Oldtimers: On the Road with the Legendary Heroes of Hockey, Including Bobby Hull, Darryl Sittler, Marcel Dionne

by Gary Mason

Overview

Every year, a team of ex-NHLers, including such greats as Bobby Hull, Tiger Williams, and Frank Mahovlich, travels around Canada playing hockey and raising money for charity. Known as the NHL Oldtimers or Legendary Heroes of Hockey, they get the kind of attention that Mario Lemieux and Paul Kariya get today, playing to sellout crowds in Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg.

In "Oldtimers", award-winning sports columnist Gary Mason takes us on a rollicking tour with some of hockey’s greatest, putting us front and center in arenas throughout Canada and Alaska. He also takes us behind the scenes to the buses and planes and dressing rooms, where he listens in as the players share their most hilarious stories and watches as they pull their most outrageous pranks.

All in all, Mason delivers a revealing and often uproarious look at the National Hockey League, as seen by some of the biggest stars to have ever played the game.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781926812212
Publisher:	Greystone Books
Publication date:	08/01/2003
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
File size:	287 KB

About the Author

Gary Mason has been a journalist for 18 years and is a sports columnist for the Vancouver Sun. He has written three previous hockey books, all coauthored with his wife, Barbara Gunn: The Coolest Guys, Guardians: The Secret Life of Goalies, and The Coolest Guys II. He has received several writing awards, including the 2000 National Newspaper Award for sports writing. He lives in Tsawwassen, British Columbia.

Read an Excerpt

From Chapter 1 - "Here's Johnny!"

For over an hour the scene in the boarding lounge had resembled a reunion; in this case, an NHL reunion. Russ Courtnall was talking with his long-ago teammate from the Toronto Maple Leafs, Gary Nylund. Doug Bodger was chatting with Bob Rouse about players they knew in a common stopover with the San Jose Sharks. Marcel Dionne was laughing about something with Jimmy Mann, the former tough guy with the Winnipeg Jets...We had defencemen, we had forwards, we had a goaltender, but still no coach. Johnny Bower was nowhere to be found.
"We're going to have to fine him," someone said.
"Fine him?" said Tiger Williams. "I'm going to plough the prick as soon as I see him."
The team was coming together already.

Table of Contents

Preface
Prologue
1. Here's Johnny!
2. The Snipe Hunt
3. Dying in Yellowknife
4. The Mad Trapper
5. A Night at the Dog Sled Saloon
6. Scoring in Kenai
7. Singing Crocodile Rock
8. Marvellous Marcel
9. The Golden Jet
10. Survivor: The Gary Nylund Story
11. The Stars Come Out
12. Gilbert Perreault Sings Alouette
13. The Riverton Rifle
14. The Last Shift
Epilogue
Index