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Saved | 
 enlarge | Author: Jack Falla
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $13.39
You Save: $10.56 (44%)
New (25) Used (11) from $9.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  11 reviews
Sales Rank: 143311
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1st
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.3 x 5.6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0312368267
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780312368265
ASIN: 0312368267
Publication Date: January 8, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Veteran Boston goaltender Jean Pierre Savard sees stardom and the money it brings as fate’s make-up call for a life in which he lost his father, his wife, and most of his self confidence for anything not involving saves or sex.
Now late in his career, Savard and his teammate and best friend, Cam Carter, are trying to fulfill their boyhood dreams of winning a Stanley Cup before they retire. A surprise late-season trade pits the friends against each other in a playoff series both could lose but only one can win.
Saved takes the reader into the rinks, dressing rooms, planes, buses, and hotels that are the backdrop to the long grind of an NHL season. That grind is made bearable by the likes of players such as Bruno Govoni, whose cell phone ring tone is the orgasmic moaning of a porn star Loretta (Lash) LaRue; of Phil “Flipside” Palmer, the only person besides the Kingsmen who knows all the words to “Louie Louie” or that “Child of the Moon” was the flipside of the Rolling Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”; and team enforcer Kevin Quigley, who claims all his fights are retaliations, “but sometimes I retaliate first.”
Most sports novels bring the game to the reader. Saved brings the reader to the game.
Praise for Jack Falla
“Falla’s graphic portrayal of a violent sport (and its colorful players) and his insider’s view of how hockey is played, coached, and officiated is exciting, surefire entertainment.”
-- Publishers Weekly on Saved
“Literary hot chocolate that will warm your heart.”
---Robert Lipsyte, The New York Times, on Home Ice
“The best hockey book ever.”
---John Buccigross, ESPN sportscaster, on Home Ice
“Possibly the best hockey book since Ken Dryden’s The Game.”
---Toronto Globe and Mail, on Home Ice
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| Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
Falla adds to legend with this gem! September 25, 2008
I write this review with bittersweet feelings, as Jack Falla's recent passing has left a void in the hockey community. I don't know of many authors more qualified to touch on the subjects covered in "Saved" than the esteemed Boston University journalism professor, who touched so many lives with his professional writing skills and love of the sport. Although I met him only briefly a few years ago, he made my year when he recognized my name and acknowledged my own meager contributions to sports journalism.
"Saved" is the tale of a veteran NHL goaltender who is still trying to find his balance several years after losing his wife, an aging talent who realizes that his opportunities to win the coveted Stanley Cup are dwindling. Throughout the course of this fictional season, JP Savard will have his world turned upside down both on and off the ice, as he deals with positive changes in his life (a new love) along with challenges he never really seriously considered (an unexpected trade to a bitter rival).
Falla's intricate knowledge of the sport, the position (he was a goalie) and its real-life characters serve him well in this tale of modern athletes who are in many ways, still reflective of the old time hockey pro hockey players Falla grew up admiring/folllowing and later covering as Sports Illustrated's NHL correspondent. As a kid growing up near Boston in the 70's and 80's, I was a fanatical devotee of the Boston Bruins and can readily identify with so many of the themes and storylines surrounding the team in Falla's fictional yarn (the bottom-line conscious billionaire owner, the curmudgeonly, set-in-his-ways GM, the heart-and-soul captain who has never won a championship and desperately wants to before he can no longer play, the team that always comes up short to the hated Montreal Canadiens [sorry Habs fans]). I was (and am still) a hockey goalie, so Falla's book is especially meaningful to me, as I have quite a bit in common with JP Savard from a playing standpoint.
I wasn't good enough to pursue a professional hockey career, but my love of the game never subsided. Through Jack Falla's timeless hockey classic, I got to live vicariously through JP Savard and thoroughly enjoyed his quirky, yet honest NHL journey as if it had been my own.
RIP, Professor. You are dearly missed, but your spirit lives on this great book.
Really great hockey book July 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I loved this book! Parts of it are laugh-out-loud funny and all of it gives great insight into the minds and hearts of hockey players. Lots of good stuff that you know had to happen to someone, although I know names and locations have been changed. Also, a lot of interesting and informative bits of hockey lore. But, above all, the story is great and the characters are all three-dimensional ones. You care about them and want to know what happens next. I hope to see more hockey fiction from Mr Falla.
 Good book July 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is a MUST for any hockey fan.Anybody looking for any behind the scenes expose of life in the Nhl should go elsewhere. The book took me two days to read.JP Savard is a goalie determined to hang on to his job and continue playing in the Nhl.Throughout one season we follow him through the highs and lows and how he deals with them. Jp is a very likeable protagonist as well as the rest of the characters. I really liked the way Falla includes hockey history throughout the book without bogging the story down.
A Book Worth Saving for Your Reading List June 11, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The summer season is rapidly approaching and many travelers will be compiling a list of books to read while on vacation. The hockey fan should consider Saved, by Jack Falla. It follows the season of Jean Pierre Savard, a goalie for the Bruins and his quest to win the Cup as his career is winding down. There are no surprises here but the book is loaded with hockey history and behind the scenes looks at the life of a professional hockey player. Falla covered the NHL for many years for Sports Illustrated and he brings the reader into the locker room, the rink and lives of these fictional characters.
At first Jean Pierre (JP) appears to be the main character as the first thirty pages focus on his background information, how he became a goalie and his college career then launches into present day. We are introduced to his best friend and teammate Cam Carter, get a glimpse of JP's personal life which includes a Ferrari and a lot of sex, which should entice the male reader to pick up the book. However, as the book progresses the real main character becomes evident, the hockey culture and game. Hockey is all JP has ever known and as the end of his career looms, he is terrified by the prospect of not knowing what to do with the rest of his life. Three concussions during the season cannot deter him from his need to keep playing, even with a warning from his fiancee Faith McNeil, a former college classmate and hotshot basketball player, now a dotcom millionaire and doctor.
My husband obviously has done a good job over the past eight years because I was familiar with the majority of the names, terms and events mentioned in the book and some basic hockey knowledge does make the book more pleasurable. Falla does provide a lot of detail, so that the new hockey fan will not be completely lost while reading this book. An example is the description of the Vezina Trophy. The reader learns for whom the trophy is named and why, and the details about Vezina's final game and untimely death. Sports metaphors run amuck in the book, which at times was cumbersome to this reader. It may be a gender difference, as the book is told from a male point of view, because while a sports fan I certainly don't answer every question directed to me with a sports reference.
As JP moves through his season and a trade from the Bruins, he gives details about the games he playing, what they mean during the different points of the season, what needs to happen for his Cup run to continue and how it feels to have someone else gunning for his job the entire time. Most readers cannot identify with being a professional athlete and being paid millions of dollars a year. But they can relate to being in their thirties, not knowing what to do next in their lives and struggling to hold onto their youth. This, coupled with the hockey history woven throughout the book makes it an enjoyable and quick read. (Provided the reader does not have a four year old and six month old vying for his or her attention.) As you pack your bags for the beach, mountains and beyond make sure you include Saved.
heykay May 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Jack Falla has written the ultimate book about hockey, its characters, its culture and its athletic charm. It's like being dropped down into "hockey world" and allowed to be an invisible observer. Falla's style conveys the feeling of the sport without slowing it down with extraneous detail. You get to appreciate the characters and I wished it would just go on without end. It is the most enjoyable story that I can remember. Get yourself a copy to read whenever you feel the world around you sucks.
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