Portrait of a Hockey Scribe: Life on Press Row

For four decades, Gare Joyce has profiled hockey’s icons and obscurities, but he’s saved the strangest and funniest stories for Portrait of a Hockey Scribe.

A memoir tracking a child’s worship of sportswriters, Portrait of a Hockey Scribe is a cautionary tale about getting exactly what you want — for Joyce, a seat in Maple Leaf Gardens’ press box.

Joyce spares himself no embarrassment in cataloging his persistently humbling beginnings — from washing out in journalism school to working a dead...