witchbuns

Kevin McGran, 2025

3 Stars for warmups

Nothing really surprised me about this book and it felt very surface-level, like I was reading a series of long-form articles in the Toronto Star, instead of a biography. Part of this is due to the author repeating storylines from chapter to chapter as if you are catching up after a week away. I think the subtitle should not have been “A Life in Hockey” (sir, Papi is still in his 20’s) but more like, “How a kid from Arizona became King” or something sports-like. The author spends a lot of the first half discussing how Auston learned to skate at such an elite level in Arizona, and it comes from some wild connections between Russia and Mexico and Toronto which lead to a best-in-class training camp. It’s also clear that Auston has the greatest parents in the world who supported him endlessly and kept him grounded as he traveled and billeted and lived abroad. They have always been described as absolute sweethearts, so this is not surprising but I did personally find that the best part of this book. 

To no one’s surprise (because, hockey culture) there is no mention of his personal life and even the Bieber bromance is about a half page. I am somewhat surprised that Mitch Marner is barely in the book; he’s captioned in a photo about leading in assists to Matthews but the author did NOT want to touch the lightning rod of Marner (for the record, I support him, empathize with him, and wish Marner the absolute best of luck in his new Vegas chapter). We also still don’t hear much about Auston’s experience as a Latino, the son of an immigrant mother from Mexico, but that’s pretty normal because he keeps that quite high-level (also because, hockey culture). 

Overall I skimmed the last half because the parts on the Toronto team seemed very surface-level. This is nothing compared to the Nazem Kadri book which is waaaay dishier on the Leafs toxic culture under Babcock and gives a lot more insight into how he feels about his experiences as a son of immigrants. However, this Matthews book is a biography and Kadri’s is a memoir, so I’m not really making a fair comparison. Overall – glad I read this because I really needed to hear more about Matthews’ four score debut and understand how his skating style developed, plus the sacrifices his parents made. For the real life in hockey and everything past 19 when he joined the Leafs, I’ll wait for his memoir, which he will write after the Maple Leafs win the cup, because this is our year.