Odd Man Rush

In his hilarious, gritty, and touching debut, Bill Keenan—a hockey star once on the fast-track to the NHL—tells of how he overcame multiple obstacles to find fulfillment and redemption in the strange world of European minor-league professional hockey. Keenan’s hockey obsession begins as a five-year-old on Lasker Rink in New York’s Central Park—“love at first stride,” as he calls it. He then becomes the youngest, and skinniest, player on the New York Bobcats, a Junior B hockey team. Later, after his hockey career at Harvard doesn’t end as planned—with a fat NHL contract—Keenan decides to play in the minor leagues in Europe, where the glamour of professional sports is decidedly lacking. Part fish-out-of-water travelogue, part coming-of-age memoir, Odd Man Rush will capture the interest of not just hockey fans, but also fans of good writing. Throughout, Keenan’s deep affection for the game shines through, even as he describes fans who steal players’ clothes from the locker room or toss empty beer cans onto the rink after games. Abusive fans, cold showers, long bus rides—nothing diminishes his love for the sport. “Because that’s the way it works with me and hockey. Even when it’s horrible, it’s wonderful.” Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

“Why aren’t you using LTM EBITDA for credit metrics?” asked the managing director who sat across from me, his widow’s peak clearly visible as he inspected the sheet in front of him. His spacious office looked out onto New York Harbor. “Bust,” said the vice president, who was a slightly younger, douchier version of Widow’s Peak. He slashed his red ballpoint pen across the sheet and flipped to the next page. “Walk me through the debt paydown and your interest rate assumptions,” continued the VP. “Pretty dovish view. Maybe the Fed knows what they’re doing after all,” said Widow’s Peak. He shot a glance at the VP. They shared a chuckle—at what, I couldn’t tell you. This question about interest rates I knew: Dovish, I thought. Doves fly south for the winter, so dovish is downwards…low interest rates— “We’re running short on time,” said Widow’s Peak. He flipped to the cover page of my presentation. “One final point—all pitch decks should have the same title.” “Since this presentation was geared towards an LBO analysis I was thinking—” “No thinking. All decks—same title—Discussion Materials.” Noted. Discussion Materials gives the reader an honest look at Wall Street from someone in the trenches. After graduating from Columbia Business School, Bill Keenan joined Deutsche Bank’s investment banking division as an associate where despotic superiors (and the blinking red light of his BlackBerry) instilled low-level terror on an hourly basis. You’ll join him in his cubicle on the 44th floor of 60 Wall Street as he scrambles to ensure floating bar charts are the correct shade of orange and all numbers are left-aligned, but whatever you do, don’t ask him what any of it means. Leaning heavily on his fellow junior bankers and the countless outsourcing resources the bank employs, he slowly develops proficiency at the job, eventually gaining traction and respect, one deal at a time, over a two-year span, ultimately cementing his legacy in the group by attaining the unattainable: placing a dinner order on Seamless one Sunday night at work from Hwa Yuan Szechuan amounting to $25.00 (tax and tip included), the bank’s maximum allowance for meals—the perfect order.

A hilairious inside baseball account of year in the minor leagues Odd Man Out captures the gritty essence of our national pastime as it is played outside the spot­light. Matt McCarthy, a decent left-handed starting pitcher on one of the worst squads in Yale history, earned a ticket to spring training as the twenty-sixth-round draft pick of the 2002 Anaheim Angels. This is the hilarious inside story of his year with the Provo Angels, Anaheim's minor league affiliate in the heart of Mormon country, as McCarthy navigates the ups and downs of an antic, grueling season, filled with cross-country bus trips, bizarre rivalries, and wild locker-room hijinks.

When my best friend tells me she's finally following her dreams and starting her own business, I couldn't be happier. Since college, we've talked about creating a website where people of all types can feel free to be themselves and explore what turns them on. So when she asks me to run it with her, I'm all in. Until she asks me to sleep with her and her husband, and post it on the website. I've loved her my whole life, but she chose a different path to please her parents. A path that led her to her wonderful hockey pro husband. If I accept her offer, I'd be her dirty secret all over again, and I don't know if my heart can withstand it. But when my apartment goes under construction, I'm stuck living with the two people I should be keeping my distance from. The forced proximity brings us closer in ways I never would've imagined, and now that we've started, I don't know how we'll be able to stop when it's time for me to move back out. No one can know about the things the three of us are doing. There's too much at stake. But even though we're careful to hide our identities, nothing stays hidden on the internet for long...

Hockey Plays and Strategies features a variety of plays, systems, and strategies for game play in the offensive, neutral, and defensive zones. Special situations such as the power play, penalty kill, and face-offs are also featured.

Eli McKenna has a good life. Starting goalie for the Seattle Kingfishers, a beautiful wife, a lovely home-he even has a great dog. He should be counting his blessings, not wishing for things he can never have. When Rune Hedaya is traded to the team, Eli knows he's in trouble. Rune is charismatic, handsome, and has a knack for making Eli smile that few possess. But Eli can totally handle Rune staying with him for a month or two while he looks for a place to live, right? Noemi McKenna never stops moving. If she's not coaching the college's hockey team, she's volunteering at the local shelter, training for marathons, or mentoring troubled youths. But somewhere deep down under everything, she knows something's wrong with her husband, and she's determined to find out what, if she can just get a minute alone with him. Eli, Noemi, and Rune are going to have to get this sorted before their internal conflicts tear them apart from the inside out, but whether or not they have the courage to go for what they want is another story altogether. ODD MAN RUSH is a guaranteed happily-ever-after for all parties involved with no cheating, but is not a traditional polyamorous romance.

In less than a year, Neil Peart lost both his 19-year-old daughter, Selena, and his wife, Jackie. Faced with overwhelming sadness and isolated from the world in his home on the lake, Peart was left without direction. That lack of direction lead him on a 5

Chet Griffin, convicted computer hacker and San Francisco's fastest rollerblading messenger, was given a simple assignment. But that delivery turned real deadly, real fast. Seems the package he was carrying contained a single computer disk -- worth a cool billion. And everyone, from the Chinese mob to the SFPD, wants to get their hands on it. Now Chet's fighting for his life, trying to clear his name, and wondering what price he'll pay for...