Looking at the past to the future: Ken Dryden's new book explores important life question

The legendary Montreal Canadiens goaltender Ken Dryden has made a stop in Winnipeg as he showcases his latest book.

Dryden – who played in the NHL with Montreal from 1970 to 1979 and was also a politician and lawyer – has written his ninth book, but this one has nothing to do about hockey.

His newest book, The Class, is about his high school years and the group of students he went through school with.

"We were in a specially selected high school class, we wrote exams for it. And in Ontario at the time, there was Grade 13, so we stayed together from Grades 9 to Grade 13, and there were about 35 of us. And really, the question that all of us examine at some point in our lives, how did we get from there to here?" said Dryden.

Dryden said he was able to reconnect with almost everyone who was in this class and started talking with them about life.

Of those 35 classmates, Dryden was able to find all of them except one, and found family members for five of the six people who had since passed away.

"We're all in our mid-70s, none of us are doing what we imagined we would be doing, not living where we thought where we would be living, and living the kinds of twists and turns that I'm sure part of your life and everybody else's life (takes)."

While this book is about going from high school to present day for these people, Dryden said it is so much more.

"Every book is about a place and a time as well. So it's a, how did we get here as a country as well because we were all born as post-war kids and lived through all of these changing times – from Canada (with) a population of 13 million to 40 million, Canada as a country with very little diversity, now among the most multicultural countries in the world. We've lived that and so what has it been like?"

While going through this journey, one thing Dryden learned is the people he went to school with don't look like they do anymore, noting people's faces changes over time, but something that stays the same is someone's voice.

"Within 20 seconds, I would recognize their voice. We just had a launch of the book a week ago in Toronto and that's where we came face to face, all of us in the first time in 50 years and again hard to recognize at first, but the voices unbelievably the same."

Dryden said while this book is taking a look at the past, it also sparks questions about the future and what is next.

Dryden will be McNally Robinson at 7 p.m. to discuss his book further.