Whenever Team Canada skates onto the ice at the World Junior Hockey Championship, they expect to win. They may not always be the favourite. They may not always come out on top. But when those players pull on the iconic red-and-white sweaters, they know they’re putting the whole country’s expectations on their young shoulders. They don’t just hope to win—they insist on it. 
This wasn’t always the case, though. After the team had a disappointing performance in 1981, officials from the Canadian Amateur Hockey Association (the forerunner of Hockey Canada) decided enough was enough. They drew up plans for a Program of Excellence, an initiative that would send the best possible team to the world juniors and aid the development of players who would represent the country in international play down the line. It’s no overstatement to say they achieved what they set out to do and much, much more. In 1982, the program’s first year, the Canadians came home from Minnesota with a gold medal. Over its thirty-year history, Team Canada has won gold fifteen times, effectively becoming the team all others are measured against. With accounts from those who witnessed and competed in the World Junior Hockey Championships since 1982, Thirty Years of the Game at Its Best takes readers year by year through what must be considered the most successful program in the history of Canadian sports.

Hockey Canada: Thirty Years Of Going For Gold At The World Juniors

Sports & Outdoors

Joyce, Gare

Hockey

Penguin Canada

Hatred, blackmail, and murder—a Brad Shade hat trick. The Black Ace reunites us with our favorite, savvy fourth-liner, with plot twists, wisecracks, and an ending that could only come from G.B. Joyce.
Thanks to Shade’s work at the NHL draft last season, he gets to hold on to his job as scout for L.A.—at least for now. But a journeyman’s work is never done. Shade is checking out small-town talent with his old friend and teammate “Chief.” But when they learn of the suicide of an old teammate from their playing days in L.A., they take a sometimes violent detour through the dark side of a small town with no shortage of secrets it wants kept at almost any cost.

The Black Ace: A Brad Shade Thriller

Literature & Fiction

Genre Fiction

Pintail

When the Lights Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockey's Cold War and Changed the Game

When the Lights Went Out tells the story of a moment in the 1987 World Junior Championship that forever changed the lives of the players involved, and ignited a debate that has yet to subside about the way the game is meant to be played. When Team Canada skated onto the ice that night in Piestany, Czechoslovakia, they thought they were 60 minutes away from a gold medal. Future superstars like Brendan Shanahan and Theo Fleury, pitted against Russians like Alexei Fedorov and Alex Mogilny, dreamed of returning to Canada in glory. Instead, they were sent home empty-handed, bearers of a legacy that would follow them throughout their careers. No one who saw it will ever forget it. The mere mention of Piestany evokes the image of twenty fights breaking out all over the ice as players rushed to their mates’ defence, of haymakers, stick-swinging, and even kicking, of a referee skating off the ice in shame. ESPN hockey writer Gare Joyce tells the story of the game that marked the last time Canadian and Soviet players squared off as enemies, rather than potential team mates in the NHL. It tells the stories of the combatants on the ice. Of the coaches behind the bench. Of officials, international hockey executives, members of the media and even politicians who were caught up in the intrigue.

Doubleday, Canada

When the Lights Went Out tells the story of a moment in the 1987 World Junior Championship that forever changed the lives of the players involved, and ignited a debate that has yet to subside about the way the game is meant to be played. When Team Canada skated onto the ice that night in Piestany, Czechoslovakia, they thought they were 60 minutes away from a gold medal. Future superstars like Brendan Shanahan and Theo Fleury, pitted against Russians like Alexei Fedorov and Alex Mogilny, dreamed of returning to Canada in glory. Instead, they were sent home empty-handed, bearers of a legacy that would follow them throughout their careers. No one who saw it will ever forget it. The mere mention of Piestany evokes the image of twenty fights breaking out all over the ice as players rushed to their mates’ defence, of haymakers, stick-swinging, and even kicking, of a referee skating off the ice in shame. ESPN hockey writer Gare Joyce tells the story of the game that marked the last time Canadian and Soviet players squared off as enemies, rather than potential team mates in the NHL. It tells the stories of the combatants on the ice. Of the coaches behind the bench. Of officials, international hockey executives, members of the media and even politicians who were caught up in the intrigue. From the Hardcover edition.

Anchor Canada

“One of this continent’s master craftsmen of sporting prose” (Sports Illustrated) and three-time National Magazine Award-winner Gare Joyce goes undercover to learn the secrets of NHL scouts. Veteran sports writer Gare Joyce realizes a long-held secret ambition as he spends a full season embedded as a hockey scout. Joyce’s year on the hockey beat is a steep learning curve for him; NHL scouts spend each season gathering information on players fighting it out to break into the world of professional hockey. They watch hundreds of games, speak to scores of players, parents, team-mates and other scouts, amassing profiles on all the top contenders. It’s a form of risk assessment–is this young hopeful deserving of a multi-million dollar contract?–and it can be a tough and thankless task. Scouts are ground into the game, picking up nuances of play that even the most committed fan would miss, but they are looking at more than just how well a kid can play. And come the final draft, only a tiny percentage of their full year’s work might matter. Examining the amount of information gathered on the under-eighteen hopefuls, the scrutiny to which they are subjected, and the differences between the rigour of American and Canadian junior teams, Joyce opens a window on the life and methods of an NHL scout and penetrates the mysterious world of scouting as no one has before.

Future Greats and Heartbreaks: A Year Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts

Biographies & Memoirs

“One of this continent’s master craftsmen of sporting prose” (Sports Illustrated) and three-time National Magazine Award-winner Gare Joyce goes undercover to learn the secrets of NHL scouts. Veteran sports writer Gare Joyce realizes a long-held secret ambition as he spends a full season embedded as a hockey scout. Joyce’s year on the hockey beat is a steep learning curve for him; NHL scouts spend each season gathering information on players fighting it out to break into the world of professional hockey. They watch hundreds of games, speak to scores of players, parents, team-mates and other scouts, amassing profiles on all the top contenders. It’s a form of risk assessment–is this young hopeful deserving of a multi-million dollar contract?–and it can be a tough and thankless task. Scouts are ground into the game, picking up nuances of play that even the most committed fan would miss, but they are looking at more than just how well a kid can play. And come the final draft, only a tiny percentage of their full year’s work might matter. Examining the amount of information gathered on the under-eighteen hopefuls, the scrutiny to which they are subjected, and the differences between the rigour of American and Canadian junior teams, Joyce opens a window on the life and methods of an NHL scout and penetrates the mysterious world of scouting as no one has before. From the Hardcover edition.

The behind-the-scenes story of Alexander Ovechkin's phenomenal rise from Russian athletic prodigy to NHL superstarHaving signed the most lucrative contract in NHL history with the Washington Capitals, Alexander Ovechkin, at 24, is an undisputed hockey legend. In the mold more of a rock star than hockey player, Ovechkin courts the limelight, is never shy with his opinions, and, in a sport that thrives on the collective culture of the team-Ovechkin is an iconoclast who flouts convention, while loving the game. In The Ovechkin Project, veteran hockey writers Damien Cox and Gare Joyce trace his elite sports pedigree, his role representing Russia in the World Juniors, and how since entering the NHL, he's taken his team from worst to first in their division, and the hockey world by storm.
<ul>
<li>Gives fans an inside look at such off-limits stories, as the impact of the death of Ovechkin's older brother, his bitter split with his agent, and his ongoing feud with Evgeni Malkin</li>
<li>Offers the perspectives of teammates, his coach and general manager, other players in the NHL, and the general manager of the Capitals</li>
</ul>
A candid look at one of the most charismatic figures in hockey today, The Ovechkin Project offers an inside, little-known look at Ovechkin himself, the makings of his spectacular on-ice talent, and the Great 8's meteoric rise to the world stage of professional sports.

The Ovechkin Project: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Hockey's Most Dangerous Player

Cox, Damien

wiley

Some sports seem to have a natural home. Soccer in Brazil, rugby in New Zealand, cricket in India. And Canada’s game? Why hockey, of course. But it wasn’t always that way. By 1982, the Soviets had won every World Junior Hockey Championship except one, while Canada had earned only a single bronze medal. And then Hockey Canada launched the Programme of Excellence, a national development system designed to help put together teams that would be able to square off against the Soviets. The result was immediate. To everyone’s surprise, when Canada took gold in 1982 the American hosts didn’t even have a copy of “O Canada” to play during the championship ceremony. But after that, no one would be surprised by a Canadian win. This Boxing Day will mark the thirtieth anniversary of the program that brought hockey fans many glorious memories and made household names of several of our players. Richly illustrated, Thirty Years of the Game at Its Best takes readers on a year-by-year retrospective, with each tournament’s story told from the perspectives of the players, coaches, and journalists who were there. This book is an extraordinary keepsake, published just in time for the 2012 World Junior Hockey Championships. Contributors include Mike Babcock, Brendan Bell, Murray Costello, Damien Cox, Sheldon Ferguson, Gare Joyce, Terry Koshan, Roy MacGregor, Steven Milton, Frank Orr, Donna Spencer, Jesse Wallin, Tim Wharnsby and Ed Willes.

Thirty Years of the Game At Its Best

VIKING

The cutthroat world of professional hockey is even more dangerous off the ice in the original detective thriller that inspired the new Global TV series Private Eyes.
Brad Shade has been just about everywhere hockey is played. He has ridden the buses in the minors, shared dressing rooms with the legends of the game, closed bars with guys destined for the Hall of Fame, and dropped the gloves with journeymen like himself who'll never get near it. And even though he's retired after fourteen years of bouncing around the league with more losses than wins and his net worth eroding, he's still living out of a suitcase and still taking numbers. That's his day job—scout for L.A., where someone in management owes him a favour from his playing days. But when the brutally murdered body of coaching legend Red Hanratty turns up in the parking lot after an old-timers charity game (Shade goes scoreless, again), Shade's job of scouting the local phenom starts to overlap with investigating the killing of the kid's grizzled old coach. When the killer goes after Shade's girlfriend, he finds out that guys don't stay in the league because they're good—they stick around because they're smart enough to know what needs to get done, and just ornery enough to actually do it. From small-town rinks to the draft tables in the big league, G.B. Joyce introduces us to a character Canadians already love—the fourth-liner with a self-deprecating sense of humour and an oversized will to win—and weaves a story out of strands of resentment, greed, and fear that span generations and build to a surprising, thrilling conclusion.

The Code

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Mystery

Brad Shade has been just about everywhere hockey is played. He has ridden the buses in the minors, shared dressing rooms with the legends of the game, closed bars with guys destined for the Hall of Fame, and dropped the gloves with journeymen like himself who’ll never get near it. Now that he’s retired after fourteen years of bouncing around the league, he’s living out of a suitcase and scouting for Los Angeles, where someone in management owes him a favour from his playing days.
 But when the brutally murdered body of coaching legend Red Hanratty turns up in the parking lot after an old-timers charity game, Shade’s job of scouting the local phenomenon starts to overlap with investigating the killing of the kid’s grizzled old coach. From small-town rinks to the draft tables in the big league, G.B. Joyce introduces us to a character with a self-deprecating sense of humour and an oversized will to win—and weaves a story out of strands of resentment, greed, and fear that span generations and build to a surprising, thrilling conclusion.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Joyce, Gare. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Joyce, Gare

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Joyce, Gare. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Hockey Canada: Thirty Years Of Going For Gold At The World Juniors

The Black Ace: A Brad Shade Thriller

When the Lights Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockey's Cold War and Changed the Game

When the Lights Went Out: How One Brawl Ended Hockey's Cold War and Changed the Game

Future Greats and Heartbreaks: A Year Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts

Future Greats and Heartbreaks: A Year Undercover in the Secret World of NHL Scouts

The Ovechkin Project: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Hockey's Most Dangerous Player

Thirty Years of the Game At Its Best

The Code

The Code