Taking The Ice

Can Aiden learn to stand his ground on his new home ice? Meet Aiden Mallory. He’s trying to find his bearings while coping with the loss of his father — an NHL player who died in a car accident — and moving back to his dad’s hometown of Prairie Field, where he is STILL a big deal. Aiden loves hockey, but his feelings about moving and his dad’s death cause him to struggle at tryouts. Then the minor hockey association announces a brand-new U13 tournament: the Luke Mallory Memorial. As Aiden tries to find his place on his new team, and among his new teammates, he will do anything he can to live up to his dad’s legacy. But what happens when Aiden’s determination to play well puts everything else at risk? From Lorna Schultz Nicholson comes a powerful portrayal of a boy’s experiences with anxiety as it relates to sports and friendship and grief.

Olympic rings and an engagement ring. Courtney Carlton is ready for both. She and her boyfriend Josh have skated together and dated for four years, and they've reached a critical point in their partnership both on and off the ice. With the Winter Games coming up and their career nearing an end, they are fighting to win a spot on the Olympic team, something Courtney has dreamed of since she was ten years old. She also has another wish she hopes comes true soon. She's waiting for a marriage proposal from Josh that she expected to happen by now. Will she realize either dream or will her heart be broken from disappointment?

It seemed as though nothing could stop Jordin Tootoo on the ice. The captain of Canada’s Under-18, a fan favourite on the World Junior squad, and a WHL top prospect who could intimidate both goalies and enforcers, he was always a leader. And when Tootoo was drafted by Nashville in 2000 and made the Predators out of camp in 2003, he became a leader in another way: the first player of Inuk descent to suit up in the NHL. The stress of competition in the world’s top hockey league, the travel, the media, the homesickness—and the added pressure to hold one’s head high as a role model not only for the young people of his hometown of Rankin Inlet but for the culture that had given him the strength and the opportunities to succeed—would have been more than enough to challenge any rookie. But Tootoo faced something far more difficult: the loss of his brother in the year between his draft and his first shift for the Predators. Though he played through it, the tragedy took its inevitable toll. In 2010, Tootoo checked himself into rehab for alcohol addiction. It seemed a promising career had ended too soon. But that’s not the way Tootoo saw it and not the way it would end. As heir to a cultural legacy that included alcohol, despair, and suicide, Tootoo could also draw on a heritage that could help sustain him even thousands of miles away from Nunavut. And in a community haunted by the same hopelessness and substance abuse that so affected Tootoo’s life, it is not just his skill and fearlessness on the ice that have made him a hero, but the courage of his honesty to himself and to the world around him that he needed to rely on others to sustain him through his toughest challenge. All the Way tells the story of someone who has travelled far from home to realize a dream, someone who has known glory and cheering crowds, but also the demons of despair. It is the searing, honest tale of a young man who has risen to every challenge and nearly fallen short in the toughest game of all, while finding a way to draw strength from his community and heritage, and giving back to it as well.

Like the adventurer who circled an iceberg to see it on all sides, Mariana Gosnell, former Newsweek reporter and author of Zero Three Bravo, a book about flying a small plane around the United States, explores ice in all its complexity, grandeur, and significance.More brittle than glass, at times stronger than steel, at other times flowing like molasses, ice covers 10 percent of the earth’s land and 7 percent of its oceans. In nature it is found in myriad forms, from the delicate needle ice that crunches underfoot in a winter meadow to the massive, centuries-old ice that forms the world’s glaciers. Scientists theorize that icy comets delivered to Earth the molecules needed to get life started, and ice ages have shaped much of the land as we know it.Here is the whole world of ice, from the freezing of Pleasant Lake in New Hampshire to the breakup of a Vermont river at the onset of spring, from the frozen Antarctic landscape that emperor penguins inhabit to the cold, watery route bowhead whales take between Arctic ice floes. Mariana Gosnell writes about frostbite and about the recently discovered 5,000-year-old body of a man preserved in an Alpine glacier. She discusses the work of scientists who extract cylinders of Greenland ice to study the history of the earth’s climate and try to predict its future. She examines ice in plants, icebergs, icicles, and hail; sea ice and permafrost; ice on Mars and in the rings of Saturn; and several new forms of ice developed in labs. She writes of the many uses humans make of ice, including ice-skating, ice fishing, iceboating, and ice climbing; building ice roads and seeding clouds; making ice castles, ice cubes, and iced desserts. Ice is a sparkling illumination of the natural phenomenon whose ebbs and flows over time have helped form the world we live in. It is a pleasure to read, and important to read—for its natural science and revelations about ice’s influence on our everyday lives, and for what it has to tell us about our environment today and in the future.

Canada is synonymous with success in figure skating. Taking the Ice tells us about some of the people who have been instrumental in creating the "Ice Dynasty" that we have come to enjoy as Canadians. It all begins with the love affair between Canadians and Barbara Ann Scott, the 1948 Olympic Champion, and the book takes us right up to the stories of the Canadian Champions at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games: Patrick Chan, Jessica Dubé and Bryce Davison, Olympic Bronze Medallist Joannie Rochette, and Olympic Champions Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir. Aside from skaters like Cranston, Stojko, Browning, Orser, Magnussen, Manley, Underhill and Martini, and Wilson and McCall, the book talks about the coaches who stood at the boards, including Burka, Galbraith, Leigh, and Perron. You will also get an inside look at choreographers Sandra Bezic, Lori Nichol, and David Wilson. As a PA announcer at the 2002 Olympic Games, Pj Kwong brings thirty seven first-hand personal accounts from people who were there behind the scenes during the judging scandal that rocked the figure skating world. Included are the stories from the athletes Jamie Salé and David Pelletier, coach Jan Ullmark, and NBC radio commentator Elizabeth Manley among many others. Taking the Ice is not just for skating fans but for everyone who loves the personal and human details in a story that connects us all.

Hockey has been Nick Taglio's life since he was five years old, so when a massive concussion benches him--possibly for good--everything seems to fall apart, including his schoolwork, his family relationships, his friendships, and his love life.

Khalli Davies has been training at Berger Lake Ice Center for just a few months, but that short time period was all she needed to fall head over toe picks for figure skating. Khalli trains with one of the best and toughest coaches in the area-Coach Marie-and Coach Marie has high expectations for Khalli! Even though she is just a few months into the sport, Khalli is aiming to take her first national level test. In order to reach this goal, Khalli needs to give a lot of her time and energy to the ice. Finding balance between her new passion, her friends, her family, and her grades is not easy, but goals are just dreams with deadlines, and Khalli plans to achieve this dream so she can set her sights even higher. Lace up your skates and step on the ice with Khalli as she works toward her very first national figure skating test. Join Khalli as she learns skating tips, experiences trials and triumphs, and gains the mindset of a dedicated young athlete.

It's finally summer, and Khalli has some serious plans! She couldn't be more excited to dedicate all her energy to her skating goals so she can make some major progress this summer. At the rink, Khalli plans to land her Axel and also pass the second Skating Skills test, all while working her hardest alongside her amazing rink friends. But then she meets Mila, and everything changes. Mila is new to Berger Lake. She's a stunning skater who brings a ton of experience, dedication, and passion to the ice--and a whole lot of attitude. The rink may be cold, but Mila is ice-cold. Can Khalli find a way to break the ice and keep her rink family together? Will Mila get in the way of Khalli's plans, or can Khalli find a way to push through her frustrations and stay focused on her goals? The school year is over, the sun is out, and the struggle is on! Step in the rink with Khalli and experience what may be the coldest summer yet!