For twenty-six straight seasons from 1978 to 2003 Mount Saint Charles Academy captured the hearts of its fans and the state s high school hockey championship. Attributing the streak to a near-mystical force called Mount Pride, beloved coach Bill Belisle and his team have built the most successful hockey program in Rhode Island. In the thrilling 2013 season, they recaptured the Mount glory as state champions. Yet the high school hockey team is much more than its wins and losses it s a culture and a family. Beginning with the earliest days when Rhode Island s four-team league took to the frozen ponds with tree branches serving as rudimentary hockey sticks, author Bryan Ethier chronicles the history of the MSC Flying Frenchmen. Join Ethier as he takes to the ice with the great games, the star players and the unforgettable moments to tell the remarkable story of Mount Saint Charles Hockey.

When Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens opened in 1931, manager Conn Smythe envisioned an arena that would project an aura of middle-class respectability. In A Night at the Gardens, Russell Field shares how this new arena anticipated spectators by examining varying spectator behaviours, who the spectators were, and what the experience of spectating was like. Drawing on archival records, the book explores the neighbourhood in which Maple Leaf Gardens was situated, the design of the arena’s interior spaces, and the ways in which it was operated in order to appeal to respectable spectators at a particular intersection of class and gender. Examining a ticket ledger compiled by arena staff for the 1933–34 National Hockey League season, the book reveals that the average subscriber purchased more than two tickets, suggesting that attending hockey games was a social experience. It also shows that while ticket subscribers were overwhelmingly middle-class men, women were also present. Oral history interviews with twenty-one former spectators at the Maple Leaf Gardens detail the experience of watching the spectacle that unfolded on the ice during each hockey game. A Night at the Gardens tells the fascinating story of how one prominent public building became such an important part of Toronto society.

The U. S. hockey team's victory at the 1980 Olympics was a "Miracle on Ice"--a miracle largely brought about by the late Herb Brooks, the legendary coach who forged that invincible team. Famously antagonistic toward the press at Lake Placid, Brooks nonetheless turned to sportswriter John Gilbert after each game, giving his longtime friend and confidant what became the most comprehensive coverage of the '80 team. This book is Gilbert's memoir of Brooks. Neither strictly biography or tell-all expose, Herb Brooks: Born to Coach is the story of an extraordinary man as it emerged in the course of a remarkable friendship. Gilbert, writing for the Minneapolis Tribune, first met Brooks during his coaching days at the University of Minnesota, whose hockey program he resurrected in the 1970's. The two became fast friends, and here, for the first time, Gilbert relates anecdotes--his own and former players'--that illuminate Brooks' oftentimes hard-nosed coaching methods, his dramatic successes, and his incomparable character. From Brooks' beginnings in East St. Paul and his stint with the 1960 gold medal-winning Olympic team (from which he was famously the last player cut), Gilbert goes on to dissect the coach's tenure with the Gophers (including three national titles) and the Lake Placid story, from the selection process and yearlong barnstorming tour to the Games themselves. Throughout this and later chapters of Brooks' career--including coaching turns with St. Cloud State University, four NHL teams, and the 2002 U.S. Olympic squad--readers are treated to impossibly colorful quotes, rare photographs from Brooks' playing and coaching careers, and pertinent sidebar pieces that originally appeared in the Minneapolis Tribune.

The Hartford Whalers began their existence in Boston as the New England Whalers of the World Hockey Association (WHA). The Whalers played in every season of the WHA's seven-year existence and were the league's first champions. Although their games were well attended in Boston, the upstart league was never serious competition for the powerhouse Bruins. In 1975, they moved to Hartford to play in the new Hartford Civic Center, and in 1979, along with Winnipeg, Edmonton, and Quebec, joined the National Hockey League. They moved to North Carolina following the 1997 season and won a Stanley Cup as the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006. The Hartford Whalers is a pictorial tribute to this beloved and much-missed Hartford institution.

Expectations are too high for beginners in hockey. Beginners are simply not ready for team play and systems. What is missing is a transition phase from the first time a player puts on a pair of skates to that first hockey game. The Hockey Method is a methodology to fill in this missing link or gap in hockey development. It identifies skill levels that can be grading to track player proficiency. The Hockey Method consists of two parts; Book 1 - Beginner Skating and Book 2 - Beginner Puck Control. These two parts present 31 skill concepts that are so simple and easy to learn that you don't need to be a coach to teach them. What is really needed, for first timers, is one-on-one direction and instruction. Coaches or parents can do it but parents are a better choice to instruct beginners because they have the time and vested interest to dedicate the 1 on 1 instruction needed by beginners at this early age. The basic idea is to build confidence by learning to walk before you run, run before you glide, and to be able to turn the toes in and out before you are able to use edges.

Line changes, limited time outs, and pucks traveling 100 miles per hour-hockey is called "the fastest game on Earth" for a reason. Keeping up with this non-stop action, especially for decades on end, takes a special kind of talent. Today's NHL broadcasters capture the game in arguably the most difficult capacity in the world of sports, giving the fans a guide to the action in a way nobody else could. With careers outlasting the players, coaches, general managers, and, in some cases, the city itself, the NHL's broadcasters have more than their fair share of stories to tell. In The Voices of Hockey: Broadcasters Reflect on the Fastest Game on Earth, Kirk McKnight takes thirty-four of the game's most gifted play-by-play broadcasters-including nine hall of famers-and shares their many insights, memories, and experiences. These broadcasters have witnessed all-time greats such as Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux, Sidney Crosby, and Alexander Ovechkin, making them the ideal voices to pay tribute to the legends of yesterday and the heroes of tomorrow. The Voices of Hockey brings the reader down to the surface of the ice to experience overtime marathons, record-setting performances, bloodied fights, intense rivalries, and the raising of the Stanley Cup, with details and inside perspectives from some of the most qualified spectators of the game. From Bob Miller's description of "The Miracle on Manchester" to John Kelly's childhood recollection of Bobby Orr's famous "flying goal," this book is truly an encapsulation of the NHL over the past fifty years. Generations of hockey fans will enjoy reliving their favorite moments and reading about those they missed in this unique and captivating view of the fastest game on Earth.