The most extensive treatment to date of women's experiences in team sports, Higher Goals provides an ethnographic account of the "Blades", a Canadian team that plays at the highest levels of women's hockey. With a vivid depiction of life on the Blades, the book follows the team over two seasons, tracing their journey to a national championship. Key issues in the sociology of sport and gender studies are explored, including the construction of community among women athletes; the "feminine apologetic" and pressures on athletes to conform to feminine ideals; homophobia and the experiences of lesbian athletes; physicality and women's experience in contact sports; the contribution of sport to ideologies of gender; the impact of commercialization on women's sport; and the changing relationship between women's and men's sports.

On a hot summer's day in 1998, when Dave Bidini found himself watching Martha Stewart rather than the Stanley Cup playoffs, he knew that something was seriously amiss: The game he loved had crossed the line. It was now an entertainment, not a sport. A passionate hockey fan and rec player, Bidini immediately resolved to follow Canada's best export to the rest of the world, to find out whether the true game still existed elsewhere.

His quest took him to a rink on the eighth floor of a shopping mall in Hong Kong; to the gritty city of Harbin in Northern China, where a game much like hockey has been played for six hundred years; to Dubai in the desert of The United Arab Emirates, where hockey is brand-new and incredulous Bedouin drop by the Al Ain rink to wonder at the ice; and to Transylvania, where the game was introduced in the 1920s by a ten-second newsreel of Canadians chasing after a puck, and where it is now played as a vicarious war between Romanians and ethnic Hungarians. In "Tropic of Hockey," Bidini weaves hilarious stories of encounters with rinks and players of wildly different talents and experiences with tales of his travels and spot-on observations about the game and players.

In "Open Net," another of George Plimpton's inimitable accounts of a fearless amateur braving the world of professional sports, Plimpton takes to the ice as goalie for his beloved Boston Bruins.

The Official Rules of Hockey is a historical, anecdotal, and illustrated guide to the rules of the world's fastest game. Stuffed full of fascinating stories and photographs, it pulls more than a century of the sport into sharp focus for fans of today's international NHL game - from a referee's decision in 1900 to disallow a goal after the puck split in half to Marty McSorely's illegal stick that could have cost the Los Angeles Kings their shot at the 1993 Stanley Cup. The Official Rules of Hockey also includes helpful rink diagrams, illustrations of officials' signals, and a compendium of milestone moments chronicling the sport's evolving rules of play. It's an essential and insightful reference book for players and fans alike. (7 X 91/4, 216 pages, b&w photos, illustrations, diagrams)

On a hot summer's day in 1998, when Dave Bidini found himself watching Martha Stewart rather than the Stanley Cup playoffs, he knew that something was seriously amiss: The game he loved had crossed the line. It was now an entertainment, not a sport. A passionate hockey fan and rec player, Bidini immediately resolved to follow Canada's best export to the rest of the world, to find out whether the true game still existed elsewhere.
His quest took him to a rink on the eighth floor of a shopping mall in Hong Kong-a rink encircled by a fierce dragon-headed roller coaster-to the gritty city of Harbin in Northern China, where a game much like hockey has been played for six hundred years; to Dubai, in the desert of the United Arab Emirates, where hockey is brand-new, and incredulous Bedouin drop by the Al Ain rink to wonder at the ice; and to Transylvania, where the game was introduced in the 1920s by a ten-second newsreel of Canadians chasing after a puck, and where it is now played as a vicarious war between Romanians and ethnic Hungarians.
In TROPIC OF HOCKEY, Bidini weaves hilarious stories of encounters with odd-sized rinks and players of wildly different talents and experiences with tales of his travels and spot-on observations about the game and players in North America. And he discovers that the tropic of hockey connects players and fans around the world in a celebration of the game-not to mention the profanity, the exhilaration, and the moments of grace that enrich it.

Every year, a team of ex-National Hockey League players travels around North America playing hockey and raising money for charity. An intimate look at hockey greats like Dary! Sittler, Tiger Williams, and Bobby Hull. Known as the Legendary Heroes of Hockey, wherever they go, they sell out every game.

Once you begin trying out these games with a creative twist, you'll want to sharpen your skates and your wits! A hockey trivia maestro tests fans' knowledge and competitive instincts in a unique book composed of an entertaining assortment of crosswords, word jumbles, fill-in-the-blanks, and matching column puzzles. Which lucky team has the most famous, most powerful scoring lines? How many players were nicknamed The Rocket? How many fluid ounces does the Stanley Cup hold? Hockey buffs will find and love teasers like these. Each game in the book corresponds to one hockey game, and readers stickhandle their way through a regular-season round of easy to moderate difficulty--then advance to the playoff section!