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Books > Sport & Leisure > Sports & outdoor recreation > Winter sports > Ice hockey
On the fortieth anniversary of the historic Miracle on Ice, Mike
Eruzione--the captain of the 1980 U.S Men's Olympic Hockey Team,
who scored the winning goal--recounts his amazing career on ice,
the legendary upset against the Soviets, and winning the gold
medal. It is the greatest American underdog sports story ever told:
how a team of college kids and unsigned amateurs, under the
tutelage of legendary coach--and legendary taskmaster--Herb Brooks,
beat the elite Soviet hockey team on their way to winning the gold
medal at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. No one believed the scrappy
Americans had a real shot at winning. Despite being undefeated, the
U.S.--the youngest team in the competition--were facing off against
the four-time defending gold medalist Russians. But the Americans'
irrepressible optimism, skill, and fearless attitude helped them
outplay the seasoned Soviet team and deliver their iconic win. As
captain, Mike Eruzione led his team on the ice on that Friday,
February 22, 1980. But beating the U.S.S.R was only one of the
numerous challenges Mike has faced in his life. In this inspiring
memoir, he recounts the obstacles he has overcome, from his
blue-collar upbringing in Winthrop, Massachusetts, to his battle to
make the Boston University squad; his challenges in the minor
leagues and international tournaments to his selection to the U.S.
team and their run for gold. He also talks about the aftermath of
that stupendous win that inspired and united the nation at a time
of crisis in its history. Eruzione has lived a hockey life full of
unexpected twists and surprising turns. Al Michaels' famous call in
1980--do you believe in miracles? YES!--could have been about Mike
himself. Filled with vivid portraits--from his hard-working,
irrepressible father to the irascible Herb Brooks to the Russian
hall of famers Tretiak, Kharlamov, Makarov, and Fetisov--this
lively, fascinating look back is destined to become a sports
classic and is a must for hockey fans, especially those who
witnessed that miraculous day.
A classic David & Goliath tale, complete with colourful heroes,
cold-hearted villains, and nail-biting games—with the hockey rink
serving as an arena for a nation’s resistance. During the height
of the Cold War, a group of small-town young men would lead their
underdog hockey team from the little country of Czechoslovakia
against the Soviet Union, the juggernaut in their sport. As they
battled on the ice, the young players would keep their people’s
quest for freedom alive, and forge a way to fight back against the
authoritarian forces that sought to crush them. From the sudden
invasion of Czechslovakia by an armada of tanks and 500,000 Warsaw
Pact soldiers, to a hockey victory over the Soviets that inspired
half a million furious citizens to take to the streets in an
attempt to destroy all representations that they could find of
their occupiers, Freedom to Win ranges from iconic moments in
history to courageous individual stories. We will witness
the fearless escape by three brothers who made up the core of the
national team, thrilling world championship games and gold medal
matches. We will watch as a one brave player takes a stand
and leads ten thousand people in a tear-filled rendition of the
Czechoslovak national anthem amid chants of “freedom!” while a
revolution raged in the streets of Prague. At the heart of Freedom
to Win is the story of the Holíks, a Czechoslovak family
whose resistance to the Communists embodied the deepest desires of
the people of their country. Faced with life under the cruel and
arbitrary regime that had stolen their family butcher shop, the
Holík boys became national hockey icons and inspirations to their
people. Filled with heart-pounding moments on the ice and
unforgettable slices of history, Freedom to Win is the ultimate
tale of why sports truly matter.
Entering the 1978-79 season, the Boston Bruins had been one of the
best teams in the National Hockey League for more than a decade-but
they could not shake the infuriating jinx the Montreal Canadiens
held over them in postseason play. Against all odds, the Canadiens
had ousted the Bruins in 13 consecutive playoff series dating back
to the 1940s. In 1979, the Bruin veterans and their passionate fans
wanted one more shot at their nemeses after coming up short in both
the 1977 and 1978 Stanley Cup finals. Colorful but embattled coach
Don Cherry's coterie of lovable, selfless, hard-working,
team-oriented players got their desired chance in the semifinal
round. The underdog Bruins battled the Habs in seven heart-stopping
games, and sweet victory seemed within their grasp-only to have it
snatched from them in the cruelest fashion imaginable: an untimely
penalty for too many men on the ice in the dying minutes of Game
#7. This book looks back at the Boston Bruins' 1978-79 season from
Opening Night at Boston Garden to the catastrophic conclusion seven
months later at the Montreal Forum. It is prefaced by the history
of the Bruins' frustrating playoff jinx versus the Canadiens that
dated back to 1930, the tribulations and events that marked
Boston's 1978-79 regular season, and a recap of the team's
quarterfinal playoff victory over Pittsburgh. Along with detailed
accounts of all seven of the Boston-Montreal semifinal games, it
also contains a post-mortem of what caused the infamous bench
penalty and provides glimpses of all the Bruin personnel who made
that season so memorable and heartbreaking.
Ryan Minkoff was blessed with athleticism, perseverance, and an
unquenchable passion for playing hockey. So were ten thousand other
young players in Minnesota. Throw in nearly three-quarters of a
million other young players across the country and millions in
Canada--all hoping for one of the limited spots on a Division I
team-and you have some serious competition. In the tradition of
against-the-odds sports titles such as The Blind Side and Hoosiers,
Ryan Minkoff's story is for anyone who roots for an underdog whose
dreams will not fade in the face of overwhelming odds
Journeyman is a first-person biography of Ojibwe rightwinger Jamie
Leach, son of the legendary NHL superstar Reggie Leach. Follow the
fascinating hockey trajectory from his childhood years watching his
father play for the Philadelphia Flyers, to Jamie’s first goal in
the NHL.Journeyman touches on Jamie’s summers on Lake Winnipeg,
the World Junior Hockey Championships, his life in the minor
leagues, and his eventual draft into the NHL as a Pittsburgh
Penguin. Discover how some of hockey’s biggeststars such as Bobby
Clarke, Jaromir Jagr, and Mario Lemieux influenced Jamie’s
life.Written in close consultation with Jamie and his mother,
readers will learn about the struggles Jamie conquered, including
his father’s alcoholism and his own crippling self-doubt.A story
of determination, heartbreak and perseverance.
In the first edition of Classic Pens readers were reminded of the
franchise's most memorable contests, from its beginnings in the
1960s through the 2010s. is new edition brings the team's standout
games up to date, including their triumphant 2016 Stanley Cup
victory. During the Penguins' early years, it wasn't uncommon to
buy a $5 ticket for a seat at the top of the Civic Arena (the
"Igloo") and at the end of the first period move to a seat in the
first row behind the glass. Except for a few winning moments
scattered through their first three decades, the idea of a
full-season sold-out arena was too farfetched, never mind the
thought of a Stanley Cup. The only constant was that the Penguins
were always in financial trouble and often threatening to move out
of the Steel City. The 1983-84 campaign proved to be the season
that turned everything around. e Penguins' prize was Mario Lemieux,
an 18-year-old center from Montreal, Quebec, who would lift the
Pens out of the canyon of last-place finishes to the lofty heights
of backto-back Stanley Cup championships in 1991 and 1992. Lemieux
went on to become one of the greatest players the game had ever
seen. He and teammates such as Jaromir Jagr, Tom Barrasso, Ron
Francis, Joe Mullen, Kevin Stevens, Larry Murphy, and Paul Coffey
soon made the Civic Arena the place to be. In 1999 Mario Lemieux,
now in his 30s, headed a group that purchased the club. e new
ownership began a renaissance in which players like Sidney Crosby,
Evgeni Malkin, Marc-Andre Fleury, Kris Letang, and Jordan Staal
again made the Pens a powerhouse on the ice, led them to a third
Stanley Cup championship in 2009, and secured one of the best new
buildings in the NHL: the Consol Energy Center. In 2016 the
Penguins qualified for the playoffs for the tenth consecutive
season, winning their fourth Stanley Cup by defeating the San Jose
Sharks in a 4-2 series. In Classic Pens, author David Finoli's tour
of the best moments in the Penguins' long history will evoke
special memories from longtime fans and delight those who currently
follow the team.
Even more on-and off-ice cartoon antics of Small Saves, the little
youth hockey goalie. See the world of ice hockey goaltending
through the eyes of Small Saves
In late 1975 and early 1976, at the height of the Cold War, two of
the Soviet Union’s long-dominant national hockey teams traveled
to North America to play an eight-game series against the best
teams in the National Hockey League. The culmination of the
“Super Series” was HC CSKA Moscow’s faceoff against the
reigning champion Flyers in Philadelphia on January 11, 1976. Known
as the “Red Army Club,” HC CSKA hadn’t lost a game in the
series. Known as the “Broad Street Bullies,” the Flyers were
determined to bring the Red Army team’s winning streak to an end
with their trademark aggressive style of play. Based largely on
interviews, Ed Gruver’s book will tell the story of this epic
game and series as it lays out the stakes involved: nothing less
than the credibility of the NHL. If the Red Army team had completed
its series sweep by defeating the two-time Stanley Cup champion
Flyers, the NHL would no longer have been able to claim primacy of
place in professional-level hockey. Gruver also describes how the
game and series affected the styles of both Russian and NHL teams.
The Soviets adopted a more physical brand of hockey, while the NHL
increasingly focused on passing and speed.
The Montreal Canadiens are one of the most successful teams in the
NHL, with 24 Stanley Cup victories and stars like Guy LaFleur,
Patrick Roy, and Carey Price, who have all left their mark on
hockey history. Author Pat Hickey, as a longtime beat writer for
the Montreal Gazette, has witnessed more than his fair share of
that history up close and personal. Through singular anecdotes only
Hickey can tell as well as conversations with current and past
players, this book provides fans with a one-of-a-kind, insider's
look into the great moments, the lowlights, and everything in
between. Habs fans will not want to miss this book.
When the Rogers Place arena opened in downtown Edmonton in
September 2016, no amount of buzz could drown out the rumours of
manipulation, secret deals, and corporate greed undergirding the
project. Working with documentary evidence and original interviews,
the authors present an absorbing account of the machinations that
got the arena and the adjacent Ice District built, with a price tag
of more than $600 million. The arena deal, they argue, established
a costly public financing precedent that people across North
America should watch closely, as many cities consider building
sports facilities for professional teams or international
competitions. Their analysis brings clarity and nuance to a case
shrouded in secrecy and understood by few besides political and
business insiders. Power Play tells a dramatic story about clashing
priorities where sports, money, and municipal power meet.
Once upon a time, they taught us to believe. They were the 1980
U.S. Olympic hockey team, a blue-collar bunch led by an
unconventional coach, and they engineered perhaps the greatest
sports moment of the twentieth century. Their "Miracle on Ice" has
become a national fairy tale, but the real Cinderella story is even
more remarkable. It is a legacy of hope, hard work, and homegrown
triumph. It is a chronicle of everyday heroes who just wanted to
play hockey happily ever after. It is still unbelievable.
"The Boys of Winter is an evocative account of the improbable
American adventure in Lake Placid, New York. Drawing on hundreds of
hours of interviews, Wayne Coffey explores the untold stories of
the U.S. upstarts, their Soviet opponents, and the forces that
brought them together.
Plagued by the Iran hostage crisis, persistent economic woes, and
the ongoing Cold War, the United States battled a pervasive sense
of gloom in 1980. And then came the Olympics. Traditionally a
playground for the Russian hockey juggernaut and its ever-growing
collection of gold medals, an Olympic ice rink seemed an unlikely
setting for a Cold War upset. The Russians were experienced
professional champions, state-reared and state-supported. The
Americans were mostly college kids who had their majors and their
stipends and their dreams, a squad that coach Herb Brooks had
molded into a team in six months. It was men vs. boys, champions
vs. amateurs, communism vs. capitalism.
Coffey casts a fresh eye on this seminal sports event in "The Boys
of Winter, crafting an intimate look at the team and giving readers
an ice-level view of the boys who captivated a country. He details
the unusual chemistry of theAmericans--formulated by a fiercely
determined Brooks--and he seamlessly weaves portraits of the
players with the fluid, fast-paced action of the 1980 game itself.
Coffey also traces the paths of the players and coaches since that
time, examining how the events in Lake Placid affected and directed
their lives and investigating what happens after one conquers the
world.
But Coffey not only reveals the anatomy of an underdog, he probes
the shocked disbelief of the unlikely losers and how it felt to be
taken down by such an overlooked opponent. After all, the greatest
American sports moment of the century was a Russian calamity,
perhaps even more unimaginable in Moscow than in Minnesota or
Massachusetts. Coffey deftly balances the joyous American saga with
the perspective of the astonished silver medalists.
Told with warmth and an uncanny eye for detail, "The Boys of Winter
is an intimate, perceptive portrayal of one Friday night in Lake
Placid and the enduring power of the extraordinary.
"From the Hardcover edition.
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