Phil Esposito is by no means a Pulitzer Prize Author. However, that aside, Phil Esposito has lived one very interesting life in the world of hockey. Phil Esposito: Thunder and Lightning, A No-B.S. Hockey Memoir, chronicles Esposito’s life in hockey over the past half century. The book was written in 2003 with the help of Peter Golenbock.

As indicated by the title of the book, Esposito holds nothing back. He mixes great stories from both on the ice and behind the scenes in the hockey world as well as providing a glimpse into the personal life of one of the National Hockey League’s greatest players.

Phil was born in and grew up in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada. He talks of his hockey journey that took him from junior hockey with the St. Catherines TeePees of the Ontario Hockey Association to his first NHL experience with the Chicago Blackhawks to his legendary career with the Boston Bruins. He touches on his career ending stint with the New York Rangers and gets in-depth about his adventures with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Esposito spoke his mind in life and definitely speaks his mind in this book. He holds nothing back when he writes of his highs and lows in the NHL as a player, coach, general manager and owner. Hockey fans will love to hear what really went on when he was traded from Chicago to Boston, what happened behind the scenes in the 1972 Summit Series, what happened when the Bruins abandoned him and sent him to the New York Rangers and what happened during his adventure to bring a new franchise into the NHL.

One of the fascinating facts for hockey fans who were young or not even alive when Phil played was that it wasn’t until after his eighth season in the NHL that he didn’t have to work during the summer at the steel plant in Sault Ste. Marie. He was one of the first players to earn $100,000 in a season and it wasn’t until he was thirty and owned the NHL’s record for most goals and points in a single season. Today, eighteen year olds are making millions.

On page 118 of the 283 page book, Esposito hits it right on the head about what has happened to the North American game. While describing the outcome of the 1972 Summit Series when Canada beat the dreaded Russians, he writes this:

Afterwards Kulagin told the reporters, “The one thing we couldn’t match the Canadians with was emotion.” No, they couldn’t, because they were robots. If they didn’t do exactly as they were told, they were penalized or ostracized. Ironically, over the years the Canadian game has become more like the game the Russians used to play. Because of the big salaries today, it’s rare to see NHL players score a goal and show their joy and excitement. Every once in a while I still see a player consumed with the emotion of winning. Does it matter whether you win or lose if you’re making three million a year?

This book is a must for any real hockey fan. The game has changed so much in a relatively short period of time and Esposito brings home the differences that a few decades have made. Players today are under the microscope and can’t do anything out of line on or off the ice without being scrutinized in the press. This wasn’t the case in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Drinking and sex were rampant among the underpaid NHL players and the book is not at all short on tails of these antics. The only players protected from Phil’s tell-all are the ones that are still married to the same wives today. Don Cherry, Bobby Orr, Howard Cosell and Alan Eagleson are just a few of the names that pop up in sometimes less than flattering situations.