Veteran hockey writer Ed Willes takes an irreverent look back at the sometimes thrilling, often infuriating and always fascinating history of the Vancouver Canucks.Cheering for the National Hockey League’s Vancouver Canucks over the last half century has required patience, commitment and a forgiving nature. It’s not that the Canucks have been uniformly awful or drearily predictable. Far from it (as this past season would attest). But every time they seemed close to...

The wildest seven years in the history of hockeyThe Rebel League celebrates the good, the bad, and the ugly of the fabled WHA. It is filled with hilarious anecdotes, behind the scenes dealing, and simply great hockey. It tells the story of Bobby Hull’ s astonishing million-dollar signing, which helped launch the league, and how he lost his toupee in an on-ice scrap. It explains how a team of naked Birmingham Bulls ended up in an arena concourse spoiling fo...

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 ev...

From his start as an owner in the World Hockey Association at the age of 28 (“slim and none” was a Boston sportswriter’s assessment of Howard’s chances when he was first awarded the New England Whalers franchise), to winning the Stanley Cup with the Pittsburgh Penguins and then on to Hollywood success, sports entrepreneur and film producer Howard Baldwin recounts his spirited and hugely entertaining life story.Howard Baldwin has lived his life according to his beli...

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...

Hockey legend Gordie Howe once said there were two superstars in the Hull family: Bobby, the Golden Jet and one of the greatest players ever to tie up a pair of skates, and his brother Dennis, who had a solid career with the Chicago Blackhawks, and is now one of the most sought-after public speakers in North America. In The Third Best Hull. Dennis Hull outlines his life in hockey with humorous anecdotes, insights, and stories. Not just another sports autobiography, this book provides insig...

Every young hockey player dreams of one day playing in the NHL, of skating on a line with his hero and drinking champagne in the dressing room after winning the Stanley Cup. But kids should watch what they wish for. They may make it to the pros, like Sean Pronger, only to end up playing for sixteen teams over eleven seasons. They may end up on a team with a guy like the Great One, but skate on his line only in practice when the bona fide first-line centre has the flu. And they may end up d...

Sudden Death brings to life the incredible ongoing saga of the Swift Current Broncos hockey team. After a tragic game-day bus accident on December 30, 1986, left four of its star players dead, the first-year Western Hockey League team was faced with nearly insurmountable odds against not only its future success but its very survival. The heartbreaking story made headlines across North America, and the club garnered acclaim when it triumphantly rebounded and won the Canadian Hockey...

A wild pop-culture history of baseball's most colorful and controversial decade, the 70s: "A trove of nuggets many of us either never knew . . . or forgot." — The New York TimesThe Major Leagues witnessed more dramatic stories and changes in the 1970s than in any other era. The American popular culture and counterculture collided head-on with the national pastime, rocking the once-conservative sport to its very foundations. Outspoken players embraced free a...

The decline and fall of the Montreal Expos. In 1969 the Montreal Expos played their first game. Thirty-two years later the team that once boasted baseball’s best farm system is nearly dead. In this book former Expos president Claude Brochu gets to the bottom of the Expos’ story. From his successful marketing career at Seagram’s Claude Brochu was thrust into the role of Expos president in 1986. Back then the Expos were a team with terrific potential. But as the years went by attendance bega...

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" ...

A fresh, analytical, and entertaining take on hockey’s tough guysIn professional hockey, enforcers are often as popular with fans as the stars who cash the big paycheques. Called upon to duke it out with a fellow troublemaker, or to shadow (and bruise) an opponent’s top scorer, these men get the crowds out of their seats, the sports-radio shows buzzing, and the TV audience spilling their beers in excitement. Don’t Call Me Goon gives the mayhem-makers their...