Hockey and History

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I’ve had a long relationship with the “Coolest Game.” I was a player, a coach, and an administrator across the 1960s and 70s. When I began my academic career at the University of Washington in 1979, I used bus time to start a novel that eventually became The Commissioner: A Sports Mystery. In 1991, I signed a contract with U of Illinois Press to write a short history of hockey. Three decades and a great co-author later, this project evolved into Hockey: A Global History (2018), which serves as a comprehensive history of hockey book. The book earned strong reviews and was recently selected by the Society for International Hockey Research as one of '30 notable hockey books of all time.' Along the way, I published several articles and chapters on hockey. I also developed a popular course at the University of New Hampshire called Coolest Game: Hockey and History. So I have a reservoir of material and ideas to share on this site.

In 2016, Andy Holman and I submitted our manuscript for the history of hockey book to Illinois. We had pared down a significant amount, yet it still totaled 323,000 words. Unsurprisingly, our editor requested that we reduce it by at least 25%. This process took another year. We opted to cut entire sections whenever possible, which left us with a wealth of valuable material. Some of this content has been published elsewhere, and we share some of it below. 

Above is a photo of the American Sports Ambassadors 1971 team I coached during a European tour. Here we are in Switzerland.