The Rink Rats


Book Description

Tom gets his first lesson in responsibility when he and his team agree to tidy up an outdoor rink. It's a snowy February in Calgary, and the bumpy outdoor rink at Crescent Park needs a lot of work. Tom and his friends pledge to perfect it in time for the annual Family Day hockey game, and soon they get to work. But maintaining and improving a rink proves to be a lot of work for the boys: They are faced with repeated snowfalls, ice damage, illness, and poor performance in their hockey games, due to their weariness from all of the extra work! One day a tempting invitation creates a conflict with their work commitment, and now it's up to them -- to choose between honouring their pledge or watching their favourite NHL team in action. This charming chapter book is the fourth installment in Irene Punt's series featuring Tom and the Glenlake Hawks. With the fun backdrop of seasonal school activities and hockey games, she touches on the important themes of teamwork, conflict resolution, and acceptance of responsibility -- all with the cheerful, positive outlook of an average, everyday kid.




Chicago Rink Rats


Book Description

By 1950, roller skating had emerged as the number-one participatory sport in America. Ironically, the war years launched the Golden Age of Roller Skating. Soldiers serving overseas pleaded for skates along with their usual requests for cigarettes and letters from home. Stateside, skating uplifted morale and kept war factory workers exercising. By the end of the decade, five thousand rinks operated across the country. Its epicenter: Chicago! And no one was left behind! The Blink Bats, a group of Braille Center skaters, held their own at the huge Broadway Armory rink. Meanwhile, the Swank drew South Side crowds to its knee-action floor and stocked jukebox. Eighteen celebrated rinks are now gone, but rinks that remain honor the traditions of the sport's glory years. Author Tom Russo scoured newspaper archives and interviewed skaters of the roller capital's heyday to reveal the enduring legacy of Chicago's rink rats.




Just One Goal!


Book Description

At last — Canada's favourite storyteller takes on Canada's most beloved pastime! Ciara is tired of hauling her hockey gear across town to play on the rink. It makes no sense—there is a perfectly good frozen river in her own backyard! But her dad says it's too jagged, and her mom says it's too bumpy, and her older sisters don't see why she can't keep going all the way across town, just like they did. But Ciara won't let anybody stop her. And with a little help from the neighbourhood, she knows that her team, the River Rink Rats, will finally win a game on their own brand new rink. In classic Robert Munsch style, this warm fun story of community and hockey takes a hilarious turn. With the excitement and pace of a real hockey match, the River Rink Rats play their final game on their new rink. The pressure is on; the crowd is watching; Ciara has the puck; the crowd keeps watching; the ice starts to...CRACK!; Ciara keeps playing; the ice starts to drift; the crowd starts running; Ciara shoots to SCORE and— You can be sure that no matter how the game ends, there will be hot chocolate! This ebook features read-along narration by the author.




Hockey Luck


Book Description

What do you do when your hockey luck runs out? It's a new season for the Glenlake Hawks. It seems everyone but Tom has a hockey superstition or good luck charm. Mark eats pizza before a game; Harty dresses in a certain order; Stuart wears NHL Band-Aids and Jordan never washes his socks. Even Dad has a superstition: not shaving when the Calgary Flames play. Tom is in a funk because he doesn't have his old jersey, number 15, which brought him his good luck in the past. Now he wears number 5 and it is giving him bad luck, including no goals. Tom and his friends set out to find him a new good luck charm, but nothing seems to work! Is Tom stuck being unlucky? Or does luck have nothing to do with it?




Home Ice


Book Description

Essays on family and fun on a backyard skating rink by the popular hockey writer.




Chicago Rink Rats: The Roller Capital in Its Heyday


Book Description

By 1950, roller skating had emerged as the number-one participatory sport in America. Ironically, the war years launched the Golden Age of Roller Skating. Soldiers serving overseas pleaded for skates along with their usual requests for cigarettes and letters from home. Stateside, skating uplifted morale and kept war factory workers exercising. By the end of the decade, five thousand rinks operated across the country. Its epicenter: Chicago! And no one was left behind! The Blink Bats, a group of Braille Center skaters, held their own at the huge Broadway Armory rink. Meanwhile, the Swank drew South Side crowds to its knee-action floor and stocked jukebox. Eighteen celebrated rinks are now gone, but rinks that remain honor the traditions of the sport's glory years. Author Tom Russo scoured newspaper archives and interviewed skaters of the roller capital's heyday to reveal the enduring legacy of Chicago's rink rats.




Let Them Lead


Book Description

An uplifting leadership book about a coach who helped transform the nation’s worst high school hockey team into one of the best. Bacon’s strategy is straightforward: set high expectations, make them accountable to each other, and inspire them all to lead their team. When John U. Bacon played for the Ann Arbor Huron High School River Rats, he never scored a goal. Yet somehow, years later he found himself leading his alma mater’s downtrodden program. How bad? The team hadn’t won a game in over a year, making them the nation’s worst squad—a fact they celebrated. With almost everyone expecting more failure, Bacon made it special to play for Huron by making it hard, which inspired the players to excel. Then he defied conventional wisdom again by putting the players in charge of team discipline, goal-setting, and even decision-making – and it worked. In just three seasons the River Rats bypassed 95-percent of the nation’s teams. A true story filled with unforgettable characters, stories, and lessons that apply to organizations everywhere, Let Them Lead includes the leader’s mistakes and the reactions of the players, who have since achieved great success as leaders themselves. Let Them Lead is a fast-paced, feel-good book that leaders of all kinds can embrace to motivate their teams to work harder, work together, and take responsibility for their own success.




Tryout Trouble


Book Description

Tom and Harty both want to play for the Hawks, but will the competition ruin their friendship? Tom is excited when he learns that Harty, the boy he met at hockey camp in The Wicked Slapshot, has moved into the neighbourhood! That is, until Tom realizes that Harty will be competing with him for a spot on the Hawks -- and he seems to be winning over all of Tom's teammates. With tryouts looming, Tom starts to feel jealous. What if Harty makes the team and he doesn't? Will he be able to remain friends with Harty AND the guys? Tryout Trouble is an easy-to-read chapter book, perfect for emerging readers who are transitioning to chapter books.




Booyah


Book Description




A Thousand Small Sanities


Book Description

A stirring defense of liberalism against the dogmatisms of our time from an award-winning and New York Times bestselling author. Not since the early twentieth century has liberalism, and liberals, been under such relentless attack, from both right and left. The crisis of democracy in our era has produced a crisis of faith in liberal institutions and, even worse, in liberal thought. A Thousand Small Sanities is a manifesto rooted in the lives of people who invented and extended the liberal tradition. Taking us from Montaigne to Mill, and from Middlemarch to the civil rights movement, Adam Gopnik argues that liberalism is not a form of centrism, nor simply another word for free markets, nor merely a term denoting a set of rights. It is something far more ambitious: the search for radical change by humane measures. Gopnik shows us why liberalism is one of the great moral adventures in human history -- and why, in an age of autocracy, our lives may depend on its continuation.