Against All Odds

Against All Odds PDF Author: P.J. Naworynski
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 1443450928
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
For readers of The Boys in the Boat, the remarkable story of the unlikely Canadian hockey team that clinched Olympic gold in 1948 The announcement was shocking—Canada, the birthplace of hockey, would not be sending a team to the 1948 Winter Olympics in Switzerland. Outraged, a Royal Canadian Air Force squadron leader, Sandy Watson, quickly assembled a team of air force hockey players who were “amateur enough” to complete under the Olympic guidelines. Sergeant Frank Boucher was recruited to coach the team and begin the cross-Canada search for players. Hubert Brooks, a decorated flying officer and serial escapist from POW camps, was another early recruit. Andy Gilpin joined from the RCAF base in Whitehorse, as did airmen from Quebec, the Maritimes and western Canada. And when their starting goalie, Dick Ball, didn’t pass a medical exam, Murray Dowey was called up from his job as a TTC driver and occasional practice goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The ragtag team got off to a rough start, losing so many exhibition games that Canadian newspapers called them a disgrace to the country. But the RCAF Flyers battled back, and Boucher’s defensive strategy paid off. They eliminated the American team, tied the Czech team and beat the Swiss as the hometown crowd pelted the Canadians with snowballs during the game. On the same ice where Barbara Ann Scott won a gold medal, the underdog RCAF Flyers also won Olympic gold, and their goalie, Murray Dowey, set an Olympic record that still stands. Against All Odds is the inspiring untold story of a group of determined men, fresh from the battlefields of WWII, who surprised a nation and the world.

Against All Odds

Against All Odds PDF Author: P.J. Naworynski
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 1443450928
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book

Book Description
For readers of The Boys in the Boat, the remarkable story of the unlikely Canadian hockey team that clinched Olympic gold in 1948 The announcement was shocking—Canada, the birthplace of hockey, would not be sending a team to the 1948 Winter Olympics in Switzerland. Outraged, a Royal Canadian Air Force squadron leader, Sandy Watson, quickly assembled a team of air force hockey players who were “amateur enough” to complete under the Olympic guidelines. Sergeant Frank Boucher was recruited to coach the team and begin the cross-Canada search for players. Hubert Brooks, a decorated flying officer and serial escapist from POW camps, was another early recruit. Andy Gilpin joined from the RCAF base in Whitehorse, as did airmen from Quebec, the Maritimes and western Canada. And when their starting goalie, Dick Ball, didn’t pass a medical exam, Murray Dowey was called up from his job as a TTC driver and occasional practice goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs. The ragtag team got off to a rough start, losing so many exhibition games that Canadian newspapers called them a disgrace to the country. But the RCAF Flyers battled back, and Boucher’s defensive strategy paid off. They eliminated the American team, tied the Czech team and beat the Swiss as the hometown crowd pelted the Canadians with snowballs during the game. On the same ice where Barbara Ann Scott won a gold medal, the underdog RCAF Flyers also won Olympic gold, and their goalie, Murray Dowey, set an Olympic record that still stands. Against All Odds is the inspiring untold story of a group of determined men, fresh from the battlefields of WWII, who surprised a nation and the world.

Midnight Hockey

Midnight Hockey PDF Author: Bill Gaston
Publisher: Anchor Canada
ISBN: 0385672535
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 338

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Book Description
From Giller-nominated author Bill Gaston, proof not only that hockey players can read, but that some of them can even write. Midnight Hockey tells the story of Gaston’s final season, as he contemplates hanging up his skates, and looks back on the sport that has meant so much to him. Sometimes lewd and hilarious, sometimes (though not as often) reflective, Midnight Hockey is a portrait of Canada’s fastest-growing athletic phenomenon: beer-league and oldtimers’ hockey. Gaston spills the beans about the rules of the game (written and unwritten), weird beer, team names, and road-trip sex, illustrated with stories of Gaston’s life in the game, from the outdoor rinks of Winnipeg, through junior hockey, varsity, the professional leagues of Europe, to the late-night games and road-trip shenanigans of beer-league. For all those thousands of guys who drive to the rink late on a snowy night, who know the euphoria of a beer after the game, who think of how good they used to be, who grow nostalgic over a whiff from an unwashed hockey bag – and for anyone who has had to live with such a person – Midnight Hockey is laugh-out-loud funny, true-to-life, and ultimately thoughtful.

Hockey Night in Canada

Hockey Night in Canada PDF Author: Michael McKinley
Publisher: Penguin Canada
ISBN: 0143186728
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Hockey Night in Canada has reached a great age (and for television, practically an immortal one) because it made itself into something that Canada couldn't live without. It is this surge of emotion that connected us all each week, and which connects us through the years to now. Hockey Night in Canada didn't just aim a camera at a game and observe what happened-it actively gave the country a prism through which it could see itself and its evolving diversity. We look where the eye of Hockey Night in Canada looks, and it looks at us. We remember what it remembers. We feel what it feels. That is the dynamic that has made the show much more than a long-lived TV success; it is a cultural juggernaut. Ask fans where they saw their first hockey game, and chances are it was on Hockey Night in Canada. Ask the players-male or female-what first got them into the rink, and the answer will be the same: they wanted to be like the players on Hockey Night in Canada.

A Great Game

A Great Game PDF Author: Stephen Harper
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476716536
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 368

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Book Description
Surveys the tumultuous history of hockey in Toronto in the early years of the past century, as professional teams began to replace dedicated amateurs at the highest levels of the sport, and examines sports professionalism in Canada.

Hockey Towns

Hockey Towns PDF Author: Ron MacLean
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 1443436925
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Every Canadian town has a hockey story, and Ron MacLean has a hockey story for every town. A new book by the co-author of the national bestseller Cornered. When you first meet Ron MacLean, he asks where you’re from, and he always comes back with a story. No one has crossed this country more than MacLean. In his 28 years on Hockey Night in Canada and now as host of Rogers’ Hometown Hockey, Ron has met fascinating people from coast to coast and has great stories to tell. Now, in this new book, MacLean is back, with brand new tales from across the country. These are stories you’ve never heard before. From London to Castlegar, Yellowknife to Cole Harbour, Medicine Hat to Trois Rivieres, from Bantam to Junior B to the NHL, our country is full of great characters: Players, coaches, hockey moms and hockey dads; rivalries, practical jokes, careers that grew out of nothing and "can’t lose" prospects who flamed out too soon; spectacular triumphs, heart-breaking tragedies and tales of friendship, betrayal, love and loyalty—all compelling, entertaining and inspiring. Once again working with Kirstie McLellan Day, co-author of the blockbuster bestsellers Playing With Fire, Tough Guy and Cornered, this is MacLean at his finest.

Home Game

Home Game PDF Author: Ken Dryden
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 0771029101
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In October 1983 Ken Dryden gave us what was called the best non-fiction book ever written about hockey: The Game. In that same month Roy MacGregor published what was hailed as the best novel ever written about hockey: The Last Season. These two writers teamed up to write another extraordinary book. Inspired by Ken Dryden’s major CBC-TV series on hockey, Home Game delves into hockey in all its incarnations, from life in a small hockey community and the dreams of amateurs determined to reach the NHL to the reminiscences of players involved in the 1972 Canada-Soviet series. By exploring hockey’s significance to our nation, Dryden and MacGregor help to define what it means to be Canadian. On publication, Home Game shot to the top of the bestseller lists, establishing itself as a must-read for every hockey fan. The lavish book, with nearly 100 full-colour photographs, continues to win over Canadians.

The Great Canadian Hockey Novel

The Great Canadian Hockey Novel PDF Author: Martin Avery
Publisher: Lulu.com
ISBN: 0557537509
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 60

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Book Description
This YA novel about a bantam hockey player who goes to Europe to represent Canada in the world championships is also about the heroes of tradtion and Beowulf. High school hockey players and English students will love it. A hockey players overcomes his fears of high school English after winning the world hockey championship.

Gretzky to Lemieux

Gretzky to Lemieux PDF Author: Ed Willes
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
ISBN: 1551991772
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
Gretzky, Lemieux, Messier, Coffey, Fuhr, all on the same team — in their prime. The greatest collection of hockey talent ever assembled, playing the games of their lives. Three epic 6-5 contests between Canada and the Soviet Union decided the ’87 Canada Cup. Canada evened the series, after the Soviets won Game 1, when Gretzky’s fifth assist of the game set up Lemieux’s hat trick, ending Game 2 in double overtime. Game 2 is widely considered one of the greatest hockey games ever played. With time running out in Game 3, after Canada battled back from a 3-0 deficit, Team Canada coach Mike Keenan sent the Gretzky / Lemieux / Hawerchuk line on the ice for a faceoff in Canada’s end. The rest is history as Gretzky, Lemieux, and Larry Murphy rushed up the ice, Gretzky skating on the left wing, setting up Lemieux’s game-winner in the slot with 1:26 left in the game. Gretzky’s pass to Lemieux, followed by Lemieux’s goal, is one of the most memorable plays in hockey history. Gretzky to Lemieux captures the on-ice drama that led to the historic three-game final, and the stories behind it. Ed Willes adds depth and weight to the games by revealing the rebellion among Soviet hockey stars in the early days of Glasnost and a crumbling Soviet Union; the trouble brewing for Alan Eagleson; the ascendancy of Mario Lemieux; and the end of the glorious Gretzky era in Edmonton. Packed with interviews of players and coaches, Gretzky to Lemieux tells the full story of the greatest hockey ever played.

It's Our Game

It's Our Game PDF Author: Michael McKinley
Publisher: Penguin Canada
ISBN: 0143193090
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
If every hockey player’s dream begins on a frozen pond, it reaches its pinnacle in a packed arena facing off against a bitter international rival. Could be the mighty Soviets. Could be the vainglorious Americans. Doesn’t matter, as long as the guys, and more recently, the women, who come from the farming villages, logging towns, and bustling cities of Canada show up to play the game the way we invented it to be played. That’s the way it’s been for a hundred years. No game matters more than the one that pits our best against the world’s best. From the earliest days of the past century, when milkmen still did their rounds in horse-drawn carts each morning, to the Sochi Olympics, where both the men and women stood on their blue lines with gold medals around their necks as the Canadian flag was raised. This beautiful book, with rare archival images, celebrates a hundred of the greatest moments from Hockey Canada, the organization that has given Canada its most cherished hockey memories. It’s Our Game is the definitive account of a century of Canadians working to be the best at the sport they love most.

The Role I Played

The Role I Played PDF Author: Sami Jo Small
Publisher: ECW Press
ISBN: 1773056093
Category : Sports & Recreation
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
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.