When Bobby Ackles became the B.C. Lions' original water boy, he probably never dreamed that he would lead the team to a Grey Cup victory over 50 years later. From his earliest days with the team to becoming its general manager and now president, Ackles has demonstrated a commitment and dedication to football in the CFL, NFL and XFL. In this engaging personal memoir, Ackles takes the reader through the growing and changing world of football, both from a Canadian and an American perspective,...

Terry Ryan was poised to take the hockey world by storm when he was selected eighth overall by the Montreal Canadiens in the 1995 NHL draft, their highest draft pick in a decade. Expected to go on to become a hockey star, Ryan played a total of eight NHL games for the Canadiens, scoring no goals and no assists: not exactly the career he, or anyone else, was expecting.Though Terry’s NHL career wasn’t long, he experienced a lot and has no shortage of hilarious and fascinating revelat...

A behind-the-scenes tour of the ups and downs of an NFL season focuses on the Baltimore Ravens and reveals the lesser-known aspects of the professional league, from the dangerous conditions under which athletes are expected to train to the unrelenting pressures faced by coaches and players.In the NFL there is only one certainty: that every day, someone will have to be the Next Man Up. Football is an unrelentingly punishing sport, played and practiced at undiminishe...

A fresh, analytical, and entertaining take on hockey’s tough guysIn professional hockey, enforcers are often as popular with fans as the stars who cash the big paycheques. Called upon to duke it out with a fellow troublemaker, or to shadow (and bruise) an opponent’s top scorer, these men get the crowds out of their seats, the sports-radio shows buzzing, and the TV audience spilling their beers in excitement. Don’t Call Me Goon gives the mayhem-makers their...

Get to know the men who fulfilled their childhood dreamFrom the beer league to the minor league, hockey players from coast to coast often say they’d give anything to play just one game in the NHL. One Night Only brings you the stories of 39 men who lived the dream — only to see it fade away almost as quickly as it arrived. Ken Reid talks to players who had one game, and one game only, in the National Hockey League — including the most famous single-gamer o...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed bestselling author comes a riveting journey through the world of minor-league baseball“Terrific…Reading this book will make you fall in love with baseball all over again.”—The Denver PostMinor league baseball is quintessentially American: small towns, small stadiums, $5 tickets, $2 hot dogs, the never-ending possibility of making it big. But looming above it all is always the real deal: Majo...

"Covering many of the biggest names and greatest events in sports, it's a wonderful collection of yarns and reminiscences, told in Perk's inimitable style" ( Postmedia News ).Dave Perkins was once told by a bluntly helpful university admissions officer: "You don't have the looks for TV or the voice for radio. You should go into print." Which he did, first at the Globe and Mail, and then for thirty-six well-travel...

Don Cherry has become a broadcasting legend, garnering millions of fans around the world with his "Coach's Corner" segment on Hockey Night in Canada. For over a decade, Cherry also hosted the TV show Grapevine, which brought viewers up close and personal with the biggest names in sports.Don was the interviewer and his son, Tim, produced the show. And no one in the sports world, from hockey players to boxers to curlers to umpires, turned down an in...

"Nobody enjoys the full kaleidoscope of the game quite like Kenny, from banana blades and '70s staches to air-brushed, mistake-laden hockey cards." —Jeff Marek, Sportsnet Hockey host and Marek vs. Wyshynski podcast co-hostHockey Card Stories reveals what was really going on in your favorite old hockey cards through the eyes of the players depicted on them. Some of the cards are definitely worth a few bucks, some a few cents—but every stor...

The incredible story of the life and phenomenal career of one of the greatest players ever to wear a Maple Leafs uniform, told through stories and never-before-seen photographs.Darryl Sittler may well be best remembered for two of the most remarkable performances in the history of the National Hockey League. On February 7, 1976, he scored six goals and added four assists for an NHL record total of ten points in a game. That spring, he joined Maurice Richard in hock...

Jim Harrison grew up on the prairies, played Junior in Saskatchewan, and pro with the Bruins, Leafs, Hawks, and Oilers. Three years before a former teammate equaled the mark, Harrison set one of the most enduring and seemingly unreachable records in professional hockey with three goals and seven helpers on January 30, 1973. And almost nobody remembers.This is Harrison’s story: the games he played, the agent who stole from him, the woman he mourned, the fights he fought, and the friends he ...

The famed Sabres enforcer tells the story of fighting his way from small-town Canada to the NHL in a candid memoir that pulls no punches.Rob Ray was known as one of the NHL’s toughest players of the 1990s in the heyday of old-school hockey. During his thirteen seasons with the Buffalo Sabres, he twice led the league in time spent in the penalty box. He was especially known for his jersey-off fighting style—which eventually led to the “Rob Ray Rule” banning that pra...