A wide-eyed and sometimes wincing wander through hockey's literature, language, and history. A journey to discover what the game has to say about who we are as Canadians. Can hockey make you a better person? What exactly is the Swedes' problem? Where did the hook check go? Should those men really be permitted to keep punching each other in the head? If hockey is the best of us, is it also the worst? Is there hope? Stephen Smith's stories have appeared in Geist and McSweeney's. He lives in Toronto, where he tends a blog, puckstruck.com, that keeps an eye on hockey culture. Puckstruck is his first book.