The Crazy Canucks

The Crazy Canucks
Author: Janet Love Morrison
Publisher: Harbour Publishing Company
Total Pages: 224
Release: 2008
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 9781550174328

Winner of the 2009 One Book, One Vancouver: The Host City Reads "Janet Love Morrison has written about an important part of our sporting history . . . For a younger generation, this is like discovering the people who laid the first tracks in fresh powder--the boys of winter who inspired so many who followed." --Peter Mansbridge, foreword No one in Europe had ever seen anything like it: a handful of young Canadian men fearlessly hurling themselves down the iciest, steepest courses of the ski racing circuit. At first they were regarded as a bit of a joke as they travelled in a rusty old Volkswagen and showed little regard for the niceties of European alpine traditions. In the early 1970s no non-European had ever won a Men's World Cup downhill and nobody expected this to change. Then in 1975 Canadian Ken Read won at Val d'Isère and the Canadian boys began appearing on World Cup podiums with increasing regularity. It didn't take long for journalists to start calling them the "Kamikaze Canadians," but the name that stuck was the "Crazy Canucks." The courage and high spirits of the young Canadian racers--Jim Hunter, David Murray, Dave Irwin, Ken Read and Steve Podborski--made them favourites across Europe, where Swiss or Austrian or French fans would rather see Canadians win than their old archrivals. In The Crazy Canucks, Janet Love Morrison chronicles the grit and perseverance of the young skiers who believed they had the right stuff to win and keep winning. Her careful research and interviews with all the key players paint a detailed picture of the Crazy Canucks. As Canadians approach the 2010 Olympics with high hopes for their ski teams, The Crazy Canucks provides a timely look at a most distinguished--and colourful--chapter in our nation's sporting history.

Crazy Canucks

Crazy Canucks
Author: Eric Zweig
Publisher: James Lorimer & Company
Total Pages: 73
Release: 2011-12-14
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 1552779130

Crazy Canucks recounts the trials and triumphs off the Canadian men's alpine ski team of the 1970s and early 1980s. Eric Zweig offers a behind-the-scenes look at this innovative team that dared to take risks other skiers were too afraid of. The team rose from obscurity to prominence on the European and North American ski circuits with Olympic medal and World Cup wins. [Fry Reading Level - 4.9

Skiing Heritage Journal

Skiing Heritage Journal
Author:
Publisher:
Total Pages: 36
Release: 2011-07
Genre:
ISBN:

Skiing Heritage is a quarterly Journal of original, entertaining, and informative feature articles on skiing history. Published by the International Skiing History Association, its contents support ISHA's mission "to preserve skiing history and to increase awareness of the sport's heritage."

Visionary

Visionary
Author: John Korobanik
Publisher: FriesenPress
Total Pages: 184
Release: 2021-11-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1039118011

It’s not surprising if you’ve never heard of Ernie Gare; the man behind innovations that paved the way for many Canadians to pursue their athletic dreams without sacrificing education cared more about the future of the athletes and the sports than garnering fame for himself. Without Gare and his drive to create the scholarship program, the world may not have seen Nancy Greene win an Olympic gold medal, or the Crazy Canucks take Canada to the top of the ski racing world. Without Gare’s collaboration with Bob Nicholson, the Program of Excellence might never have been created to help keep Canada one of the top hockey nations in the world. This is the story of the man who changed the future of Canadian winter sports.

100 Things Canucks Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die

100 Things Canucks Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die
Author: Thomas Drance
Publisher: Triumph Books
Total Pages: 362
Release: 2017-10-15
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1633199053

Plenty of Canucks fans have taken in a game at Rogers Arena and will tell you they know just how to tell the Sedin twins apart. But only real fans can immediately recall Pavel Bure's penalty shot in the 1994 Stanley Cup final, or have hit the road to support their team in enemy territory. 100 Things Canucks Fans Should Know & Do Before They Die is the ultimate resource for true Vancouver Canucks fans. Whether you're a diehard from the days of Stan Smyl or a more recent supporter, these are the 100 things every fan needs to know and do in their lifetime. Experienced sportswriters Mike Halford and Thomas Drance have collected every essential piece of Canucks knowledge and trivia, as well as must-do activities, and ranks them all from 1 to 100, providing an entertaining and easy-to-follow checklist as you progress on your way to fan superstardom.

Boy on Ice: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard

Boy on Ice: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard
Author: John Branch
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Total Pages: 277
Release: 2014-10-01
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0393245969

“Shows us, in tender detail, a life consumed by our unholy appetites.”—Steve Almond, New York Times Book Review The tragic death of hockey star Derek Boogaard at twenty-eight was front-page news across the country in 2011 and helped shatter the silence about violence and concussions in professional sports. Now, in a gripping work of narrative nonfiction, acclaimed reporter John Branch tells the shocking story of Boogaard's life and heartbreaking death. Boy on Ice is the richly told story of a mountain of a man who made it to the absolute pinnacle of his sport. Widely regarded as the toughest man in the NHL, Boogaard was a gentle man off the ice but a merciless fighter on it. With great narrative drive, Branch recounts Boogaard's unlikely journey from lumbering kid playing pond-hockey on the prairies of Saskatchewan, so big his skates would routinely break beneath his feet; to his teenaged junior hockey days, when one brutal outburst of violence brought Boogaard to the attention of professional scouts; to his days and nights as a star enforcer with the Minnesota Wild and the storied New York Rangers, capable of delivering career-ending punches and intimidating entire teams. But, as Branch reveals, behind the scenes Boogaard's injuries and concussions were mounting and his mental state was deteriorating, culminating in his early death from an overdose of alcohol and painkillers. Based on months of investigation and hundreds of interviews with Boogaard's family, friends, teammates, and coaches, Boy on Ice is a brilliant work for fans of Michael Lewis's The Blind Side or Buzz Bissinger's Friday Night Lights. This is a book that raises deep and disturbing questions about the systemic brutality of contact sports—from peewees to professionals—and the damage that reaches far beyond the game.

Ice Capades

Ice Capades
Author: Sean Avery
Publisher: Penguin
Total Pages: 343
Release: 2017-10-24
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0399575766

**One of Sports Illustrated's Best Sports Books of 2017** Controversial hockey star Sean Avery's no-holds-barred memoir of high living and bad behavior in the NHL—coupled with the behind-the-scenes glitter of celebrity and media nightlife in New York and LA. As one of the NHL’s most polarizing players, Sean Avery turned the rules of professional hockey on its head. For thirteen seasons, Avery played for some of the toughest, most storied franchises in the league, including the Detroit Red Wings, the Los Angeles Kings, and the New York Rangers, making his mark in each city as a player that was sometimes loved, often despised, but always controversial. In Ice Capades, Avery takes his trademark candidness about the world of pro hockey and does for it what Jim Bouton's game-changing Ball Four did for baseball. Avery goes deep inside the sport to reveal every aspect of an athlete’s life, from what they do with their money and nights off to how they stay sharp and competitive in the league. While playing the talented villain in the NHL, Avery broke far away from his on-ice character in the off-season, and Ice Capades takes the reader inside the other unexpected and unprecedented roles that Avery inhabited—Vogue intern, fashion model, advertising executive, restauranteur, gay rights advocate, and many more. Love him or hate him, Sean Avery changed the way professional hockey is played today. Rollickingly honest and compelling throughout, Ice Capades transcends the “sports book” genre and offers a rare, unvarnished glimpse into the world of 21st century hockey through the eyes of one of its most original and memorable players.

Swimming in the Sink

Swimming in the Sink
Author: Lynne Cox
Publisher: Vintage
Total Pages: 242
Release: 2017-06-13
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1101971835

In this stunning memoir of life after loss, the open-water swimming legend and bestselling author tells of facing the one challenge that no amount of training could prepare her for. A celebrated athlete who set swimming records around the world, Lynne Cox achieved astonishing feats of strength and endurance. She was the first to swim the frigid waters of the Bering Strait, the Strait of Magellan, and the coast of Antarctica, and she was the fastest to swim the English Channel. But it is a different kind of struggle that pushes her to the brink. In a short period of time, Lynne loses her father, and then her mother, and then Cody, her beloved Labrador retriever. Soon after, Lynne herself is diagnosed with a life-threatening heart condition that leaves her unable to swim and barely able to walk. But against all odds, and with the support of her friends and family, Lynne begins the slow pull toward recovery, reaching always for the open waters that give her the freedom and mastery that mean everything to her. What follows is a beautifully poignant meditation on loss and an exhilarating celebration of life as, to Lynne’s surprise, she begins to find, within the unfamiliar space of vulnerability, the greatest treasures—like falling in love.

Mañana Doesn’t Mean Tomorrow

Mañana Doesn’t Mean Tomorrow
Author: David Kindopp
Publisher: Lulu.com
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2007-10-13
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 1257976788

A unbelievably, ridiculously, painfully, delightfully true sailing, land and love adventure in Mexico. Imagine Jimmy Buffett as the first mate, Dr. Wayne Dyer as the cook, Ernest Hemingway the helmsman and Jack London as the navigator and you get a pretty good idea about the crew in the author's head who helped shape this adventure. And they all get their share of the story. David owned and operated a real estate brokerage for many years in Northern California. Learning to sail on San Francisco Bay and visiting Mexico he soon discovered it was a combination he could not resist. During a visit to Mazatlan he determined he would chuck his brokerage life in California, bring a sail boat to that beach town and try his hand at the charter business. Sacrificing home and hearth and "security" at the altar of a mid-life Mexican dream cost him his business and marriage. Undeterred, he found a vintage ketch, made it ready for the ocean, and cast off. Come join the odyssey of sailing to Mazatlan -- dealing with Mexican "partners" negotiating tourist ladies, expats, the federales (almost being thrown into a Mexican jail), laughter, lust, love and the adventure of a lifetime.

Krazy George: Still Krazy After All These Cheers

Krazy George: Still Krazy After All These Cheers
Author: George Henderson
Publisher:
Total Pages: 312
Release: 2014-08-04
Genre: Cheerleading
ISBN: 9780692253151

Krazy George made the world stand up and cheer. His autobiography is the good-natured, factual, and humorous account of how he transformed himself from George Michael Henderson, a shy Clark Kent to Krazy George, the leather-lunged firebrand he is today. Armed with just his unamplified voice and his drum, he invented the most celebrated fan participation cheer in the world, The Wave, also known as La Mexican Ola. In the process he created a brand-new career as the world's only full-time, lifelong professional cheerleader. Twenty-five million people have allowed Krazy to lead them in stadium-wide roars of excitement. Over a hundred major and minor league teams have hired him, often for multi-year contracts - teams like the Kansas City Chiefs, the Minnesota Vikings, the Houston Oilers, the Oakland A's, the San Jose Earthquakes major league soccer, the British Columbia Lions - Canadian football, and the USA World Cup Soccer team At a time when fans were polite and sedate, Krazy George put the twelfth man on steroids. The NFL's 1989 Crowd Noise rule was aimed at shutting down both George and the crowd. Clearly they didn't succeed. Even today, you may not see George at your game but his manic presence is there. Sports' aficionados or anyone else desiring to learn more about this fascinating character and his unique forty-year career will delight in this wild and krrr-a-zzz-y guy's vivid anecdotes of the unanticipated, behind-the-scenes events, that enabled him to catapult himself into the mega-sports' entertainment business. And yes, he's Still Krazy After All These Cheers. "He (Krazy George) neither looks nor acts like a sultan of screams, a nabob of noise, a dealer of din, a pedlar of pandemonium. Even at low volume, though, his cracked, high pitched voice betrays him. He is indeed, a guy who has been heard to shriek for a living. A weekend wild man they call Krazy George." --- Larry Wood, Calgary Herald "Back in 1981, in the stands of the sold-out Oakland Coliseum, Krazy George Henderson had a vision. On this October afternoon, his beloved A's were in the playoffs against the Yankees, and he imagined the crowd rising in a giant unbroken wave of human energy. Krazy George invented The Wave. And in the process he changed the way people, from all over the world and from different walks of life, come together to cheer, express themselves, share their passion and create something bigger than themselves.That's why I believe The Wave is not only an extraordinary act, it is a great symbol of our human connectedness and interdependence and thus the perfect metaphor for the kind of leadership we need in our ever more interdependent world. With this book, Krazy George invites us to enter his world of Wave-making. He shares his formula by teaching us how inspiration gets people up out of their seats, contributing their full passion and energy, creating a competitive advantage - and having fun in the process. The 21st century demands that we all find the Krazy in us, and by reading his words, we can all come to appreciate why The Wave is a metaphor for what a diverse group of people can accomplish when they share passion, a vision and values." --- Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN - Author of "HOW: Why HOW We Do Anything Means Everything" "If Larry of the Three Stooges were cloned with Harpo Marx and the result talked like Andy Devine chewing sand, one would have a close facsimile of Krazy George, the world's only professional wild and crr-azy guy." --- Peter B. Gallagher, St. Petersburg Times