The Nhl S Mistake By The Lake

The Cleveland Barons should never have existed. Born when the National Hockey League's California Golden Seals--another team that should never have existed--were transplanted to Cleveland in 1976 and greeted with apathy by the dwindling number of hockey fans in northeastern Ohio, the Barons were an embarrassment to the city and to the NHL. The only thing the team had going for them was the state-of-the-art arena they played in, which was all but empty for nearly every game they played. This book chronicles the Barons' two regrettable seasons--a case study in what happens when an ill-conceived professional sports team created in an expansion splurge is moved, in an effort to save it, to a city that doesn't really want it.

Hockey has had its share of bizarre tales over the years, but none compares to the fascinating story of the California Golden Seals, a team that remains the benchmark for how not to run a sports franchise. From 1967 to 1978, a revolving door of players, apathetic owners, and ridiculous marketing decisions turned the Seals, originally based in Oakland, into hockey's traveling circus. The team lost tons of money and games, cheated death more often than Evel Knievel, and left behind a long trail of broken dreams. Live seals were used as mascots, players wore skates that were painted white on an almost-daily basis, and draft picks were dealt away nonchalantly like cards at a poker game. One general manager was hauled in for questioning by mysterious men because he'd mismanaged a player contract, while one of the team's goaltenders regularly spat tobacco juice at the feet of referees. The California Golden Seals examines the franchise's entire mismanaged--but always interesting--history, from its ballyhooed beginnings as a minor-league champion in the 1960s to its steep slide into oblivion in the late 1970s after moving to Cleveland. Through a comprehensive season-by-season narrative and a section of definitive statistics, Currier brings to life the Seals' entire history with lighthearted anecdotes, personal interviews, and statistics about hockey's most infamous losing team.

The twenty-fourth edition in the bestselling bathroom-reading series is jam-packed with over 500 pages of absorbing trivia material. The information miners at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute have unearthed a priceless collection of surprising, amazing, head-scratching, and hilarious articles. Divided by length for your sitting convenience, 24-Karat Gold is chock-full of little-known history, random origins, weird news, celebrity secrets, and urban legends. As always, you’ll find plenty of dumb criminals, clever wordplay, quirky quotations, and much, much more. Just open to any page—who knows what treasures await you? · Judges gone wild · The Barbie scandals · Canada’s underpants king · Helen Keller: vaudeville star · The double A-bomb survivors · The history of the umbrella · America's forbidden island · What the Hokey Pokey is really all about And much, much more

The saga of the Oakland/California Seals nine-year journey through the NHL is a strange, funny and sad tale that is nearly forgotten and has never been told...until now. Off the ice, the history of the Seals is practically a tale of how not to run a franchise. The team joined the NHL in 1967 as part of the "Second Six" expansion teams and stayed in Oakland until moving to Cleveland in 1976. The Seals had seven different ownership groups in nine years and chaos reigned throughout the process. This book shows you the inner workings of a hockey club that was always on the brink of bankruptcy and/or relocating and takes you behind the scenes of many of the mistakes made by NHL owners and executives during the early years of expansion. It also chronicles the crazy days of ownership by Charlie Finley, a man who admittedly knew nothing about hockey but knew he wanted to run his team his way. Hilarity and disaster resulted. On the ice, the Seals met with little success but were never dull. In nine years, the team had to put up with white skates, few fans and a cast of characters that were unique This book allows the players and coaches to tell their own story. More than 110 interviews were conducted with former Seals players, owners, coaches and employees to get a clear picture of what it was like to play in the NHL in the 60s and 70s. The rise of the WHA, continuing expansion and more hilarious stories of what really happens to an NHL team on the road and in the locker room. Hockey fans will love this true tale of the Seals.hockey's most colorful team.

The host of CBC Radio’s Under the Influence, Terry O’Reilly, uncovers the surprising power of screwing up The Incredible Hulk was originally supposed to be grey, but a printing glitch led to the superhero’s iconic green colour. NHL hall-of-famer Serge Savard’s hockey career nearly ended prematurely, not because of an injury, but because of an oversight. And the invention of a beloved treat, the Popsicle, began with a simple mistake. In his fascinating and meticulously researched new book, Terry O’Reilly recounts how some of the biggest breakthroughs and best-loved products originated with a mistake. Some people’s “mistakes” led to dramatic life changes—losing their jobs, their companies and often their credibility—only for them to discover new opportunities on the other shore. Other people’s mistakes seemed minor, almost insignificant—and yet they unexpectedly resulted in a famous brand, a legendary band or a groundbreaking work of art. And in a few instances, a mistake actually saved lives. The fear of failing often holds us back. My Best Mistake will change the way you think about screwing up. It will encourage you to accept mistakes and embrace the obstacles that may arise from these errors, leading you to unexpected breakthroughs and silver linings of your own.

This is the story of Kansas City’s attempt to integrate major-league hockey into its sports marketplace, only to see it fall through thin ice. Troy Treasure, an award-winning sports reporter, tells the riveting story of the Kansas City Scouts, who began playing in the National Hockey League in 1974. Perhaps the franchise’s owners should have guessed it would be a struggle from the beginning: After finally getting an arena, its original name—the Mo-Hawks—was rejected because the Chicago Blackhawks thought it too closely resembled their moniker. But while the franchise underperformed on the ice and at the box office, there was also triumphs and plenty of laughs mixed in with the tears. During their two years on the ice, the Scouts featured the biggest on-ice badass in the NHL, a combustible coach, and one of hockey’s all-time funny men. Filled with player interviews and painstakingly researched, this book pays tribute to the history of professional hockey in Kansas City, the city’s other pro sports teams, and athletics at large.

Russ Conway has worked at the Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, Massachusetts, since 1967. For more than five years, he pursued the details of this fascinating story, an investigation that focused increasingly on the activities of Canada’s Alan Eagleson, once regarded as the most powerful figure in professional hockey. Conway’s series for the Eagle Tribune, “Cracking Ice,” from which this book was developed has been at the heart of the FBI and US Justice Department investigations that led to the 1994 indictment of Alan Eagleson. Among other things, Conway’s sensational exposé documents the following: Eagleson’s defrauding of injured players seeking career-ending disability insurance. Eagleson’s use of National Hockey League Players’ Association money for questionable and unauthorized loans to friends and associates, one of whom was also his partner in business ventures. Eagleson’s exploitation of his position as head of the NHLPA and driving force behind the Canada Cup to obtain everything from free clothing to free air travel to France. Eagleson’s outright theft of Canada Cup money via a scheme that saw Irving Ungerman’s company, All Canada Sports, retain control of end-board advertising during Team Canada games. Conway’s discovery, while investigating the conduct of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation into Eagleson that Timothy Lemay, a lawyer on loan from the federal Department of Justice, was working out of the same office in Newmarket, Ontario, as the RCMP, which was collaborating with US authorities. Lemay worked for Eagleson’s law firm; Eagleson had Lemay do work for Hockey Canada; Lemay is Eagleson’s son’s brother-in-law. Game Misconduct is much more than a sports story: it embraces business, politics, and true crime; indeed, some have called it the biggest scandal in professional sports since the 1919 Chicago White Sox threw the World Series. It is unquestionably among the most impressive and explosive examples of determined, investigative journalism in recent years. From the Hardcover edition.

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.