CaptHowdy

This is a fantastic listen. I love Bobby Hull and am a HUGE Jets fan. I recently bought a copy of Hull's photo book 'The Golden Jet' from him (autographed and all!). I recommend giving that book a quick read before listening to this. While I don't think the Golden Jet was anything special...especially since it only concentrated on his Chicago Black Hawk days, this book takes place during a typical signing session that Bobby Hull is doing for it. So, that book kind of creates the setting and when they mention a photo or some blurb contained within it, it was nice to know what they were talking about. However, it is very minimal and won't affect anything. It just enhanced my listening experience with this book.

The story was great. Like I said, Bobby Hull is a favourite of mine and I found that this book was the most well rounded biography I have ever listened to of his. It is honest. It is critical. It still gets through to the listener just how great of a hockey player he was. It tells of how he changed hockey, toppled greedy National Hockey League (NHL) extortionists, and on and on.

The book is very thorough. Like I mentioned previously, in the Golden Jet, nothing else but the Black Hawks are mentioned. I know the NHL likes to ignore anything to do with the old World Hockey Association (WHA) or even Hockey Canada stuff from back in the day. This book treated all the stages of Hull's career equally. His NHL career, the WHA, some international games, its all there. From a personal aspect, his troubled family life, health, and many other aspects of it are touched upon.

I hated taking away stars from the rating system but here is the only kicker with this audiobook. While I LOVED the narrator, heck he kept it interesting and fun, I will definitely listen to more stuff by this narrator... however he's got to first look up how to pronounce the people's names! I can overlook a couple, heck a few, but we are talking dozens of incorrectly pronounced names. The narrator must be great at his job because he must literally not know anything about hockey. He even mispronounced Rocket Richard and Guy Lafleur for Pete's sake! I hate the Montreal Canadiens but anyone who knows a little bit of hockey knows how to pronounce these names. I can understand people that may not be household names like the former Winnipeg Jet's owner Barry Shenkarow, etc., but there are just too many mispronunciations to overlook in this case! Mark Messier is another off the top of my head. There are probably many names I didn't even catch since I don't know all the characters involved in this book!

The name being read wrong was very distracting and I feel could lead others to not really know who the narrator is really talking about. Heck, it took me a few moments to realize he meant to say Rocket Richard. I've never in my life heard anyone call him 'Richards' like saying 'Richards Dawson' if I can explain one example of the mispronunciation though typing. I would hate for people being first introduced to many of these people to actually think this is what their real names are!

Overall though, the narration of the book (overlooking the names issue), the subject matter, and everything else about it was five star! I love this book and am so happy I used a credit on it! A mandatory listen for hockey fans interested in the history of the game!

This is a modern radio drama western. I've been in the mood for westerns lately for no reason in particular. Perhaps it was all that Red Dead Redemption I've been playing.

I'd prefer the subject matter to be a little more adult orientated as this appears to be targeted for family listening. That aside, I found this first season of Powder River highly entertaining. I'd slap on iTunes, lie down in bed, close my eyes and get lost in the exploits of Britt MacMasters and his son, Chad.

By the end of the season, I had become so familiar with all the town's characters (think of how you may know all the characters in the Simpson's town) that I wanted more. So I quickly snapped up the next couple of seasons.

Overall good stuff. The audio quality and mixing is excellent. The effects are minimal (horses clapping away, etc.), good music et al. If you like family friendly radio westerns, this is one for you. Even if you just want to try it out, it's dirt cheap for the quality and length of this production here on Audible, I was quite surprised.