The stories of the lives and careers of players from the Maritimes and Newfoundland

Full of the gentle humour and storytelling that he brings to “Music and Company” every morning, The Gift of the Game is Tom Allen’s exploration of the ways in which hockey can shape the relationship between fathers and sons. In the winter of 2001 Tom Allen stepped onto a frozen lake with his eight-year-old son. They laced up their skates, set out chunks of firewood as goal posts, and played one-on-one hockey under an enormous blue sky. This would mark a new turn in Allen’s relationship with Wesley, even as other relationships began to fall apart. When Allen and his wife go their separate ways, it is hockey that forms the enduring bond between father and son. As Wesley grows in confidence and purpose, Allen grows into the mythic role of hockey dad and assistant coach, and spends his empty afternoons working on his own game on outdoor rinks, if only to avoid the silence of his apartment. But what is this game to which he has entrusted his fragile sense of well-being and his son’s emerging sense of self? With keen intelligence and self-deprecating emotional honesty, Allen sets about answering the questions that shape his new life: How does hockey mould us? To what degree are we defined by our love of the game and our wish to be admired for our skill on the ice? What are the implications for our culture of a game that so privileges violence? In making of hockey the arena of his pride and love and self-respect, Allen is forced to figure out what the game itself means.

The ultimate hockey insider shares the lowdown on the personalities, the dressing room banter, the chalktalk, and the sweat-stained passion behind eight of the most famous goals that changed ice hockey forever. Among them are Guy Lafleur's notorious "too many men on the ice" goal in 1979, Wayne Gretzky's overtime goal in Game Two of the Smythe Division finals in 1988, Paul Coffey's dramatic counterattack in the 1984 Canada Cup against the USSR and Brett Hull's disputed 1999 Stanley Cup winner. Al Strachan passes on, in the trenchant style of his famous columns, insights into the goals that reveal not only the way the game has changed but also about the gritty soul of hockey that will remains constant.

The history of hockey is filled with the bizarre, the unexpected, and the hard to believe. Hockey's Most Wanted™ chronicles 700 of the most outrageous players, coaches, and owners in hockey history. In humorous detail, Floyd Conner describes hockey’s top-ten strange plays, inept players, bizarre nicknames, craziest fans, colorful characters, unlikely heroes, odious owners, worst coaches, beleaguered officials, most brutal fights, and more. Learn why Dave Reece was nicknamed “the Human Sieve,” and find out which goalie once gave up fifteen goals in a game. Meet the player who was whistled for a record sixty-seven penalty minutes in a single game and another who played in the National Hockey League for five years before scoring his first goal. Imagine scoring the winning goal in the seventh and deciding game of the Stanley Cup—for the opposing team—or how it felt to be the defenseman traded for a net. You can find all this and more in Hockey's Most Wanted™, a book that every hockey fan will enjoy.

Provides readers with a list of hockey records.

This comprehensive look at pro hockey records covers everything from Wayne Gretzky's astonishing 215 points in a single season to Tiger Williams' infamous mark for career penalty minutes. Among the record highs and lows, budding fans will find loads of epic accomplishments and eye-popping numbers. And discovering hockey's record book only multiplies the fun of following the game.