Hockey History

The National Hockey League saw the birth of a new dynasty in 1980. The New York Islanders had been an expansion franchise in 1972 in the New York City suburbs of Long Island. For years they played in the long shadow of the big-city New York Rangers and were considered the league’s laughingstock during their first season. Miraculously, eight years later, they were champions.

Join a ragtag group of misfits from Dawson City as they scrap to become the 1905 Stanley Cup champions and cement hockey as Canada's national pastime.

Father David Bauer changed lives - at the rink, in the classroom, and at the pulpit. Bauer's dream created the first truly national Canadian hockey team. In 1963 that unique group represented Canada abroad and were committed to both country and to Father Bauer. Whether shepherding the hockey program at St. Michael's College in Toronto or the men's national team out of the University of British Columbia, Bauer was both spiritual leader and trailblazer.

Canadian hockey is rife with tales of the odd, the strange, the funny and, occasionally, the disturbing side of the game: in 1976, Maple Leafs coach Red Kelly installed pyramids in the players’ dressing room and under the bench in an attempt to harness “pyramid power”; the Cusimano brothers started the tradition of “octopus hurling” during the 1952 playoff games; in 1930, Toronto Maple Leafs’ general manager Conn Smythe placed a winning bet on a longshot horse to pay the cash-strapped Ottawa Senators for star player Frank “King” Clancy; and more!

To Hold It High is a saga of four generations who played for the same professional sports franchise, a feat not duplicated in any pro sport on the planet. This family story is intertwined with a history of a hockey team, a province, and a country. A fast-paced collaboration by best-selling author Paul Deepan and raconteur extraordinaire Danny Geoffrion, it traces the hockey lineage of Danny’s grandfather Howie Morenz, his father Boom-Boom Geoffrion, himself, and his son Blake, all of whom played for the Canadiens (Les Habitants, to their legions of adoring fans).

“Holy Dirty Dora!” Hector “Toe” Blake would bark while pacing behind the Montreal Canadiens bench, hands thrust into his pockets, jawing at chewing gum before intentionally banging his forehead into the glass that separates players and fans. No lead was safe or sufficient for the lifelong hockey man at the helm of the greatest dynasty in NHL history.

Randall Balmer was a late convert to sports talk radio, but he quickly became addicted, just like millions of other devoted American sports fans. As a historian of religion, the more he listened, Balmer couldn't help but wonder how the fervor he heard related to religious practice. From baseball to basketball and football to ice hockey, Balmer explores the origins and histories of big-time sports from the late nineteenth century to the present, with entertaining anecdotes and fresh insights into their ties to religious life.

Hockey sprang to life in Waterloo, Iowa, when the Black Hawks and the United States Hockey League arrived in 1962. Immediate success on the ice allowed the franchise to put down deep roots. Paul Johnson, Jim Coyle, Bill Dobbyn, and a full cast led the Hawks to five consecutive championships in the 1960s against rival teams featuring players like Herb Brooks, Bill Masterton, and Paul Coppo. The Hawks' early accomplishments built a tradition that helped the sport through many leaner seasons in Waterloo.

The New York Yankees. The Boston Red Sox. For a hundred years, no two teams have locked horns as fiercely or as frequently, and no two seasons frame the colossal battle more perfectly than 2003 and 2004. Now, with incredible energy and access, leading sports columnist Mike Vaccaro chronicles the history of the greatest rivalry in sports, and the two stunning American League Championship Series that define a century of baseball.

The Fastest Game in the World is a global history of a global sport, drawing upon research conducted around the world in a variety of languages. From Canadian prairies to Swiss mountain resorts, Soviet housing blocks to American suburbs, Bruce Berglund takes listeners on an international tour, seamlessly weaving in hockey’s local, national, and international trends.

For more than half a century, generations of hockey fans in northeast Iowa have given their allegiance to the Waterloo Black Hawks. Few realize that decades before the Black Hawks arrived, a long forgotten club captivated Waterloo during the late 1920s, playing in front of crowds even larger than those who come to the rink today, and beating teams from Chicago, the Twin Cities, and Canada. The Legion Team: Forgotten Hockey in Waterloo, 1927-1930, seeks to revive the memories of this overlooked era.

The Waterloo Black Hawks’ first Thanksgiving game was not on the original United States Hockey League schedule in 1964/65. Nevertheless, the Black Hawks played on that holiday evening, starting a tradition which today draws thousands of Eastern Iowans to the rink each November after turkey, mashed potatoes, and pumpkin pie.