Tales From the Rink
by
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Hockey has traditionally been a game played predominately by men - tough men. And even as we enter the new millenium, though we find that women’s hockey is starting to come into it’s own, the professional ranks remain a male dominated sport. Through the 1990’s, the game of hockey saw a great increase in its marketability and, as a result, its popularity around the world. This increase was due in great part to the National Hockey League’s attempt to marketing their product on a global basis. On other levels, newer leagues like the United Hockey League, as well as the expansion of the East Coast Hockey League and International Hockey League, moved teams into markets yet untapped, helping spawn a new interest in a game that was previously thought only able to survive in the Northern United States and Canadian cities. As the Canadian dollar weakened in the mid to late 1990’s, and players salary demands increased, some of the Canadian markets once thought capable of supporting major-professional hockey found their teams moving south of the border. With this mini-exodus to the US, teams moved to markets that were once thought to only be able to support minor-professional teams at best. The Winnipeg Jets packed up and headed to desert of Phoenix, Arizona and became the Coyotes; the Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver, Colorado and became the Avalanche – winning the Stanley Cup championship in their first year in their new city with a team built on Canadian fan support. As the turn of the century approaches, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary and Ottawa are all said to be in financial turmoil and possible candidates to join their previously departed Canadian franchise brothers in heading to where they feel they can generate enough revenue to support a profitable team. All this movement, and marketing, has increased hockey fans desire for information on the stars that made the game what it is today. While there have been many books that document the history of the game and the NHL, from its infancy to modern times, Tales From The Rink will provide you with insights into what these players of yesteryear went through on their climb to the top, their time there, and their life after the game. Professional hockey players are among the toughest in any sport and arguable the best conditioned. Hockey isn’t a game that you pick up at 15 years of age and join the pro ranks a few years later. It is a game of well-honed skills that takes 10, 15, or more years to perfect. Through their young days growing up and playing the game strictly for the love of it, and then moving on to the professional ranks where they made their livelihood, you will hear the players own stories of how they came to achieve their level of success in the NHL. These stories are told in their own words. Not an interpretation of what happened, but actual facts from the players themselves. I hope that you get as much enjoyment from reading Tales From The Rink as I did in writing it. I wish to express my thanks to all the players featured in this book, for their time and insight into their lives. Many of these players were childhood idols of mine growing up in Detroit, Michigan, while others were players I came to enjoy watching in my adult life. It has been said, "A hockey player never forgets, he just waits for the right opportunity to remember." As you’ll be able to tell from these stories it doesn’t matter how long they have been away from the game, they still remember all.
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About the Book
Tales From The Rink is a collection of mini-autobiographies of ex-NHL players. From their childhood days on the frozen pond, through their professional careers, and into their retirement from the game, you will read about their lives in their own words. Tales from The Rink contains the stories of players involved in the game from the 1940’s through the 1990’s - players like Bill Barber, Red Berenson, Johnny Wilson, Bill Gadsby and Johnny Ogrodnick to name a few. You go beyond just what happened to them on the ice and into their personal lives, learning what people and events helped to boost their careers and how their playing days came to an end. From Jimmy Peters Sr. skating with the Montreal Canadiens the same day he returned from his tour of duty in WWII, to Nick Libett’s post-career battle with non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, to Pat Peake’s career ending ankle injury, you will read about these players lives both on and off the ice. These are true stories of the players that made the game great.
About the Author
Born on October 7, 1958 in Detroit, Michigan, Larry Nader started playing and following the game of hockey at the age of 12. Despite the Red Wings being a shell of their former selves at that time, Nader found a love for the game in his hometown team. In addition to closely following the Red Wings, and developing an attachment to the Montreal Canadiens, as did most hockey fans during that era, he loved watching the rivalries with nearby teams like Toronto and Chicago. Joining the United States Navy in 1976, Nader was afforded the opportunity to watch minor professional hockey for the first time while stationed in Virginia Beach, VA, when nearby Hampton Roads placed a short lived team in the American Hockey League in the mid 1970’s. After spending nearly a year on the Pacific Island of Guam, his ship was assigned to the shipyards in Long Beach, CA, where Nader was able to attend several LA Kings games, including a preseason contest (September 1979) against the Edmonton Oilers in their first season with the NHL. Featured for the Oilers that day was the hard to miss phenom Wayne Gretzky who, despite his young age, was already gaining worldwide acclaim. Upon being discharge from the military in 1982, Nader returned to his home in Detroit and began following the Red Wings once again, while discovering the excitement of junior ‘A’ hockey across the Canadian Border in Windsor, Ontario. When the Ontario Hockey League placed a franchise in Detroit for the start of the 1990-91 season, Nader became a season ticket holder and eventually assumed the position of Vice President for the team’s booster club before moving on to become the founding president of the International Hockey League’s Detroit Vipers Fan(g) Club in their inaugural season (1994-95). In 1996, Nader started a monthly magazine called Great Lakes Hockey Alliance in which he published a column called Tales From The Rink. These columns provided his readers with insight into the player’s career and life before and after their National Hockey League days. From these articles, Nader began to compile this book by the same name. Today, Nader continues to live in the Detroit area with his wife Janis while interviewing players for additional books in the Tales From The Rink series. He also keeps active covering the Detroit Vipers for an Internet magazine (www.inthecrease.com) and providing the team (Vipers) with game reports.