Greg Oliver

Richard Kamchen

Professional hockey enforcers—popularly known as “goons”—finally get their due in this rollicking look at the players who have perfected the art of making mayhem. Whether they are called upon to duke it out with a fellow troublemaker or intimidate an opponent’s top scorer, these are the men who get the crowds to their feet, the sports radio shows buzzing, and the TV audience spilling their beers in excitement. Old timers like Joe Hall and Red Horner are profiled here, along with legendary heavy hitters Tiger Williams, Stu Grimson, and Bob Probert, fan favorites Tie Domi and Georges Laroque, and contemporary hockey stars Arron Asham and Brian McGrattan. The book also delves into the intense debate over the issue of violence on the ice as well as the personal and professional dramas of the NHL’s bad boys: the suspensions, the concussions, and the constant controversy of their role in the game.

Hockey's Greatest Enforcers, Gunslingers, and Bad Boys

Don't Call Me Goon

A fresh, comprehensive, and entertaining take on hockey goalies In hockey, goalies have always been a contradiction - solitary men in a team game, the last line of defence and the stalwarts expected to save the day after any and every miscue and collapse from his teammates. It's no wonder that anyone who played the position has had his sanity questioned; yet some of the biggest innovations in the game have come from its puckstoppers. In The Goaltenders' Union, Greg Oliver and Richard Kamchen talk to more than 60 keepers of yesterday and today, finding common threads to their stories, and in dozens of interviews about them with other coaches and players. From Gilles "Gratoony the Loony" Gratton, who refused to play because the moon was out of alignment with Jupiter, to Jonathan Quick, the athletically gifted master keeper of today's game, the book is an entertaining and enlightening peek behind the mask.

Richard Kamchen

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