Howard Shapiro Interview, Part 3 – Hockey Player For Life

I recently got the opportunity to sit down with “Hockey Days” author Howard Shapiro for a little Q & A. Shapiro is on a media blitz promoting his latest effort, “Hockey Player For Life.”

In the first part of our sit-down, we discussed the Pittsburgh Penguins’ off-season moves and the club’s upcoming campaign. The second part of the interview Shapiro shared his thoughts about the business side of the NHL.

In, this, the last part of our interview, Shapiro and I discuss his upcoming book “Hockey Player For Life.”

Alin Mateescu: Tells us a bit about how you begun writing children’s stories. Is this something you’ve always wanted to do?

Howard Shapiro: I always did a lot of writing, I tried poetry and songwriting and then I moved onto short story writing. I only started to write children’s stories after I had to read to my kids and I just got so fed up with reading some of the awful childrens books that they’d bring home that I said “I can do better.” Or at least try to do better and that’s how I began doing Children’s stories.

AM: You write on your site that you want to “create stories that say something.” So, what message are you trying to convey with your upcoming book “Hockey Player For Life?”

HS: I guess the message is that 1 in a million actually make it to the NHL but that doesn’t mean that the dream has to die. You can be involved with hockey on some many levels, coaching, organizing a team, playing in adult or pick up games/leagues, even supporting a local team… there’s so many ways to be involved in and with the game. That along with taking lessons that the game of hockey teaches us like working hard, being a good teammate, being respectful to one another… taking those life lessons and applying them off the ice and if you do you’ll be successful in all that you do.

AM: Where did you draw inspiration from for “Hockey Player For Life”?

HS: There were a lot of things that inspired me. At the time I wrote it I was listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen and Pete Townshend music and their songs and lyrics really inspired me. I was watching a dvd of the making of the “Born To Run” album and that was also a huge inspiration in that Bruce was trying to capture and they were all striving for greatness during those recording sessions and that was inspiring. I attended my High School teams 30th reunion game and that helped in parts of the story and the one other thing was watching the J-Mac video (the autistic high school kid who scored 20 points in about 4 minutes) and watching that video and the crowd reaction really helped me with the writing of “Hockey Player For Life.”

AM: How did the idea for “Hockey Player For Life” come together? What is the book about? When can we get our hands on it?

HS: Well, I sort of knew where I wanted the story to go and end up but getting there was a little tricky. I only spent about 2 ½ months writing the story and then 6 months rewriting it. I kind of sketched out how it was going to go but then I had an idea for a bit of a twist in it and so I worked that in and then still kept the way I wanted it to end. In a nutshell, the story is about a 13 [year old] kid who is his local teams best player and he gets invited to play on a all star/traveling team in Canada but he has to leave his local team as both teams play on weekends. He goes up to Canada thinking this is his first step toward the NHL and he ends up getting cut and at that point he becomes sick of hockey and wants to give it up even though he’s loved the game since he was a young child. He becomes friends with his local team’s worst player and that kid shows him what it means to be a hockey player for life.

AM: Speaking of “Hockey Player For Life,” you’ve managed to get former NHL forward Keith Primeau to write the Foreword and John Buccigross (ESPN) and Brian Kennedy (author, “Growing up Hockey”) to contribute to the back cover of the book. That’s pretty impressive. Any specific reason you chose that trio to contribute to you book?

HS: Well, I am good friends with a guy who works for Crocs out in Colorado and he knew Keith because Crocs had bought Keith’s Fury Hockey Equipment company. So, my friend made the connection and I sent Keith the e-version of the story and he liked it enough to do the Foreword. I was a big fan of Brian Kennedy’s book “Growing Up Hockey” (and I’d highly recommend it to everyone reading this!) and so I contacted him and asked him if he’d be interested in participating in my book and he was kind enough to do so. Anyone who watches Sportscenter (or who used to watch him and Barry Melrose on NHL2night knows that John Buccigross is a huge hockey fan (maybe the only one still at ESPN) and I read his blog there and simply emailed him one day saying I have this book I’m doing would you contribute a quote to the back cover. A few weeks later he did so it was a great to have all 3 of those guys be part of the book and they are each really, really nice guys and I couldn’t thank them enough for all that they did for me.

AM: Thanks for taking the time, Howard. We appreciate it.

HS: Thank you! It was my pleasure.

Shapiro will be signings autographs and chatting up fans in Toronto October 3rd at the Indigospirit location at the Royal Bank Plaza 200 Bay Street from 12:30 – 2:00 PM and October 4th at the Chapters-Runnymede at 2225 Bloor Street West from 11:30 – 1:30PM.