The Mount Rushmore of hockey

Saw an interesting article in a Facebook post a while back (it asked 'who were the best hockey goalies of all time'), and it got me thinking about who were the actual best hockey players ever. So here it is - The Mount Rushmore of hockey - Who were the greatest four hockey players in hockey history?

How do you quantify the best players? There are forwards who are counted on to do the scoring, defense who are responsible mostly to defend, and goalies who have to stop the puck. I am arbitrarily eliminating goalies from the top-4 list because the top players need to be compared in some similar ways. Plus, I was a goalie, so I'm comfortable with it.

The numbers that I think matter are goals scored in a season, scoring championships, and league MVP honors. The best players should really be scoring a lot of goals, and should be voted as most-valuable in their best years. Only makes sense.

So who are the players?

Maurice 'Rocket' Richard
I wanted to include Rocket Richard in this list due to his big-game presence, and his record 50 goals in 50 games. His super intensity also carries weight (see this image of him in a game against the Rangers). It took almost 20 years for another player to score 50. Some might say that he got his 50 when the league was watered down - many star players were absent during the war. But it was still a big deal. Digging into the stats, we see that he led the league in goals scored five times, but he never won a scoring race. He also won the league MVP only one time. 

Gordie Howe
Compare Rocket's numbers to contemporary star player Gordie Howe - Mr. Hockey also led the league in goals scored five times, but also won the scoring race six times. He was also voted MVP six times. Howe was the first five-tool hockey player - he was very fast, he was very good with his stick, he was a heck of a shooter, he scored big goals, and he was big and tough. So tough that even the fighters didn't want to fight him, let alone non-fighters, or other star players (see this image of Howe with Richard).  I think Howe's numbers put him significantly ahead of Richard. 

Howe was a great player, but he was also perhaps the most feared player in the game - the "Gordie Howe hat-trick" is named after him - a goal, an assist and a fight in a single game. I had to also throw in this extra image of Howe, playing for the Whalers in the late 1970s, roughing up another tough customer - while Howe was in his 50s... (The Quebec Nordiques player is in his 20s...) On top of that, his longevity was legendary. He was still an effective player in his 50s, in a sport where some players lose their effectiveness by age 30...

Bobby Hull
I also wanted Bobby Hull on the list of four greatest players - I was always a huge fan of the Golden Jet. He led the league in scoring seven times (eight if you count his WHA years), and won the scoring race three times.

Bobby Hull was the second player to score 50 in a season, and did it four times. He broke the Rocket's record of 50, and set the new record at 52, then 54, and then 58. He then scored 77 goals in a season while playing for the WHA Winnipeg Jets. But Bobby only won a single MVP, losing out a few times to other star players, and even a teammate a couple of times. 

Hull also revolutionized the game by making the slap shot the most devastating shot in the game. He didn't invent it, but he perfected it, and scored so often with the slap shot, that after Hull, all players could shoot using the slap shot. Arguably, one could say that the emphasis on the slap shot resulted in less emphasis on other very important aspects of the game, like skating, stick handling, etc. Young players would work on the slapper before perfecting their skating and stick handling skills. He was also hockey's golden boy - he was the Robert Redford or Brad Pitt of hockey. Either way you look at it, Bobby Hull made a huge impact on the game of hockey.

Mario Lemieux
Mario was maybe the most dynamic and skilled player ever. He had speed, size and skill - all three more than most other platers. Some were bigger (very few), some were faster (even fewer), and nobody had as much skill in terms of stick handling, making teammates look good, and embarrassing opposition players. Mario was the original highlight-reel player; it was almost like he specialized in embarrassing opposition players. No defenseman wanted to be faced with a one-on-one against him. No goalie wanted to face him on a breakaway, or even worse - shudder - a penalty shot... Mario led the league in goals three times, won the scoring title six times, and was MVP three times. He battled cancer during his playing career, and led the league in goals twice after that. Mario, too, had impressive longevity. He retired for three years, and came back to finish second in MVP voting at age 35.

These are the 'bubble' players (as if you can count any of these great players anything else but great). However, there are two players who are locks in the top four. 

Bobby Orr
One, Bobby Orr, never led the league in goals, but won the scoring race two times - AS A DEFENSEMAN. If Bobby Hull revolutionized the game with his shooting, Bobby Orr revolutionized the game by making the position of defenseman a dangerous offensive weapon. It didn't matter which Bruins players were on the ice -- if Orr was on the ice, the opposing team HAD to focus on him. He was a feared puck handler - more than any defenseman before or after him. Many people will say that he was the greatest player of all time; and it would be tough to argue against that. As if that weren't enough, he was also a pretty tough customer - if you wanted to drop the gloves with Bobby, you'd better be ready, because he didn't lose many fights... In his injury-shortened career, he was MVP three times, and was voted the best defenseman eight times - failing to win it only once, as a rookie (and he finisher third in voting that year). 

Wayne Gretzky
The other lock is 'The Great One' - and his numbers are unparalleled. He led the league in goals five times (and holds the season record of 92 goals in 82 games), and won the scoring title 11 times. (Yes, 11 times.) He was league MVP nine times. His numbers put him at the top of the list, and it's not close. Gretzky was an enigma. There were faster skaters (at least three on his own team!!); there were harder shooters (plenty); there were bigger players (again, plenty); there were niftier stick handlers, but there was nobody better. He was in on big goals all the time. Few could break a game open like he could. Nobody could control a game like he could. Nobody could pass the puck like he could. Nobody could see the ice like he could.  Experts say that in his prime, he could see plays developing before they happened. It wasn't fair! 

He dominated so completely, that in hockey pools, you couldn't pick Gretzky - you could only pick Gretzky Goals or Gretzky Assists...

Here is a numbers summary:

Player   Most-Goals Scoring-Titles MVP
Rocket   5           0             1

Howe     5           6             6

Hull     7(8)        3             1

Mario    3           6             3

Orr      0           2             3
Gretz    5          11             9

I surprised myself by rating the top 4 players in hockey history - I always said Orr was the best, and that Bobbly Hull had to be there too, but the numbers are convincing. 

The hockey Mount Rushmore players:

1. Wayne Gretzky

2. Gordie Howe

3. Bobby Orr

4. Mario Lemieux

Pat Lakanen

One of my best buds suddenly passed away recently; I’ve known him for 40 years, and it's surreal to think that he's really gone.

He was my first roomie when I left the nest while in college, and effectively was my unofficial big brother. He had a great sense of humor, which is how we initially became friends. Pat, myself and another college friend, Bob Hill, spent a lot of time together in college days, especially on Friday pub nights, Saturdays at the pubs, and I guess other nights, too. Those were good times, to be sure. One day in 1981, I mentioned to Pat that another friend of mine had backed out of finding an apartment near the college, and he immediately suggested he take his place. Pat was living in an apartment in Vanier at the time with “a bunch of ants” as he put it - plus it would cut his rental costs in half, so it was a win-win situation.

Soon after he moved in, he insisted on going out for a sandwich, and suggested smoked meat at Nate’s - I’d never had one before, but he insisted that I would love it. He was right. 

One night we were up all night cramming for an Electronics 4th semester exam (while listening to Van Halen’s first LP over-and-over). It was a key/central course in the program, and one could not afford to flunk that. Neither one of us was confident going in - on the drive to the college in the morning, we were coming up to the Queensway on-ramp, and he said “Let’s forget this and go to Montreal for breakfast.” I was quiet for a second (and carefully considered it), but I came to my senses and said ‘no’ just in time, and we proceeded to the college to write the exam. As it turned out, we both did well on the exam - I guess ‘well enough’ is more accurate. That could easily have gone a different way.

I entered the college co-op program that year, so we weren’t in the same classes anymore, but still lived in the apartment - and I was ‘rich’ for the four months of my work terms, so we ate and drank better in those times.

Often, we would go our separate ways on Friday nights, and would come home to find the other asleep on the sofa or the bean-bag chair we had. One Friday I came home to him snoring away on the floor, and I quietly and slowly began to close a monkey wrench on his nose - that woke him up fast, and I had to duck a good roundhouse. Another time he found me snoring on the sofa, so he started hitting me with this stuffed teddy-bear-like snake he had - I awoke to that treatment countless times. 

He told me some interesting things about his family life, including imprisoning one of his sisters in her bedroom by placing an old transformer (harmless) in front of her bedroom door. He also had some interesting and unique sayings and terminology - 

• Bob the Giraffe (I can’t remember the context, but was used many times)
• ‘Wherever you go, there you are’...
• ‘A good time, not a long time’...
• ‘Losing is fine, but winning is grand’...

His phone calls always ended with... ‘bye, now’...

Eventually he graduated and got a job in Burlington, and was gone. We kept in touch though, and he was back in town occasionally, and Bob Hill and I went down to Burlington a couple of times. In 1987, the three of us met for beers at the Mayfair pub off Elgin street the day after Christmas, and decided at about midnight that we would drive to Florida the next morning. We did that, and 21 hours later, we were checking into a beach-side resort (off-season rates). During our time there, Pat and I checked out the beach, and found a pelican on the pier. Also drove down to the Kennedy Space Center - that was very cool. Later, I think the three of us may have had beers at several pubs - that was a great trip.

At about that time, his career took him to the US for several years, where I believe he did quite well financially - his analytical mind made him an excellent tech professional. He eventually wound up back in Ottawa, working for one or two tech firms. He went entrepreneurial for a couple of years, doing POS software (displacing mechanical cash registers with computers and software). I think he did quite well at that as well. After that job ended abruptly, he took a job at another Ottawa tech company, where he enjoyed more success.

After several years, he was laid off, and a government placement functionary told him to get out of tech. I thought that was bad advice, but he went with it. He then went into the home renovation business, which lasted 20+ years. He was a very skilled craftsman, much better than most. At some point 10+ years ago, unfortunate circumstances saw his fortunes change for the worse. I was very worried for him at that time, the ordeal seemed to weaken him and to visibly age him. 

Eventually he got past that, and his financial situation improved somewhat. He spoke about getting back into tech off-and-on - he talked about smartphone software and IT security - he would have been a natural at either one. But he worked long hours in the reno business, and never found the time to push his way back to where he belonged professionally (that's just my opinion). 

I last saw him before Christmas - I needed some plumbing work done, and he was the obvious person. He worked at my place for a couple of days - I took him to lunch, but he refused to let me pay, and insisted on paying for me. He was looking forward to spending time with his sister north of Toronto over the holidays. On his way back, there was a head-on collision that killed him instantly. What a terrible shock. 

I’ll miss you, my friend, and I will not forget you... bye now...

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/algonquin-park-fatal-crash-1.6722011

https://ottawacitizen.remembering.ca/obituary/patrick-lakanen-1087067275/

Tick, tick, tick...

I've done a lot of reading over the pandemic, and I don't expect that to change much going forward. Reason being that I am now old (63), and can't really play sports anymore - other than golf - and I mostly work from home. Reading is now a thing I do every day, but only at lunch time and before bed - I occasionally sit down a read for a few hours, but that's not really part of the pattern. 

Anyway, over the pandemic and since then, I have read 31 books. Seems impressive, but really that's only 31 books in 30 months; so one book a month. I'm 63. Maybe I'll live to 73, but I think that might be a bit optimistic. Based on that, I have probably 120 books left in me, tops. Frig; I think I have that many unread books in my office right now, and another 50 or so in my "wanted books" list. Frig.

Bored yet? Two more...

The Reality Dysfunction

(Part 1)

Hamilton, P.F.

Peter Hamilton is still long-winded, but I liked this book better than I liked Pandora’s Star. More interesting places, and for the most part, more interesting characters. Well, to me, anyway. Some rather confusing space-aliens didn’t help - more on that later.

It started off bad - a lengthy description of faster-than-light spaceships that are grown - along with their captain-pilots, to ensure some type of holistic (and pseudo telepathic) connection between ships. The ships are intelligent, and love their captains. They also have babies near the end of their lives - when the pilot’s offspring are also born. And they grow up together, And they love each other. At this stage, I almost quit. 

Anyway, the main ship-captain pairing are Oenone and (Edenist) Syrinx, and serve a term in the Confederation Navy. (Edenism is one of the confusing religions in the Confederation.) Later, we’re introduced to the more interesting Joshua Calvert - a 19-20 year old genetically engineered scavenger who finds an archaeological artifact of great value, and sells it at auction for big money. The archaeological subject is the Laymil, a race of intelligent and technically advanced beings who apparently killed themselves in a mass suicide/genocide. A gas giant planet, Mirchusko, has a ring of debris created originally from 1000’s of destroyed Laymil habitat satellites, and that’s where Calvert makes his find. With his winnings, (paid on the orbiting space habitat Tranquility) he rebuilds his deceased father’s space ship - the Lady Macbeth - and starts a new career as a successful freelance space cargo hauler and successful womanizer. 

We’re also introduced to a 19-20 year old troubled genetically enhanced kid - Quinn Dexter - assigned as a virtual slave on a newly colonized jungle-planet - sentenced to do all the manual labour for the new colonists. The planet - Lalonde - is poor, and colonists face decades of hardship before any chance of prosperity, meaning that the slaves (Ivets) don’t have much to look forward to.

Now for the aliens and other oddities. There is the Ly-cilph, an ancient and seemingly benevolent non-corporeal species whose purpose is to map and learn everything about everything. Then there’s Laton - okay, he’s human, but an antagonist doing research on immortality - by transferring consciousness into others’ (unwilling) bodies. And finally, there is the ??? - energy entities, similar in nature to the Ly-cilph, but aggressive, who seem to be doing the same thing as Laton, but far more efficiently, and threatening all life on Lalonde, and presumably, everywhere else…

Yeah; weird, but still...

7/10

The Reality Dysfunction

(Part 2)

Hamilton, P.F.

Peter Hamilton’s “world building” takes up a lot of page turning - a lot. However, part 2 of The Reality Dysfunction moved a lot faster - don’t get me wrong, there are still pages and pages of world building, but it is spaced out with a lot of action - a lot more than in part 1. For the first time, I can say that I can’t stop reading a Peter Hamilton book. This is a good ride. 

Turns out the ??? are the dead - that have been given the power to return from “the beyond” (sort of like vampires) through the intersection of universes caused inadvertently by the Ly-cilph. They begin taking over bodies on Lalonde, and eventually possess almost all of the human settlers. Gradually, they leave on transports destined for many other planets, where they plan to completely take over. Military intervention starts on Lalonde, with mercenaries dropped to reconnoiter, most of whom are possessed; the Dead gain more mobility when the transports return to the motherships in orbit. Once there, they start destroying other ships, making an invasion force untenable. Josh Calvert and crew are involved, but avoid possession (aka sequestration), while managing to save the last bunch of kids and a couple of adults from certain doom. In typical Hamiltonian fashion, the book ends with an introduction to another series of 500+ page books. Well, we’ll see…

8/10

A couple more books...

The Lost Fleet - Victorious

Campbell, J.

6th book of the series; Geary looks like he’ll be arrested by the senate because they’re afraid of his success. Instead, he gets promoted to Fleet Admiral, and gets approval to end the Syndic war, and to investigate the alien race. He beats the Syndics at their home system, travels the gate (wait…) encounters the “enigma” alien race, at the edge of Syndic space, figures out their deception, and deals them a sound beating. Goes home, gets the girl. So, what’s next…

7/10

Post Captain

O’Brian, P.

Second book in the Master and Commander series.

In and about 1802(?) Aubrey and Maturin fall for the same two women, causing jealousy, and even a duel - stopped by ship’s business (and then forgotten). Without a ship, and perhaps no possibilities, his accountant absconds with his money, right when his prize award was reversed - leaving him thousands of pounds in debt, and at risk of being nabbed for debtor’s prison. Finally able to land a command (of a horrible ship), manages to attack the French in harbour, and make away with a French vessel. 

His good work gets him on the good side of some at the Admiralty - he’s awarded post (full-time rank of Captain), and a temporary command of a crack frigate. Without Aubrey’s knowledge, Maturin gets him a spot on a squadron setting out on a big confrontation with the Spanish. (Maturin  is secretly a spy working for the Admiralty.) The squadron captures the Spanish, with great potential for prize money…

7/10

You guessed it; another book...

 The Jacques Plante Story

O’Brien, A.

When I was 10 and 11, my favorite sports hero was then-42 year-old hockey goalie Jacques Plante. He was a retirement-age goalie on his second or third comeback, and was a bright star on my favorite hockey team, the sad-sack Toronto Maple Leafs. 

They were a young team that had missed the playoffs badly the year before (1969-70), and top goalie Bruce Gamble was having a tough life playing behind a young, error-prone defense. 

Then the Leafs obtained Plante in a round-about trade deal, and he proceeded to have the best season any goalie ever had (statistically), and helped the Leafs make the playoffs that year (the 1970-71 season). The team wasn’t terribly good, but Plante ended the season with a 1.88 GAA (that’s very, very good), and a save percentage of .944 (the best ever recorded). He was my hero. I hated when Bruce Gamble played (his GAA was 3.80 - not good, and his save percentage was .882 - also not good).

But to be fair, Gamble was a decent NHL goalie - he had a good career before that year, and he played in the NHL for a couple of seasons after that, before he was forced to retire due to health reasons. He just wasn’t as good as Plante. But that year, nobody was; most weren’t even close.

So I had to read his book. I’m not sure why I waited so many years to get it. (Actually, it’s quite possible that I have read it years ago, but have completely forgotten it.) Plante didn’t write the book himself - although articulate in his second language, English, he just wasn’t a writer. Andy O’Brien was the writer - and he did an okay job, writing in the 1960’s style. His writing assumed that the reader didn’t know much about hockey - that was the style then, but it’s at times a dull read for the knowledgeable fan. Fortunately, he seems to have used a tape recorder, and quoted Plante quite a bit - those bits were very interesting.

Unfortunately, the parts of the book about the Leaf days are the shortest part. That’s fair - the book was written the summer after the 70-71 season, and few people had noticed just how good he was that year. After all, they finished in 4th place and lost in the first round to the Rangers, four games to two. 

But the story was captivating. He had some great years in Montreal, where he won six Vezina trophies (best goalie), including five in a row. He also won another with the St. Louis Blues (his previous comeback, before his stint with the Leafs). However, he was hounded by coaches and management in Montreal. Inventing the goalie mask, his coach didn’t want him to wear it, because it showed cowardice... He had asthma (as I do), but the coach and management thought it was in his head - the gall to have an asthma attack right before a game... He had torn cartilage in both knees, but he was accused of faking soreness to avoid playing in games…

Also some interesting anecdotes - Plante noticed over the years that the nets were not the same size in every NHL rink. He noticed because in Chicago, Boston and New York, the cross-bar was slightly lower when he felt it on his back. After a lot of eye-rolling, some people measured the nets, and sure enough, they were smaller in those cities. Turns out that when they welded them together, they properly measured 6-feet between posts, but in some rinks they welded the cross-bar atop the 4-foot posts, while in others, they welded it between the posts. This resulted in shorter nets in those rinks. (The disparity was quickly and quietly resolved by the NHL.) 

In the 1971 playoff finals, Tony Esposito allowed a goal from center ice by Jacques Lemaire late in the 3rd period of game 7, which played a pivotal role in the result in that game. Everyone was shocked that an excellent goalie like Esposito could allow such an easy goal in a critical game. But Plante knew what happened - having played in the Chicago Stadium many times, he knew that on a high shot, you could lose the puck against all the dark and white shirts across the rink. And if you went down on your knees, you would make it worse. Esposito’s style was to flop on every shot, so it was not his fault - just a matter of bad timing - wrong place, wrong time, wrong shooter, wrong goalie.

If you’re a goalie, a fan of Jake the Snake, or were a huge 11-year-old Leaf fan in 1970-71, then I highly recommend this book.

8/10

And again, more books...

 I'll cover a couple more here; two very different books -- 

Josephus, The Essential Writings Maier, P.

Josephus' writings about the Roman Jewish War and Jewish Antiquities. Josephus is an interesting figure - a former Jewish military leader, turned Roman collaborator - a Jewish Benedict Arnold, if you will. I originally became interested in Josephus because he was one of the few ancient writers who spoke of Jesus Christ, along with Suetonius, Tacitus and a very few others. But to read his histories and personal accounts is also interesting - especially the incident at Jotapata in Galilee, where Josephus is one of two left after a mass suicide of 40 Jewish nobles and leaders hiding in the ruins. Verrrry suspicious; he does some interesting literary tap dancing in an attempt to make himself look good here, but the reader knows that something is fishy. History isn’t kind to Josephus because of this, even though he is well regarded as a historian. This may be because he was writing for a Roman audience for the most part, and his writings were preserved because of this.

In The Jewish War, he speaks of himself in the third person, much like Xenophon did in his writings, and of course comes across very favourably to the reader. Immensely so, actually. So much so that I am suspicious of anything he writes concerning Josephus…

Either way, his record of the Jewish War provides more detail than any other source, due to his personal involvement. And pretty much everything he discusses (beyond his own motivations) is more or less confirmed by other sources. He wrote The Jewish War with Roman readers in mind - the emperors, present and near future, are all spoken well of - even during the battle for Jerusalem. For this episode, he lays the blame on the Jews themselves - actually their splintered leadership in the battle. Especially the leaders of the three rebel factions, keen on engaging and fighting Roman dominance, one being the infamous Zealots. He seems to hold a loathing grudge against these people in The Jewish War which seems to be somewhat (and independently) consistent with the Bible’s New Testament writings. I’m not sure how he is viewed from the Jewish perspective - that would require more research on my part.

The Jewish Antiquities is also very interesting - he basically retells the entire Old Testament from Genesis to the Maccabees. One could say that it is written in a largely secular perspective, although the concept of God, and God’s presence are not at all overlooked. I have wondered why he wrote this, since the books of the Old Testament still existed at this time. I wonder if he felt guilt and what must have seemed like the end of the Jewish people, and his role in it. At that time, Jerusalem was completely destroyed, and the Jews of Jerusalem and the whole Levant were scattered; they were defeated everywhere, and with the destruction of the temple, perhaps he thought that the Jewish religion was in decline, never to recover. In that sense, writing a secularized Greek version of the Old Testament, intended for a Roman audience, was a way to help his religion live on in some way. At least that’s my take on it.

This is a pretty good read, but I can’t say captivating. However, I do recommend it to people interested in a secular-ish look at the highlights of Judaism and early Christianity.

6/10

Thud Ridge

Broughton, J.

This is an account of the air war in Vietnam, as told in the late 1960s by F-105 pilot Colonel Jack Broughton -- it was recommended to me by other online jet airplane enthusiasts. For years I thought that the Republic F-105 Thunderchief was an awesomely cool airplane, so I just had to read this.  The casual observer would say that the F-105 was a bad airplane - so many were shot down - how could be anything but a bad airplane?

Well, it was an amazing airplane that could fly faster than anything at almost ground level - and that was while carrying bombs and extra fuel tanks hanging off its wings! And Broughton explains the craziness that the pilots were up against. Their job was to fly from Thailand into Vietnam, and up to the Hanoi area in the north, and drop bombs on targets protected better than anywhere in the world up to that time. They faced the best surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) that the Russians had, the best rapid-fire and radar-controlled anti-aircraft (AA) cannons the Russians and Chinese had, and the best interceptor fighters that the Russians had.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the US Air Force (and government) leaders insisted that they NOT bomb or shoot the MiG-21s on the ground (only if they were in the air). If the AA or SAMs were in designated “safe” areas, you couldn’t touch them. Worse, the leadership insisted that they go back immediately to the same targets to ensure their destruction, taking away the element of surprise - in fact, allowing their adversaries to anticipate their routes. If a pilot bombed one of these “unauthorized targets” he could expect a court martial. Broughton describes all of this in his book, and probably took a lot of heat over it. But you could hardly blame him, as good pilots were being shot at and killed, and good airplanes were being lost at an alarming rate. 

From my perspective, the Air Force leadership was staffed in part by world war 2 veterans whose plan was to overwhelm the enemy with airplanes and bombs - which worked well back then, when there were an infinite number of airplanes and pilots to churn through. But in Korea, and more so in Vietnam, the supply of pilots was not inexhaustible - there were far fewer in the pipeline, and they took much longer to train. And the airplanes were far more complex and expensive than ever before, and they only had so many. It was a lose-lose-lose proposition, especially for the people in harm’s way. (And the sad thing is that the leadership wouldn’t listen to their feedback on what was going wrong!)

Broughton talks us through all this with his prejudices laid bare. For example, he thought high-flying bomber pilots had a tough time burning their fingers reaching for the coffee pot on their missions. He thought that the enemy MiG pilots may not have been their best, as their tactics seemed less than what their airplanes could manage. Not that they weren’t dangerous; they were, but should have been much more effective. He talks about the tremendous talent and bravery of many of his pilot colleagues - but also mentions some who were perhaps a little opposite - but there weren’t many of those. In the end, he loved his airplane, and thought that if the leadership were in tune with the reality on the ground (and in the air), they could have accomplished so much more. 

The book was well written, and filled with all sorts of detail on the pilots, the airplanes, the leadership and above all, the missions they flew. He carried a tape recorder in his airplane to more accurately debrief his missions, and leverage that in the book, which added a captivating amount of detail and energy into his mission descriptions. A great read for a fighter pilot, and for fans of big fast jet airplanes!

8/10