The author of the book is Stanislav Gridasov, a well-known sports journalist, founder of the site Sports.ru, former editor-in-chief of ProSport magazine. This is an unusual reading: in fact, there are two books under the same cover at once. The first describes the phenomenon of popularity of Soviet hockey through the eyes of a schoolboy who is in love with this game. The angle is not the most familiar, but it allows the reader to feel the atmosphere of a long-vanished world after a few decades. Soviet hockey, Soviet life in the 1970s and 1980s, and the author’s native city of Saratov are shown with such care and detail that reading becomes a real journey through time – from our era to a distant childhood. The second part is a detailed encyclopedia, which, however, includes not only “goals, points, seconds”: 70 years of the history of Saratov hockey are given in the living context of the country and time. It is the combination of personal author’s memories and strict, professionally submitted facts that makes this “crystal” magical, giving the book a stereoscopic effect.