Dave Bidini is one of the members of that great Canadian geek-rock band, the Rheostatics. Not only is he an accomplished musician and songwriter, he has in recent years turned his pen to fiction and sportswriting, and has proven to be quite talented in that arena as well.

You can't be truly Canadian without some kind of obsession with hockey, but Bidini takes this to an art form, producing songs, fiction, newspaper columns, and full length books of fantasic scope all about "the best game you can name". This guy can really write, too. I can't think of a more boring genre than sportswriting, but Bidini's pieces are fun to read even if you know nothing about the game.

In his full-length hockey book, Tropic of Hockey: My Search for the Game in Unlikely Places, Bidini chronicles the sport of hockey in places ranging from China to the United Arab Emirates, all places he actually visited and played hockey.

He also has another book: On a Cold Road: Tales of Adventure in Canadian Rock, ostensibly about the winter 1996 tour the Rheostatics took as the opener for The Tragically Hip (another Canadian rock legend), but he interviews so many other musicians (Randy Bachman, Kim Mitchell, Goddo, the Stampeders, Triumph, and Rush to name a few) that the book ends up being more of a history of Canadian rock 'n' roll. Hockey is here, too, though. Apparently one night after the show the bands rented an entire hockey arena just to play for a few hours. Cool.

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