Sharks Gameday: Reviewing the Reviews of Save By Roy

The first shocking thing about looking up Save By Roy, the hagiographic book by Terry "I'll Write Any Damn Thing About Hockey, Apparently" Frei and Adrian "Drunk & Sexually Harassing Twitter Followers" Dater about the first year Patrick Roy returned to the Colorado Avalanche as a head coach, is that it is still apparently full price. I fully expected this to be available for pennies. But nope, it's $12.67 for a paperback, and $7.99 for the Kindle version, about $12.57 and $7.89 too much, respectively, for me to bother ordering it to hate-read it.

The second shocking thing is that it has 4.6 out of 5 Stars on Amazon.

Granted, there are only 8 reviews, but 6 of them are 5 stars (Hi, Terry and Adrian! Hi, Terry and Adrian's family!), and nobody gave it less than 3 stars. That is amazing. The book's premise is, apparently, that Patrick Roy's return behind the bench 2013 as a first-time head coach at any level was yet another "save" for the franchise, because Roy was a goalie, and goalies make saves. Roy's team made the playoffs that year by winning their (terrible) division, largely propelled by unsustainable underlying statistics. They were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by the Minnesota Wild in 7 games, one of only 4 playoff series the Wild have ever won. I guess the idea was that Roy's team was now on the upswing, and that he once again proved the doubters wrong by leading his young team to a division title and playoff appearance after a terrible 4 year run of not making the playoffs.

The following year, the PDO Fairy took a gigantic shit under their pillow, and they finished 7th in the Central, their worst placement ever as the Avalanche. And this year, whaddayaknow, they've got horrendous underlying statistics, but sit in the last wild card spot currently. But I'm sure it's going to be fine.

Anyway, it's incredibly to me that this was turned into a book at all. A one year return to the playoffs and a first round exit is not exactly a compelling sports story. But here are the reviewers that thought so:

Alisha, *****

Best quote:

Got it on time and my boy loved it

A one-liner. Alisha doesn't expect much from her books, and she was clearly overwhelmed by Amazon's ability to successfully deliver her book on time to her boy.

Chances that this was written by Frei/Dater or their family: 83%

Mary, *****

Best quote:

Very Happy

Another one-liner. Mary sees Alisha's low-bar for a perfect review, and tunnels underneath it.

Chances this was written by Frei/Dater or their family: 90%

Tony, *****

Best quote:

My favorite team with a year to remember, great read so far. great seller, Thanks!

Sure was a year to remember, Tony!

Chances this was written by Frei/Dater or their family: 93%

Brandon, *****

Best quote:

I thought it was a good read for any Avs fan

Gotta stick to the facts here, Brandon. This isn't of any interest to non-Avs fans. I appreciate that.

Chances this was written by Frei/Dater or their family: 97%

Christine, *****

Best quote:

All hockey fans should read this book (even if Roy made you cry when you were younger.)

What did Patrick do to you, Christine? Christine claims to be a Rangers fan and to have received an advanced readers copy of the book, despite the format being "Kindle". Hmmm.

Chances this was written by Frei/Dater or their family: 75%

NHVIKING, *****

Best quote:

Dater has once again spun a facinating read.

Oh yeah for sure man. Nobody can spin a read like Dater.

Chances this was written by Frei/Dater or their family: 100%

Proof? This comment for NHVIKING's review by Jan in SE CO:

I think this review was written by a guy Avs fans and DP readers know well. We miss you! <wink - wink>

Hmmm.

LSmith, ****

Best quote:

Did I skim?

No

By far the longest review, LSmith goes into probably more detail about the book than Frei/Dater did in writing it.

Chances this was written by Frei/Dater or their family: 20%

MR Fitzpatrick, ***

Even in understanding that this book comes from a newspaper perspective, this book is really lacking in any original content.

Boom. MR Fitzpatrick got suckered into paying for a collection of crap he already read, and he seems mad! Except he then goes on to say it was easy to read, and still gave it a positive review.

Chances this was written by Frei/Dater or their family: 0%

Why? Because either Frei or Dater replied to MR Fitzpatrick:

You're certainly entitled to your opinion and thanks for buying and for the 3 stars. I can in quite friendly fashion, however, assure you that the assertions and assumptions about our methodology and the writing process are incorrect.

This is bullshit. Frei and Dater covered the Avs for the Denver Post. They didn't use any of that material for their book? Suuuuuuure.

Avalanche @ Sharks

7:00 PM Pacific

Prediction: Dater registers a sock-puppet account to trash this post.