Welcome to Helmet NightWelcome to Helmet Night

John Blanchette's insightful sports reports and commentary have been a hallmark of The Spokesman-Review's sports pages for nearly two decades. Whether writing about the famous, the infamous, the hopeful or the struggling, Blanchette's writing captures the triumphs, tragedies, joys and disappointments of athletes and their fans in ways that touch both the heart and the mind. His columns, like letters to intelligent friends, help his readers articulate their pride in local sports legends, their frustration with loss, their elation in victory. And, Blanchette has never been afraid to use his pen to "afflict the comfortable (and pompous), while comforting the afflicted (and deserving)." Blanchette is as at home interviewing star professionals such as John Stockton, Mark Rypien, Gaylord Perry, Ryne Sandberg and Chad Little, as he is covering former prep stars, 3-on-3 teams, sandlot kids, college rookies. Throughout his career, Blanchette's personal radar has acutely alerted his readers to the presence of the phony, the puffed-up, the insincere, and often too-commercial aspects of the games we love to watch and play. That radar has also enabled him to recognize and discover for us the "real deals" in sports: the athletes who overcame the odds (or didn't, but tried); those who stayed true to principle, those who gave their best for the fans and those who knew the right time to leave the field. Welcome to Helmet Night is not only the first collection of John Blanchette's columns but also the first book to cover the wide-range of sports and sporting events in the Inland Northwest. As such, it provides an important record of the players, teams, coaches and fans who have enriched the region during the closing decades of the century. - page 2 of cover.