A Season On The Rink

A journal for one season in the life of a hockey family.

Jake Maddox has been thrilling sports fans with action-packed stories for years. Now with this new collection of riveting tales, Jake takes the action to the ice. In Hockey Rink Heroes, readers can cheer on the main characters as they work to achieve victory and to overcome injuries, sibling rivalry, and other obstacles both on and off the rink. With easy-to-read, action-packed text, these fun and engaging stories will inspire sports fans of all ages.

If you could travel through time, who would you want to meet? Lucas Finnigan eats, sleeps and breathes hockey. With his friends Edge, Swift and Crunch, Lucas plays on his hometown’s rink, dreaming of the day when he knows he’ll make the NHL. But lately money has been tight at home, and, after a major growth spurt, Lucas is forced to wear hand-me-down gear that doesn’t quite fit right. Now he’s not sure he’ll ever make it to the Hall of Fame like his hockey heroes. And that’s not the only problem. With the community arena’s chiller on the fritz, and replacement parts too tough to come by, it looks like Lucas and his friends may be doomed to a season on a plastic rink—or worse, no hockey at all! But with a magical discovery, and some help from one of hockey's greatest players (who was a kid once, too!), their final skate might turn into their first great adventure . . .

Nikki, Danielle, Tori, Jill, and Haley are five talented skaters who share one special dream -- competing in the Olympics someday. And they're going to try to make it all happen in Silver Blades, the best skating club around! Rumors At The Rink Haley can't believe it -- Kathy Bart, her favorite coach in the whole world, is quitting Silver Blades! Haley's sure it's all her fault. Why didn't she listen when everyone told her to stop playing practical jokes on Kathy? With Kathy gone, Haley knows she'll never win the next big competition. She has to make Kathy change her mind -- no matter what. But will Haley's secret plan work? Don't miss the other books about the Silver Blades skaters!

A phenomenally unusual three-way murder mystery. With a murder at its heart, Roberto Bolano’s The Skating Rink is, among other things, a crime novel. Murder seems to have exerted a fascination for the endlessly talented Bolano, who in his last interview, according to The Observer, “declared, in all apparent seriousness, that what he would most like to have been was a homicide detective.” Set in the seaside town of Z, north of Barcelona, The Skating Rink is told in short, suspenseful chapters by three male narrators, and revolves around a beautiful figure skating champion, Nuria Martí. A ruined mansion, knife-wielding women, political corruption, sex, and jealousy all appear in this atmospheric chronicle of a single summer season in a seaside town, with its vacationers, businessmen, immigrants, bureaucrats, social workers, and drifters.

Pilar Ramirez loves to skate on ice, and normally she does not keep being born without part of her right foot a secret, but when her best friend convinces her to try out for the local hockey team Pilar decides not to mention her condition--but hockey presents her with some problems that plain skating did not, and Pilar needs to learn that being part of a team means being open with your teammates, so that they understand all your strengths and weaknesses.

Kimberly Abrahams and Danielle Benson are ice hockey players, coaches, and fans who set out to travel the United States and Canada in order to attend one home game in every National Hockey League arena in a single season. Their tour becomes a trip of a lifetime as they evaluate the rinks, explore each home team's fan culture and rituals, watch over 30 hockey games, and meet some of the players and staff behind professional hockey. As news of their tour spreads, some teams compete to provide the best experience through behind the scenes access to areas typically restricted to players and media. This memoir, The Hockey Tour, chronicles their incredible four month journey, offers comprehensive information on each of the NHL rinks, cities and significant hockey points of interest while inspiring its readers to live their dreams today and to start planning their own epic journeys.

The sport of ice hockey is going through a transitional period, losing popularity in the United States even as it gains momentum in other countries. The Hockey Dad Chronicles is the touching and funny story of one season in the youth hockey career of Ed Wenck's son, Oliver, when he played for the Indianapolis Junior Ice. Hockey parents spend an inordinate amount of time and money on their child's sport of choice -- considerably more than soccer, football, or basketball parents dish out. They get their children to the ice rink for 7 a.m. ice time, they travel with them to other states for games every other weekend -- and if they're anything like Ed Wenck, they spend a lot of time sitting in bleachers wondering at the absurdity of it all. As youth hockey grows ever more popular, increasing numbers of parents are seeing their lives taken over by their children's hockey careers. The Hockey Dad Chronicles will be a familiar, amusing, and moving reminder to them -- and to all parents who devote themselves to their children's extracurricular activities, whether they're sports, drama, or dance -- of what it's all about.

OPEN ICE In this new collection of exquisitely crafted essays, veteran sports writer Jack Falla writes about hockey as he has seen and experienced it over the past fifty years. Reflections on the game, its personalities and arenas, and twenty-five years of commitment to creating his backyard rink are woven into family memories and other fond remembrances. A heartwarming and amusing collection, Open Ice is sure to touch every hockey fan and all those who have grown up loving the game. Praise for Jack Falla's Previous Collection of Essays, Home Ice "literary hot chocolate that will warm your heart." —The New York Times "While Home Ice may be a book about hockey and the charm of backyard rinks, it is more than that, too. It is a book about relationships—between fathers and sons, husbands and wives—and how the game can bridge the gaps that commonly occur between generations in a family... It's a treasure and one that readers will be happy they searched out. Possibly the best hockey book since Ken Dryden's The Game." —The Globe & Mail "A gentle and powerful book." —Dave Bidini, Author of Tropic of Hockey and The Best Game You Can Name

It's time for hockey in the fifth installment of New York Times bestselling author Mike Lupica's Zach and Zoe Mysteries--a sports-themed chapter book mystery series perfect for fans of Cam Jansen! There's nothing eight-year-old twins Zach and Zoe Walker love more than playing sports and solving mysteries. And when those two worlds collide . . . well, it doesn't get any better than that. When eight year old twins Zach and Zoe findout they'll be joining their dad at the Boston Bruins hockey practice, they can't believe their luck. But upon arrival, the Bruins' star player tells the twins he lost his lucky necklace right before the Stanley Cup final, and just like that, the mystery is on. The twins' search takes them all over the arena, and even onto the ice. Will Zach and Zoe find the missing necklace in time for the big game?