That S Not Hockey

The legendary goalie who revolutionized the game of hockey Young Jacques Plante’s way of playing hockey may look different from everyone else’s. Instead of a puck, he uses a tennis ball, and his shin pads are made out of potato sacks and wooden slats. But that’s not going to stop him. He loves the game. Jacques is drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in his mid-twenties. Fans love the unstoppable goalie as he leads his team to one victory after another. But there’s a price to pay: pucks to the face result in a broken jaw, broken cheekbones, multiple stitches, and even a skull fracture. One day, Jacques has had enough. He goes on the ice wearing a fiberglass mask. The coach orders him to take it off. Finally, at a game against the Rangers, when yet another puck hits Jacques square in the face, he puts his foot down. He will not continue to play unless he’s allowed to wear a mask. Young hockey fans will enjoy this story of Jacques Plante, whose determination and love of the game brought about a revolutionary change to how it is played.

The legendary goalie who revolutionized the game of hockey Young Jacques Plante’s way of playing hockey may look different from everyone else’s. Instead of a puck, he uses a tennis ball, and his shin pads are made out of potato sacks and wooden slats. But that’s not going to stop him. He loves the game. Jacques is drafted by the Montreal Canadiens in his mid-twenties. Fans love the unstoppable goalie as he leads his team to one victory after another. But there’s a price to pay: pucks to the face result in a broken jaw, broken cheekbones, multiple stitches, and even a skull fracture. One day, Jacques has had enough. He goes on the ice wearing a fiberglass mask. The coach orders him to take it off. Finally, at a game against the Rangers, when yet another puck hits Jacques square in the face, he puts his foot down. He will not continue to play unless he’s allowed to wear a mask. Young hockey fans will enjoy this story of Jacques Plante, whose determination and love of the game brought about a revolutionary change to how it is played.

Terry Ryan was poised to take the hockey world by storm when he was selected eighth overall by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1995 NHL draft, their highest draft pick in a decade. Expected to go on to become a hockey star, Ryan played a total of eight NHL games for the Canadiens, scoring no goals and no assists: not exactly the career he, or anyone else, was expecting. Though Terry's NHL career wasn't long, he experienced a lot and has no shortage of hilarious and fascinating revelations about life in pro hockey on and off the ice. In Tales of a First-Round Nothing, he recounts fighting with Tie Domi, partying with rock stars, and everything in between. Ryan tells it like it is, detailing his rocky relationship with Michel Therrien, head coach of the Canadiens, and explaining what life is like for a man who was unprepared to have his career over so soon.

Three-time Olympic medalist shares behind-the-scenes insight into the beloved Canadian National Women’s Hockey Team Men’s hockey in Canada may hog the limelight, but interest in women’s hockey has never been higher. The Role I Played is a memoir of Sami Jo Small’s ten years with Canada’s National Women’s Hockey Team. Beginning with her experience as a rookie at the first-ever women’s Olympic hockey tournament in Nagano in 1998 and culminating with Canada’s third straight Olympic gold medal in Vancouver in 2010, the veteran goaltender gives the reader behind-the-scenes insight into one of the most successful teams in sports history. Small offers insider access, writing with unflinching honesty about the triumphs of her greatest games and the anguish of difficult times. This book honours the individuals who sacrificed so much of their lives to represent Canada on a world stage and celebrates their individual contributions to the team’s glory. While bringing the personalities of her teammates to life, Small takes the reader into the dressing rooms and onto the ice for an up-close glimpse into the ups and downs of athletes pursuing a sport’s highest achievement.

With a voice as Canadian as winter, David Adams Richards reflects on the place of hockey in the Canadian soul. The lyrical narrative of Hockey Dreams flows from Richards' boyhood games on the Miramichi to heated debates with university professors who dare to back the wrong team. It examines the globalization of hockey, and how Canadians react to the threat of foreigners beating us at our game. Part memoir, part essay on national identity, part hockey history, Hockey Dreams is a meditation by one of Canada's finest writers on the essence of the game that helps define our nation.

Eddie Shore was the Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb of hockey, a brilliant player with an unmatched temper. Emerging from the Canadian prairie to become a member of the Boston Bruins in 1926, the man from Saskatchewan invaded every circuit in the NHL like a runaway locomotive on a downgrade. Hostile fans turned out in droves with a wish to see him killed, but in Boston he could do no wrong. During his twenty-year professional career, the controversial Shore personified "that old time hockey" like no other, playing the game with complete disregard for his own safety. Shore was one of the most penalized men in the NHL, and also a perennial member of its All Star Team. A dedicated athlete, Shore won the Hart Trophy for the league’s most valuable player four times — a record for a defenseman not since matched — and led Boston to two Stanley Cups in 1929 and 1939. In 1933, Shore was the instigator of hockey’s most infamous event, the tragic "Ace Bailey Incident," and during his subsequent sixteen-game suspension the fans chanted, "We want Shore!" After retiring from the NHL in 1940, Shore’s passion for the game remained undiminished, and as owner and tyrant of the AHL Springfield Indians, he won championship after championship. This is an action-packed and full-throated celebration of the "mighty Eddie Shore" — and also of the sport of hockey as it was gloriously played in a bygone age.

A guide for sports fans on how to watch and appreciate the game of hockey More and more fans are watching the NHL each week, but many of them don't know exactly what they should be watching. How does an offense create shooting lanes for its best sniper? When a center breaks through and splits between two defensemen, which defender is to blame? Why does a goalie look like a Hall of Famer one week and a candidate for the minor leagues the next? This guide for sports fans on how to watch and appreciate the game of hockey takes you inside a coach's mind as he builds a roster or constructs a game plan, to the chaos of the goalie's crease, and deep into the perpetual chess match between offense and defense. Discussing topics such as what to look for when a team goes on the power play and why playing center might be the most grueling job in sports, Take Your Eye Off the Puck shows fans how to get the most out of watching their favorite sport.

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.