~~Into the Empty Net was the much-anticipated sequel to the best-selling Last Minute of Play. Its 21 chapters takes the reader through the lives of those who played in the NHL as our hockey heroes, and illuminates their varying views of the game. Rollicking with humour, sometimes poignant and sad in its down-times, always brutally honest and occasionally shocking in the re-telling of their stories, Into the Empty Net originally came out in October of ’94, e...

~~ A cross-country best-seller upon release in 1993, Last Minute of Play, was the author’s second book, and a breakthrough title, receiving positive critical acclaim, more for its story-telling writing style rather than the admitted celebrity of the players, coaches, GM’s, and owners  depicted in the book. To underscore that premise, here is the author’s favourite quote of many from those early days after the release. It came from the Toronto Star’s revered columnist, the late Ji...

Leafs and Sabres in the final round of the Eastern Conference playoff ! The Toronto Maple Leafs have breezed through the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup playoffs, and await the Buffalo Sabres as their next opponent for a chance at the Stanley Cup. Led by third-season centre, Randy Logan, the Leafs are a team in turmoil. With tycoon owner Frank Conder, embattled GM Phil Stevenson, negative and  bombastic coach Ernie Taylor, the front-office is a war zone of sub-plots and ...

Looking back on a memorable career, Darren McCarty recounts his time as one of the most visible and beloved members of the Detroit Red Wings as well as his personal struggles with addiction, finances, and women and his daily battles to overcome them. As a member of four Red Wings' Stanley Cup–winning teams, McCarty played the role of enforcer from 1993 to 2004 and returning again in 2008 and 2009. His "Grind Line" with teammates Kris Draper and Kirk Maltby physically overmatched some of th...

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" ...

False hope, hollow promises, and a mind-numbing lack of success - these words describe the Toronto Maple Leafs and the hockey club's inexplicable mediocrity over much of the past decade.Author Peter Robinson has attended some 100 games over the past six seasons and has little to show for it except an unquenched thirst that keeps him coming back. Why does a team that hasn't won a Stanley Cup since 1967, long before many of its followers were even born, have such a hold on its fans? ...

After almost two thousand games and thirty years of wearing the Stripes, legendary NHL official Fraser dropped his final puck at the end of the 2009/2010 season and relives his colourful career officiating hockey in his candid book.After thirty years in the NHL, legendary referee Kerry Fraser has decided to hang up his skates and enjoy the game from the other side of the boards. Never shy about offering his opinion, nor afraid to step in and separate an on-ice figh...

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 revelat...

In 1996, Sheldon Kennedy rocked the insular world of Canadian hockey by announcing that his former minor-league coach, Graham Jamesthe Hockey News 1989 Man of the Yearhad sexually abused him more than 300 times. The media portrayed Kennedy as a hero for breaking the code of silence in professional hockey and bringing James to justice. The heroic myth intensified in 1998 when Kennedy announced that he was going to in-line skate from Newfoundland to British Columbia to raise awareness of sex...

Pat Burns was one of the great NHL coaches. He worked with the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins and New Jersey Devils, and seemed always to enjoy instant success. He capped his extraordinary career by coaching the New Jersey Devils to a Stanley Cup victory in 2003. Cancer--his third bout--finally claimed him in 2010, aged 58.Rosie DiManno, who knew Burns well, has written a revealing, exhilarating and heartfelt account of his life: his childhood as a fatherles...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “captivating” (People) true story of the Miracle on Ice and the last U.S. men’s hockey team to win gold, at the 1980 Winter Olympics—with a new afterword by Ken Morrow for the fortieth anniversary of the Miracle on Ice“A wonderfully detailed enrichment of the greatest sports moment of the twentieth century.”—Al MichaelsOnce upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980 U.S. Olym...

A moment in time. It’s rare for a person to remember exactly where he or she was at a single moment in time, some four decades past. It’s rarer still for an entire nation to hold a collective memory of such a moment. This kind of hardwired retention usually results from group trauma — the shock of assassination, large scale tragedy, or natural disaster. Occasionally, the event that galvanizes a population is a happy one. Such was the case when Paul Henderson scored the m...