Sixteen million Canadians stopped what they were doing for the eighth and deciding game of the 1972 Summit Series, out of a population of twenty-two million, an audience share modern broadcasters can only dream about. Ken Dryden was the goaltender standing in Team Canada's crease while that happened, and fifty years later he narrates the audiobook of The Series himself, revisiting the month that, as the book frames it, changed hockey on the ice and off it, everywhere in the world. This is a slim book, just over two hours in audio, built around a single question: what was it actually like to be inside the eight games that stopped a country.
What makes The Series different from the dozens of other books already written about that September is the point of view. Dryden was not a journalist assembling this from archives decades later; he was the goaltender who faced Valeri Kharlamov's shots and watched Paul Henderson score the goal that ended it. The synopsis describes his approach as a 'you are there' style, as if living the series for the first time, and on audio that framing gets a second layer of intimacy: Dryden's own voice, unhurried and precise, walking listeners through a tournament he has clearly thought about for half a century. Reviewer Emmanuel and Reyna Fonte call him a hero from childhood, someone who was 'our team's bedrock in goal' growing up in Montreal, and that kind of personal stake in the subject comes through in how carefully the details are chosen.
The Cold War subtext is impossible to miss, and Dryden does not try to flatten it into simple patriotism. Canada had invented the game; the Soviet Union had only organized it competitively some twenty-six years earlier, and yet by game one at the Montreal Forum, nobody in either dressing room believed the outcome was obvious. Dryden's account backs up the book's own sweeping claim about the series' historical weight not with hyperbole but with the accumulated small details of a man who watched the sport's self-image crack open in real time. That is a more interesting book than a simple highlight-reel retelling, and it is likely why The Series has stayed in conversation while other 1972 retrospectives have faded.
Three Thousand Fans Singing Behind the Curtain
The case for choosing audio over print here is straightforward: this is oral history from the person who lived it, and Dryden reads his own recollections with the calm control you would expect from a goaltender who spent a career staying still while pucks came at his head. He is not performing outrage or nostalgia. He lets the facts do the work, including the detail that lands hardest in audio, the eighth and final game landing on an ordinary weekday during work and school hours, and the country stopping anyway. He also gives real weight to the Moscow half of the story, the three thousand Canadian fans singing behind what was still very much the Iron Curtain in 1972, a scene that reads as almost unbelievable and that Dryden narrates with the specific, lived-in detail of someone who was actually in that building.
Greg Askew's five-star review calls this 'well written and great perspective from one of the game's best,' and that combination, clean prose plus insider access, is really the whole pitch. Dryden has written with a reporter's patience rather than an athlete's self-mythology throughout his career, and The Series continues that habit even while covering an event he was personally, physically part of. For listeners who remember the actual broadcast, or who grew up hearing parents and grandparents describe where they were for Henderson's goal, hearing the goaltender himself narrate the tension of those eight games adds a layer of authenticity that a professional narrator, however skilled, simply could not replicate.
A Quarter of the Book Is Photographs
The one honest caveat, and it is a real one, is length. At two hours and eight minutes, this is a short listen for a subject with fifty years of accumulated mythology behind it, and reviewer Lepardo's two-star 'Short to a Fault' complaint is worth taking seriously: they estimate a quarter of the print book's content is photographs, material that does not carry over to audio at all. That is a real structural problem specific to this format. A book built partly around archival images of the Forum, the Moscow rink, and the players themselves loses something in a purely audio translation, and the runtime confirms that what remains after stripping out captions and photo spreads is genuinely compact. Listeners expecting a comprehensive, blow-by-blow account of all eight games may find the pace closer to an extended essay than a full history.
Worth noting too that this arrives specifically as a 50th-anniversary release, positioned less as a definitive new history and more as Dryden's own reflection, written with the benefit of fifty years' distance on an event he could only partially process while it was happening to him. That framing matters for expectations: this is a personal reckoning from inside the crease, not a researcher's exhaustive account pulling together every angle, interview, and archival source available. Readers who want the fullest possible record of the 1972 series in print, photographs included, may prefer the physical book; listeners who want Dryden's own voice walking them through what it felt like from the ice have exactly the right format.
Dryden's Earlier Books Share This Same Voice
This audiobook is built for a specific listener: someone who already cares about hockey history, or about Canada's cultural memory of itself in 1972, and who wants that history narrated by a man who was there rather than a historian reconstructing it secondhand. If you grew up on stories about Henderson's goal, or you are curious why a hockey series still gets discussed as a defining national moment fifty years on, Dryden's calm, insider account rewards the short time it asks of you. Fans of Dryden's earlier books will recognize the same unhurried, thoughtful voice here, just turned toward a subject he did not just observe but helped decide.
Skip this one if you are hoping for an exhaustive, minute-by-minute account of all eight games, or if the visual record, the photographs of the Forum crowd, the Moscow rink, the players mid-play, is a meaningful part of why you wanted this book in the first place; that material simply is not present in the audio edition. Listeners outside hockey fandom entirely, or those unfamiliar with the basic outline of the Summit Series, may also find the emotional weight harder to access, since Dryden writes for an audience that already understands why this particular series mattered before he starts making his case.
Key Details
- Narrator: Ken Dryden narrates his own account with calm, unhurried control, the same stillness a Hall of Fame goalie brings to a crease, lending real authority to the history.
- Subjects: Cold War hockey rivalry, national identity, firsthand sports history
- Tone: Tense but measured, reflective rather than triumphant
- Bottom line: A short, insider-narrated account best suited to hockey fans and Canadians who remember 1972, not a comprehensive history.
A Few Questions About The Series
Does Ken Dryden narrating his own audiobook make The Series worth choosing over the print edition?
Yes, if firsthand perspective matters more to you than the photographs the print edition includes. Dryden's own measured narration adds an authenticity a professional narrator could not replicate, though the audio necessarily drops the archival images.
Is the audiobook long enough to cover all eight games of the 1972 Summit Series in detail?
Not exhaustively. At two hours and eight minutes, The Series moves at the pace of a personal reflection rather than a blow-by-blow history, and reviewer Lepardo's complaint that a quarter of the print content is photographs helps explain why the audio runs this short.
Do I need to remember the 1972 Summit Series firsthand to follow this book?
No, but Dryden writes for readers who already understand why the series mattered, so some prior familiarity with the outline of the story will deepen the experience.
Is The Series a good introduction to Ken Dryden's writing?
It works as a standalone listen, and fans of his earlier books will recognize the same patient, reporter's voice applied here to an event Dryden did not just observe but helped decide.
