Roy MacSkimming - Böcker

Before Gretzky, before Russians played in the National Hockey League, before multimillion-dollar salaries, there was Gordie Howe: the greatest star ever to play hockey. This richly illustrated, thoroughly researched and completely unauthorized biography--the only full-length biography to cover Howe's entire playing career--takes readers behind the sports icon to reveal a man who remains immensely popular with young and old. The Howe legend begins on the frozen sloughs of Saskatchewan, where a painfully shy boy from a poverty-ridden family discovered his one advantage in life: major athletic talent. Signed by the Detroit Red Wings at 16, Howe joined celebrated teammates Sid Abel, Ted Lindsay, Terry Sawchuk and Red Kelly to forge a team that dominated the NHL as only the Montreal Canadiens and Edmonton Oilers have since. Six-time leading scorer, six-time Hart Trophy winner as the most valuable player, Howe surpassed Rocket Richard's NHL goals record to reach an amazing total of 801, unmatched for years until finally Gretzky caught up to his mentor and idol.

It was the greatest hockey series ever played-and it changed the game forever Cold War evokes as never before those legendary 27 days in September 1972: a time when hockey's two worlds collided, as the perennial world champions from the Soviet Union finally tested themselves against the top professional stars of the National Hockey League. Decided only in the dying seconds of the final game in Moscow, the series captivated fans and non-fans alike with its explosive upsets and unrelenting suspense. Cold War weaves together rich period detail, illuminating anecdote and thrilling hockey action with eyewitness accounts from Paul Henderson, Vladislav Tretiak, Ken Dryden, Yvan Cournoyer, Harry Sinden and many other greats to recreate the series: its heroes and goats, its characters and prima donnas, its moments of poignancy, bravery, hilarity and shame. This book is also about a nation's magnificent obsession.Combining passion and insight with a coolly objective eye, author Roy MacSkimming shows how Canadians' identification with their hockey roots transformed eight "friendly matches" into a bitter, life-or-death struggle between the game's superpowers-and into a symbolic confrontation between hostile political systems. On the eve of the series' anniversary, Cold War artfully documents one of the great mythic dramas in the history of sport.