Calling the Shots: Ups, Downs and Rebounds – My Life in the Great Game of Hockey

Few people have had a better front-row seat to hockey history than Kelly Hrudey. And in Calling the Shots, he delivers the same insider view as he takes us on a roller-coaster ride through the NHL over the last thirty years, alongside his Hall of Fame teammates Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin, Jari Kurri, Paul Coffey and Wayne Gretzky.

This is Kelly Hrudey at his best—candid, funny and opinionated. He takes us on the ice for the 1987 Easter Epic, where he stood tall in net and made seventy-three saves (to this day an NHL record for most saves made in a playoff game) against the Capitals. The fourth overtime period of Game Seven ended at 1:58 in the morning. In 1989, he joined Gretzky and Marty McSorley on a team that took Los Angeles by storm. The dressing room was always full of stars and the Kings travelled in Hollywood circles. Sylvester Stallone once gave a Rocky-style pep talk, and there was lunch with John Candy and a celebrity-filled birthday party at John McEnroe’s home in Malibu with Bruce Springsteen and Bruce Willis.

After a legendary series against the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1993, the Kings made it to the franchise’s first Stanley Cup final, against Patrick Roy and the Canadiens in three nail-biting overtimes. Hrudey tells us about his encounters with the great and the not-so great, the inspiring victories, missed opportunities, heartfelt moments and outright craziness. In Calling the Shots, Hrudey has collaborated with bestselling author Kirstie McLellan Day as he shares lively, insightful, funny and surprising stories about life in the NHL.