The Uninvited Guest by John Degen (Nightwood Editions, 234 pages, $20.95, paper, ISBN: 0889712166). Magically interweaving hockey, Canada, backgammon, and Romania, John Degen reveals himself as both a poet of the rink and of eastern European history. His tale begins with the story of the recently departed "Two-Second" Stan Cooper, a humble timekeeper whose slip-up during the 1951 play-offs in Toronto almost cost him his job. Spotting his wife and his friend up to no good in the gold seats, he bungled his time-keeping with near-disastrous results. As luck would have it, the Cup disappeared that summer for an unreported two months, and loyal Stan was the one to find it, mysteriously shining at centre ice. Hired as keeper of the Cup, he is never neglectful again.
The grail of hockey, it turns out, travels all over the world, as winning team members take it to off-season events and subject it to weirdly original pranks. This is absolutely entrancing storytelling, where even minor characters have depth. We follow Stan into our own heartland and across oceans, with the fabled Cup gleaming beside him in its own first-class seat. Stan's chosen successor is ex-defenseman Tony Chiello, who matches his old friend's zeal and devotion to guarding the Cup. When Tony escorts the Cup to the wedding of the first-ever Romanian-born championship team member, the switch at first feels oddùhow did we land in Romania, with Gypsy music?ùbut Degen pulls it off. Compelled to listen, like Coleridge's wedding guest, to wrenching stories about survival under dictatorship, Tony is gradually roused to passion in a land where backgammon is played with a speed and ruthlessness unknown in the West. In a series of clever moves, Degen makes his conceitùthe unlikely bond between Canadian hockey and Romanian backgammonùclear as crystal to our astonished eyes. The tale takes a very satisfying romantic turn with this story of the second keeper of the Cup, disclosed amid lively lessons about bravery, risk, and luck.