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Anxious to make the hockey team, a new boy at Parkside High tries to suppress his desire to play as an individual and make more of a contribution to the team effort. ... Read more

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The captain of the high school hockey team must decide whether to report his two best players who smoke against the rules. ... Read more

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"Liz Miller has really done something special. Advanced In-Line Skating gives the reader a taste of all the wonderful possibilities a pair of in-line skates can provide. It will be a great resource."--Kris Simeone, Inline Certification Program Director, International Inline Skating Association

"Liz Miller's passion for the sport of in-line skating comes across clearly in Advanced In-Line Skating. This is the most complete resource for skaters of all abilities and includes all they need to reach their next level. Liz leaves no gray areas in explaining even the smallest details of every in-line discipline with factual, up-to-date information and resources. I recommend this book to everyone, even beginners, for a comprehensive overview of in-line skating."--Suzanne Nottingham, Examiner, IISA Instructor Certification Program, coauthor of Fitness In-Line Skating

"This book cracks open the world of in-line skating for those looking for more than straight-line skating on their local bike path. As people look for innovative ways to reduce stress, have fun, and get and stay fit, Advanced In-Line Skating delivers a timely guide to getting the most from a pair of skates."--Adam Steer, Director, In-Line Certification Program, Canada

"This book is the next logical step after Get Rolling. It's brimming with well-written, advanced skating techniques and key exercises to help transform you into the skater you want to be. It covers everything from speedskating, roller hockey, agressive, downhill, hybrid sports to essential safety tips, shopping advice, definitions of skate terminology and just improving and sharpening your rolling-around skills. Pack this book (with your helmet) in your skate bag and take it with you to the trail, road, or rink. It rocks and so will you!"--Jim Fink, Seattle Skate Patrol ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Advanced?
I was looking for a book on advanced techniques -this is NOT the book.She covers roller hockey, speed skating and other topics very briefly.The book is misnamed...........should read "In Line skating Activities".....

Don't bother
Advanced? Are you kidding? This book spends a lot of time about covering a broad range of topics - but none in depth.I was looking for a good book on techniques -- well this is NOT the one.It is very superfiscial and not worth buying.I found some "beginners" books with more info!

Interesting reading, but broad rather than deep.
This book covers fairly diverse inline areas- speed, hockey, fitness, etc and as a result does not delve too deeply into any one area.If you wish to pursue any one aspect of skating, I'd recommend finding something more specialised.For example, the two areas that I specifically wish to pursue, double push and stair riding, are not covered at all.I find it especially puzzling that stair riding could be missing from a book with this title.

Still, as broad skating book, it's quite interesting and does have some good stuff on stroke technique.

verey good book
good book it tells you the basics and more. i loved it cause i love to in-line skate if you dont now after you read it you will...

hope you like this book! infact i know you willby daniel pruitt ... Read more

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Fred Shero, the head coach of the teams forever remembered as the "Broad Street Bullies," chose the hours before Game 4 of the 1974 Stanley Cup Finals to inscribe this on the locker room blackboard: "Win together now and we walk together forever." Well, of course, that team went on to win not one, but two Stanley Cups. Shero could not have been more prophetic.

Thirty years later, members of those Cup teams are still revered in the city of Philadelphia and throughout the hockey world, for that matter. In Walking Together Forever: The Broad Street Bullies Then and Now author Jim Jackson wants to bring people back to those glorious days of the 1974 and 1975 Stanley Cup championships through the telling of so many of the incredible anecdotes that emanated from the many memorable characters that created the glory. Walking Together Forever: The Broad Street Bullies Then and Now will follow the major principals of the Cup wins, taking readers through the remainder of those heroesÂ’ hockey careers, into retirement, and up to the present. Many of the stories of their personal trials, travails, and successes since hoisting Lord StanleyÂ’s Cup are as compelling as those from the championship years themselves. In the eyes of hockey fans, members of those teams have indeed "walked together forever." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Great reading, whether you loved 'em or hated 'em!
During the 70s I was a rabid New York Ranger fan and hated the Broad Street bullies with a passion.My biggest thrill was seeing Dave Schultz get his clock cleaned (which unfortunately didn't happen too often).Consequently I approached this book with a little trepidation since I was expecting a Stan Fischler type of read promoting the Flyers as a flawless group of men who put everything together for a few years and then rode off into the glorious sunset.This book is anything but that.The players and their coach are exposed with all their warts.Divorce, death in the family, alcoholism, depression and getting screwed by the organization are shown to be every bit part and parcel of the NHL player as they are the man on the street.I came away with a new found respect for these players who for years represented for me everything that is evil in the National Hockey League.(The exception being Bobby Clarke who proves what a jerk he is by freely admitting that he intentionally broke the ankle of a star Russian player just to get him off the ice).

Highly recommended for hockey fans who fondly remember this era of slam-bang hockey without face shields and few helmets. ... Read more

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(One column for purchase)

HARD LESSONS
Hockey teaches many lessons – sometimes hard lessons as you may have noticed if you’ve ever seen why players wear helmets – that become important later in life. Because when you’ve run into a wall in hockey, the figurative kind no longer scares you. (Or creates neurological effects … effects).
Anyway, hockey proves that resorting to force will get you what you want, if what you want is a small rubber disc. But it also tells you that others will immediately use force to get the disc back, so you need to weigh your actions. (With your foot on the scale). And they’re usually mad, too.
The offshoot to this is that fleet feet will take you safely away from trouble. But it also pays to look ahead, not back. Otherwise, you’ll discover that being clotheslined really hurts. And your thinking is usually too fuzzy at the time to say if you’d actually learned your lesson … your lesson. Usually, your thinking is too fuzzy to say if you’d learned your alphabet lesson.
Hockey also teaches that teamwork can help you accomplish things that you couldn’t do alone. Like all the guys on the fifth line sitting on the end of the bench to tip it in the air, which is not only fun, but keeps the coach from forgetting you’re there. Every little bit helps. (Coach let us on the ice for warm-ups).
Hockey gives you first-hand experience with resolving conflicts and what happens when you resolve conflicts with violence. It’s not pretty. You serve a timeout in a little box. You’re on water only, and every minute there seem like an eternity, especially when you’re sitting next to someone you’d just “resolved” a conflict with. (Who sometimes leaves the impression he’d like to further “resolve” things in the parking lot.)
So you find out that it’s best to walk away. Otherwise there won’t be enough fifth-line players left to tip the bench. Then how would you get on the ice again? (Full disclosure: Don’t put it up for vote). ... Read more

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BASEBALL
I’m glad I played baseball when I was little, otherwise I’d have missed learning a lot of things that served me well later.
Things like don’t put your head up when someone says, “Heads up,” don’t misjudge, and don’t speak softly unless you carry a big stick are important. Also, it’s better if you don’t learn them all the hard way.
I also found how events seem slow-motion just before an accident, how to treat a black eye and why not to play catcher without a face mask. Good tips all.
Everyone was right too about sports developing fair play. Teams were extremely fair about picking me for their side. “You take him.” “No, you take him!” “No, you take him!” It brings a lump to my throat yet.
Also, team sports have a definite advantage over individual sports because your teammates give you encouragement. They pushed me (though sometimes literally) to set lofty goals and reach them.
Take, for instance, catching a fly ball without getting hit in the face, picking up agrounder without getting hit in the face and sitting in the dugout without getting hit in the face. I achieved all these goals during my career. And my teammates were there to give me a cheer, it being beside the point what kind of cheer.
Not that I couldn’t hit and field. I could. It’s just that their standards were much more strict. What’s wrong with close?
I even pitched once. And I think I can safely say I made an impression. After the first hitter, no one on the other team wanted to bat. It’s amazing the power you gain by throwing a baseball as hard as you can right past someone. Especially when your control’s not so good. (At least it’s points in my favor for all the religious conversions.)
I know the umpire was amazed. He said I was in a different league altogether – though he mumbled which one exactly – just before he threw me out of the game. It was high praise.
But my ultimate goal was one I had to keep to myself because it was so big. And also because my teammates were already prone to laughing at unseemly moments. I wanted to hit a home run.
But it kept eluding me. One time I did hit the centerfield fence. When I was running to catch someone else’s fly ball. After I came to, they told me that didn’t count.
Eventually, I had to give up my baseball career without hitting a home run. It was depressing, but I think it was for the best. The fun had gone out of baseball. Once you’re out of the Little Leagues, it gets so demanding: “Hurry up with that water!” “Where’s my bat?” “Wake up!”
No, it was time for a change.
So I switched to slowpitch softball, which proved a lot of fun. But I never knew there was a Class Z. They told me it was something new. Real new. Those kidders.
Anyway, I could use all the things I learned in baseball, and the softball team said I could play a lot more, too. Luckily, I already knew how often there’s a blue moon.
In softball, I continued my quest to hit a home run. But it proved even harder than in baseball. A softball moves slower and weighs more. So by now, I began to fear I’d never hit it out, almost as much as I now fear the words, “Fill ’er up?”
Thus, I turned to any potential solution in my desperation. That, of course, leads inevitably to one of the two possible last refuges: psychology or infomercials. I picked psychology. (Though it was a close call).
I decided the power of positive thinking from sports psychology was just the ticket. That’s how I’d launch the softball over the fence and take my long-awaited trot around the bases.
That is, if I wasn't too fat to make it. (The only thing better than winning at slowpitch softball is commiserating with the losers afterward around the keg.)

For the rest of this column, see "Humor Book: 15 Short Columns (to go)." ... Read more

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A biography of the hockey star considered by some "the finest all-around hockey player the game has ever seen." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Courtesy of Teens Read Too
When his mom's boyfriend takes off, Steven's relieved.He never really liked Mike.Unfortunately, Steven's mom is pregnant.She says she's having a girl, and they begin calling her Sam.

Steven's dad died when Steven was only one.He doesn't know a thing about him.Now, about to have a little sister who also won't know her dad, he sets about trying to explain things to her.He begins to write Sam a letter.He's not sure when or if she will ever read it, but he writes about everything that's happened to them last December.

There was the new high school and Steven's desire to be part of the hockey team.There was a fight with a group of skinheads and the threat that they might come back for more.There was the irresistible Jenny and new best friend, Trevor, who got Steven involved in the high school social scene.There was Byron, the Ms. Pac-Man playing stranger, who always seemed to show up at the Donut Hole.All of these are intertwined in Steven's letter, along with the stress and pressure of being the man in the family for his pregnant mother and his soon-to-be little sister.

LAST DECEMBER describes Steven's struggle to adapt to the normal ups and downs of being a teen at the same time he comes to terms with being there for a mother about to become a single mother of two children.Using the concept of a letter, author Matt Beam takes his readers directly into Steven's thoughts as he attempts to provide history and guidance for his unborn sister.

Reviewed by:Sally Kruger, aka "Readingjunky"

Last December, an outstanding young adult novel!
I really enjoyed this book because it surprised me with some of the themes important to adolescents that were introduced.The book is written as an epistolary (told as a letter) novel, written to the main character's unborn sister.It is really interesting how he writes to her and even admits that he may not be so excited about her birth.

The main character, Steven is a fifteen-year-old freshman in high school in 1982, living in Toronto, Canada.He has just moved to a new school and is in the process of attempting to fit in to the new environment.He even tried out for the school hockey team and didn't make it.However, in the process of trying for the team he does make some new friends which lead to a series of significant events in his young life.These events include drinking and smoking for the first time, meeting and attempting to date a young lady, and even having a fight with a school bully.

I like how Beam addresses the difficult issues of adolescence in this little book.He addresses the stresses of peer pressure, the desire to find intimacy with a girl and the stresses of living with a single mother who is pregnant.This would be an excellent text to place in the hands of a reluctant reader because the scenarios presented by the author are realistic and contemporary enough to capture the interest of similar age students.One concern for some readers may be the use of profanity.In the beginning of the text, Beam never uses the "f-word" and instead substitutes the term "effin'."However in the last chapter, he does use the real word; this could be a concern for some.

On a final note, I found this text captivating because I was also an adolescent in the 1980s.Some of the video games, music and styles of the 80s were realistically incorporated into the text.I really enjoyed this because it brought back some memories of those "good old days."However, a good story is a good story no matter what the time period and I believe this is a good story!
... Read more