THE PATRICKS: Hockey's Royal Family

A first-rate chronicle of four Patrick generations, starting with patriarch Joe, whose timber money backed the play of the first professional league on Canada's Pacific Coast, and ending with his great-grandson Craig, assistant coach and general manager of the U.S. Hockey team that won the gold medal at this year's Winter Olympics. Joe's legendary sons, Lester and Frank--both top-flight players in their prime--also built Canada's first enclosed arenas with artifical ice, in Vancouver and Victoria, B.C. The circuit was also the first to number players, use blue lines to cut down offside calls, record assists as well as goals scored, allow goalies to leave their feet to make saves, and initiate post-season playoffs. During the mid-1920s, the PCHA succumbed, as much a victim of sparse population as of the power play by eastern interests in Montreal and points south. Lester signed on as the New York Rangers coach, won the Stanley Cup his second season (1927-28), and eventually ascended to the post of general manager and a niche in hockey's Hall of Fame. Brother Frank, also a Hall-of-Famer, became the NHL's managing director in 1933 and later coached the Boston Bruins. Lester's sons, Lynn and Murray (better known as Muzz), played for their dad's Rangers and helped make the club's 1939-40 Stanley Cup win (the Broadway Blues' last) a family affair. Whitehead's account is spiced with anecdotal reportage, plus brief portraits of yesteryear's hockey greats. And for those concerned about today's violence, there are chilling accounts of a 1907 match between the Ottawa Senators and Montreal Wanderers, termed a ""bloody disgrace"" by the Star reporter on the scene, and Eddy Shore's near-lethal assualt on Ace Bailey in 1933. With family-album photos, a dandy.