A CBC radio broadcaster, musician and author who calls Powell River his second home has switched focus for his second book.
Grant Lawrence has recently published The Lonely End of the Rink, a combination of hockey lore, Canadian music history and hilarious personal anecdotes.
Lawrence said he considers his new book the winter counterpart to his first, award-winning book, Adventures in Solitude. “A lot of people asked me when they read the first book, how did you get to be such a wimpy kid scared of your own shadow?” he said. “A lot of the answers are found in this book.”
The Lonely End of the Rink is about his life when he wasn’t forced to go to his family’s cabin in Desolation Sound, the subject of his first book. “It’s essentially about my really turbulent and conflicted relationship with sports and hockey,” he said. “It also chronicles my lifelong suffering fandom of the Vancouver Canucks and their three failed attempts at the Stanley Cup.”
The new book’s themes include social survival, Lawrence said, because he recounts some incredibly difficult times he went through as a teenager and a younger child and how he got out of that. “Another theme is the attempt at living life on your own terms,” he said. “When it came to the sport of hockey, I had to basically become an adult until I could actually play hockey on my own terms, because I really felt I wasn’t welcomed into our national pastime when I was a wimpy little kid.”
About 10 years ago, Lawrence formed a hockey team full of wimpy artists, including musicians, comedians and writers. “It’s been a really wonderful experience to play hockey on our own terms,” he said.
Lawrence is launching his book at 7 pm on Friday, November 8 in the Rainbow Room of the Rodmay Hotel. He will be reading from the book, showing slides and a short film, as well as doing a question and answer session and signing copies of the book. Powell River musician Slim Milkie will be performing at the event.
