The Cleveland Barons should never have existed. Born when the National Hockey League's California Golden Seals--another team that should never have existed--were transplanted to Cleveland in 1976 and greeted with apathy by the dwindling number of hockey fans in northeastern Ohio, the Barons were an embarrassment to the city and to the NHL. The only thing the team had going for them was the state-of-the-art arena they played in, which was all but empty for nearly every game they played. This book chronicles the Barons' two regrettable seasons--a case study in what happens when an ill-conceived professional sports team created in an expansion splurge is moved, in an effort to save it, to a city that doesn't really want it.

The Cleveland Barons should never have existed. Born when the National Hockey League's California Golden Seals--another team that should never have existed--were transplanted to Cleveland in 1976 and greeted with apathy by the dwindling number of hockey fans in northeastern Ohio, the Barons were an embarrassment to the city and to the NHL. The only thing the team had going for them was the state-of-the-art arena they played in, which was all but empty for nearly every game they played. This book chronicles the Barons' two regrettable seasons--a case study in what happens when an ill-conceived professional sports team created in an expansion splurge is moved, in an effort to save it, to a city that doesn't really want it.

This is the story of Kansas City’s attempt to integrate major-league hockey into its sports marketplace, only to see it fall through thin ice. Troy Treasure, an award-winning sports reporter, tells the riveting story of the Kansas City Scouts, who began playing in the National Hockey League in 1974. Perhaps the franchise’s owners should have guessed it would be a struggle from the beginning: After finally getting an arena, its original name—the Mo-Hawks—was rejected because the Chicago Blackhawks thought it too closely resembled their moniker. But while the franchise underperformed on the ice and at the box office, there was also triumphs and plenty of laughs mixed in with the tears. During their two years on the ice, the Scouts featured the biggest on-ice badass in the NHL, a combustible coach, and one of hockey’s all-time funny men. Filled with player interviews and painstakingly researched, this book pays tribute to the history of professional hockey in Kansas City, the city’s other pro sports teams, and athletics at large.

Hockey has had its share of bizarre tales over the years, but none compare to the fascinating story of the California Golden Seals, a team that remains the benchmark for how not to run a sports franchise. From 1967 to 1978, a revolving door of players, apathetic owners, and ridiculous marketing decisions turned the Seals, originally based in Oakland, into hockey’s traveling circus. The team lost tons of money and games, cheated death more often than Evel Knievel, and left behind a long trail of broken dreams. Live seals were used as mascots, players wore skates that were painted white on an almost daily basis, and draft picks were dealt away nonchalantly like cards at a poker game. The California Golden Seals examines the franchise’s mismanaged—but always interesting—history, from its ballyhooed beginnings as a minor-league champion in the 1960s to its steep slide into oblivion in the late 1970s after moving to Cleveland. Through a season-by-season narrative, Currier brings to life the Seals’ history with lighthearted anecdotes, personal interviews, and statistics about hockey’s most infamous losing team.

This four-volume set introduces, on the management side, principles and procedures of economics, budgeting and finance; leadership; governance; communication; business law and ethics; and human resources practices; all in the sports context. On the marketing side this reference resource explores two broad streams: marketing of sport and of sport-related products (promoting a particular team or selling team- and sport-related merchandise, for example), and using sports as a platform for marketing non-sports products, such as celebrity endorsements of a particular brand of watch or the corporate sponsorship of a tennis tournament. Together, these four volumes offer a comprehensive and authoritative overview of the state of sports management and marketing today, providing an invaluable print or online resource for student researchers.

The twenty-fourth edition in the bestselling bathroom-reading series is jam-packed with over 500 pages of absorbing trivia material. The information miners at the Bathroom Readers’ Institute have unearthed a priceless collection of surprising, amazing, head-scratching, and hilarious articles. Divided by length for your sitting convenience, 24-Karat Gold is chock-full of little-known history, random origins, weird news, celebrity secrets, and urban legends. As always, you’ll find plenty of dumb criminals, clever wordplay, quirky quotations, and much, much more. Just open to any page—who knows what treasures await you? · Judges gone wild · The Barbie scandals · Canada’s underpants king · Helen Keller: vaudeville star · The double A-bomb survivors · The history of the umbrella · America's forbidden island · What the Hokey Pokey is really all about And much, much more

More than twenty years after departing Hartford, Connecticut, for Raleigh, North Carolina, the NHL's Whalers continue to inspire passion among fans. As HartfordBusiness.com reported in 2015, "Whalers merchandise...still has a cult following not only among fans in Connecticut but around the country." But Whalers devotees aren't just clamoring for jerseys, hats and t-shirts. They're nostalgic for a team that had New England roots for nearly 25 years--in Boston, Springfield, and Hartford--and featured some of the greatest players in NHL history, including Gordie Howe (with his sons Mark and Marty), Bobby Hull, and Ron Francis. Pat Pickens’s book details the Whalers’ origin in Boston in 1972, the team’s WHA championship in 1973, the roof collapse of their home arena that indirectly led to their entrance to the NHL in 1979, their stunning NHL playoff-series win against the top-seeded Quebec Nordiques in 1986, the 1986-87 season when they claimed their first division championship, and their relocation south in 1997 as the Carolina Hurricanes. Pickens imagines a Stanley Cup delivered to hockey-crazed Hartford in 2006, when the Hurricanes instead brought it home to North Carolina. The book also explores the likelihood of an NHL team returning to the Nutmeg State.

Travis Lindsay, his best friend, Nish, and all their pals on the Screech Owls hockey team, are on their way to New York for an international peewee tournament. Excitement builds in the team van on the way to Lake Placid. First there are the entertaining antics of their trainer, Mr. Dillinger - then there's the prospect of playing on an Olympic rink, in a huge arena, knowing there will be scouts in the stands. But they have barely arrived when things start to go wrong. Their star center, Sarah, plays badly from lack of sleep. Next Travis gets knocked down in the street. And then someone starts tampering with equipment. It looks as if someone is trying to sabotage the Screech Owls. But who? And why? And can Travis and the others stop the destruction before the decisive game of the tournament?

Who were Canada's ten most romantic couples of the twentieth century? What were this country's worst disasters, its ten best beers, and its most controversial works of art in the past one hundred years? Where will you find the most haunted places in Canada and who are Canada's greatest heroes, its most accomplished athletes, and its most despised criminals? The Great Canadian Book of Lists chronicles a century of achievements, trends, important and influential people, and fascinating events that have shaped this country as it heads into a new millennium. Award-winning writers Mark Kearney and Randy Ray, who have delighted readers with their bestselling books The Great Canadian Trivia Book and The Great Canadian Trivia Book 2, turn the spotlight on the twentieth century to determine the best, worst, and most significant happenings in our lives. Not content with supplying a shopping list of items about Canada, Kearney and Ray provide plenty of details to support why certain people and events are included on the lists. And their statistical snapshots comparing a variety of societal trends over different years show readers how Canada has changed in the course of the past century. You'll also learn how experts from the worlds of science, sports, lifestyle, literature, and politics rate the personalities and events that have made Canada what it is today. And several guest celebrities weigh in with lists they've created exclusively for The Great Canadian Book of Lists. Enlightening, controversial and fun, The Great Canadian Book of Lists is bound to start as many arguments as it settles. Was Guy Lafleur a better hockey player than Rocket Richard? Why are rower Silken Laumann and actress Margot Kidder on the same list? What were the best Canadian novels of the twentieth century? And what are some key milestones achieved by Canadian women, medical doctors, inventors, and musicians? Innovations and flops, successes and failures, comebacks and breakthroughs, record setters and trend setters: You'll find them all in The Great Canadian Book of Lists.

Russ Conway has worked at the Eagle-Tribune of Lawrence, Massachusetts, since 1967. For more than five years, he pursued the details of this fascinating story, an investigation that focused increasingly on the activities of Canada’s Alan Eagleson, once regarded as the most powerful figure in professional hockey. Conway’s series for the Eagle Tribune, “Cracking Ice,” from which this book was developed has been at the heart of the FBI and US Justice Department investigations that led to the 1994 indictment of Alan Eagleson. Among other things, Conway’s sensational exposé documents the following: Eagleson’s defrauding of injured players seeking career-ending disability insurance. Eagleson’s use of National Hockey League Players’ Association money for questionable and unauthorized loans to friends and associates, one of whom was also his partner in business ventures. Eagleson’s exploitation of his position as head of the NHLPA and driving force behind the Canada Cup to obtain everything from free clothing to free air travel to France. Eagleson’s outright theft of Canada Cup money via a scheme that saw Irving Ungerman’s company, All Canada Sports, retain control of end-board advertising during Team Canada games. Conway’s discovery, while investigating the conduct of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation into Eagleson that Timothy Lemay, a lawyer on loan from the federal Department of Justice, was working out of the same office in Newmarket, Ontario, as the RCMP, which was collaborating with US authorities. Lemay worked for Eagleson’s law firm; Eagleson had Lemay do work for Hockey Canada; Lemay is Eagleson’s son’s brother-in-law. Game Misconduct is much more than a sports story: it embraces business, politics, and true crime; indeed, some have called it the biggest scandal in professional sports since the 1919 Chicago White Sox threw the World Series. It is unquestionably among the most impressive and explosive examples of determined, investigative journalism in recent years. From the Hardcover edition.