John Branch and Derek Boogaard

Derek Boogaard: I used to tell Boogey to find a face to smash with his fist. I d say Go punch a face, then take a seat. Thats how one-time Minnesota Wild coach Jacques Lemaire described Derek Boogaards role. John Branch recovered that Lemaire tweet in his exhaustive research into the life and death of one-time National Hockey League NHL enforcer Derek Boogaard, according to The Toronto Star, Canada. In a hockey market where we cant get enough of a team thats won nothing in half a century and where broadcasters and some scribes seem to vie with the NHLs marketing machine in their uncritical celebrating, Branchs book offers a much needed, harrowing correction and Boy On Ice The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard, John Branch, HarperCollins Boogaard died of an overdose of painkilling drugs and alcohol in Minneapolis in 2011 after a brief NHL career in which he carved out a place for himself with his fists, not his skating or stick handling. In terse prose that treats his subject with understated and almost tender respect, Branch uncovers the seamiest aspects of the National Hockey leagues love affair with violence gratuitous fighting that has nothing to do with the essential speed, grace and legitimate toughness of the game. Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times journalist Branch works this story with the relentlessness of Boogaards fists when he was the most feared hockey fighter on ice. (news.financializer.com). As reported in the news.