Hockey: A People’s History, like the ten-part CBC series it accompanies, tells the story of this breathtakingly fast game from its hotly contested origins, and the surge in its popularity after 1875, when it was first taken inside, through the rise and fall and rise again of women’s hockey, the sagas of long-lost leagues, such as the Pacific Coast Hockey League and, more recently, the World Hockey Association, to the present day and the first-ever lockout of players by the one remaining league. In that time, while play has changed only slightly (every generation of Canadians has complained about the growing violence of the game) hockey itself has been transformed from a rough and ready winter sport to a business worth many billions of dollars, played by millionaires. But Hockey: A People’s History is not a business story, rather, it is the story of the men and woman who helped make the game what it is today.