches of foreign the body check from hockey and used
correspondents which have been more it on the reading public in his Hockey,
numerous than entertaining for the Fastest Game On Earth. He wastes

most part, and have owed their mush-
room growth to the exciting lives the
boys claim to have been living during
the various crises of European and
Oriental politics in the '30's. It's a poor
correspondent indeed who can't dig
through his memory book and haul
out an occasion on which he scooped
the world by disguising himself as
Mussolini's gardener or by concealing
himself in an umbrella stand outside
the Munich conference room.
The title of a new collection from
the pens of thirteen correspondents of
the New York Times, We Saw It Hap-
pen, doesn't sound too intriguing in
the light of experience. There are,
however, some good things in it. The
subtitle gives a clue: The News Behind
the News That's Fit to Print. For the
most part, the thirteen journalists
show a healthy proclivity to avoid
alkinpg about themselves.instead they
talk about events, and although they
don't pretend to be writing history,
some of them have some worthwhile
observations to make. Louis Stark's
account of the Sacco-Vanzetti case,
which he indicts as a gross miscar-
riage of justice, and Ferdinand Kuhn's
"Britain,-A Story of Old Age," are
particularly good.
Most of the bylines that have grown
famous in the columns of the Times
are present in the collection. John
Kieran has some things to say about
sport, and among other things, about
proselytizing in college football, which
seems to have been in the news some-{
what of late.!

little time on feinting or stick-hand-
ling. Even as an author, Mervyn is
a defenseman with little use for in-
tricacies. He believes he has some-
thing to tell about the game he loves
and he dishes it out with little cere-
mony.
The first part of the book tells how
to play good hockey. It tells how to
shoot, how to stickhandle, how to
turn and how to play the positions. It
is rather thorough but I think even
Mervyn the Red (not to be confused
with Rodney the Red) will admit that
it's not quite as easy as it sounds.
There is the usual hokum about the
so-called "fastest game on earth" in
the op'ening chapter, a bit of chau-
vinism entitled "From Canada to the
World." "To the world" is a slight
hyperbola. "To Madison Square
Garden" might be a little more ac-
curate. This book, exactly like all
others of its sort, describes how the
little kiddies jn Canada are born
with a puck in one hand, a stick in
the other, and a pair of skates on
their little tootsies. The little dears
skated to school each and every day
so it wasn't any wonder that they
learned how to skate, was it?
The most enlightening chapter was
that portion devoted to "How to
watch hockey." I've been trying tc
figure out, not only how, but wh~
watch hockey and this proved a
great help.
The first thing to do, according tc
Mervyn the Red, is to find a seat. I
its most important aspect, i.e., marry-
ing an heiress.
Speaking of newspapermen's books,
there are some pretty good things
being written lately by newspapermen

It is nice to think
correspondents, and
this is true of most

that newspaper
I rather think
of them, have

more consciousness of the meaning that have nothing to do with news-
of the things they write about than paper work. Kenneth Roberts's ad-
their dispatches generally reveal, in venture novels spring to the mind, of
spite of the Rover Boy tendency. As course. The best book by a newspaper-
for the latter, Floyd Gibbons and man I have read recently is Vincent
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer are probably Sheean's historical noved, A Day of
more responsible than anyone else for Battle, which came out some time
the Great Adventure school, although last year. It is the story of the battle
no newspaper correspondent, as far of Fontenoy in 1745, amazingly ex-
as I know, has yet emulated the Fred- citing and not without importance as
eric March version of a reporter in an interpretation of an event.




from ALPHA to OMEGA

And remember

. . . .

when correctly cleaned and properly blocked
to your .own individual measurements

ii