Showing results by publisher "ECW Press" in Sports & Outdoors

How do you turn ranting about hockey into a career? Steve “Dangle” Glynn is a YouTuber, podcaster, and sports personality from Toronto who managed to turn a 16-second online rant about the Maple Leafs into a career in sports media. From video blogging in his parents’ house at 19 to yelling on televisions across Canada at 28, Dangle has been involved with some of the most important sports companies in the country. 

Hockey culture: it’s a commonly used phrase inside the game, glorifying sacrifice, toughness, loyalty, and a sense of identity. Justin Davis viewed this culture as something he was lucky enough to experience. After all, he’d won a Memorial Cup after leading the tournament in scoring, and he’d been drafted by the Washington Capitals. “In my mind,” he says, “I was the normal one.” Unfortunately, after stepping outside the game, he began to recognize the racism, sexual abuse and bullying that was so deeply ingrained in the sport.

The humble act of putting one foot in front of the other transcends age, geography, culture, and class, and is one of the most economical and environmentally responsible modes of transit. Yet with our modern fixation on speed, this healthy pedestrian activity has been largely left behind. Dan Rubinstein travelled throughout the US, the UK, and Canada to walk with people who saw the act not only as a form of transportation and recreation but also as a path to a better world.

After a 25-year break from boating, Brian Harvey circumnavigates Vancouver Island with his wife, his dog, and a box of documents that surfaced after his father’s death. In this memoir, Brian Harvey shares his experience of voyaging with his father’s ghost for two months in the Pacific. 

As a personal and professional crossroads, writer, editor, and obsessive walker, Dan Rubinstein travelled throughout the US, UK, and Canada to walk with people who saw the act not only as a form of transportation and recreation, but also as a path to a better world. There are no magic-bullet solutions to modern epidemics like obesity, anxiety, alienation, and climate change. But what if there is a simple way to take a step in the right direction? Combining fascinating reportage, eye-opening research, and Rubinstein’s own discoveries, Born to Walk explores how far this ancient habit can take us.

There are Leafs fans - and there’s the Ultimate Leafs Fan. No one had the time, money, or energy to follow their favorite team to every game of the season until Mike Wilson took a journey most fans can only dream about. These are the humorous, historical, and heart-wrenching stories of Leafs Nation. 

Disillusioned with overly competitive organized sports and concerned about her lively daughter’s growing shyness, author Angie Abdou sets herself a challenge: to hike a peak a week over the summer holidays with Katie. They will bond in nature and discover the glories of outdoor activity. What could go wrong? Well, among other things, it turns out that Angie loves hiking but Katie doesn’t. Hilarious, poignant, and deeply felt, This One Wild Life explores parenting and marriage in a summer of unexpected outcomes and growth for both mother and daughter.

As coaches and sport leaders what can we do to ensure that we maximize the potential of our athletes and teams so they are successful and continue to enjoy sport? How do we ensure that we coach in a way that benefits the team and remains respectful of the individual? In their first book together, André Lachance and Jean François Ménard offer tangible and practical strategies to help sport leaders create efficient group dynamics, build team culture, and help a group of athletes to gel. 

 “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.

DeRo is the life story of one of the greatest athletes Canada has ever produced. Born and raised in Scarborough, Ontario, Dwayne De Rosario wasn’t expected to make it out of high school, let alone to the top of soccer world. As part of a family of five, growing up in a one-bedroom apartment, he had to work for everything he had and sometimes that meant doing things he realized he didn’t want to do. It was soccer that saved him from a life on the street.

Hockey fans get a look into the life and times - both on and off the ice - of legendary eight-time Stanley Cup winner Red Kelly. 

Thirty-nine stories of hockey players who only scored one goal in their entire NHL career. From guys nobody has heard of to star goalies who managed to get one in the net, Ken Reid interviews these NHLers and finds out what that single point meant in the grand scheme of their lives. 

For 36 years, Jerry Howarth ushered in eternal hope each spring and thrived in the drive of each fall as the voice of the Toronto Blue Jays. In 1982, the lifelong avid sports fan joined Tom Cheek as full-time play-by-play radio announcer for the Blue Jays, and for the next 23 years, “Tom and Jerry” were the voices of the franchise. Jerry became part of the fabric of a nation and a team, covering historic moments like the rise of the Blue Jays through the 1980s that culminated in back-to-back World Series Championships in 1992 and 1993.

Kathleen Cremonesi knew early on she wanted to be different. Determined to avoid following in her mother’s footsteps to an ill-fated marriage, Kathleen left Oregon in her early 20s to travel across Europe. On a whim, this former administrative assistant with wanderlust took a job as a dancer in an Italian circus and, working her way up, became an ostrich-riding, shark-taming showgirl. Kathleen bonds with the exotic animals that could strike and kill at any moment, but instead bring her a peace she has never known. And when she stumbles into the arms of Stefano, the sexy elephant keeper, she finds a man who understands her wild spirit.

Hockey 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 story told here is priceless. Sportsnet’s Ken Reid presents the cards you loved and the airbrushed monstrosities that made you howl, the cards that have been packed away in boxes forever, and others you can’t believe ever existed. 

Hockey 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 story told here is priceless. Sportsnet's Ken Reid presents the cards you loved and the airbrushed monstrosities that made you howl, the cards that have been packed away in boxes forever, and others you can't believe ever existed.

It’s been 85 years since Brian McFarlane first laced a pair of skates and tested the black ice on a tiny pond. And then he discovered the joy of hockey. Ultimately, there would be grade school hockey, high school hockey, junior hockey, college hockey, and, miraculously, two decades with the NHL Oldtimers anchoring his life. Now, in this revealing autobiography, he remembers it all. For Brian McFarlane, it has been a helluva life in hockey.

Jamal Saeed arrived as a refugee in Canada in 2016. In his native Syria, as a young man, his writing pushed both social and political norms. For this reason, as well as his opposition to the regimes of the al-Assads, he was imprisoned on three occasions for a total of 12 years. In each instance, he was held without formal charge and without judicial process. My Road from Damascus not only tells the story of Saeed’s severe years in Syria’s most notorious military prisons but also his life during the country’s dramatic changes.