There is no greater reward for a hockey player than winning the Stanley Cup. The Ultimate Prize chronicles the evolution of the sport from the first recorded game played in 1875 to the 2002 Champion Detroit Red Wings. Photographs and statistics of teams, coaches, players, owners, and hockey executives are listed year by year. Facts, legends, and lore will engross the reader. The Stanley Cup has been called ?the people?s trophy.? It travels the globe making public appearances up to 300 days of the year. Unique among team sports trophies, the names of the men (and some women!) who have won it are engraved right on the Cup itself. Hockey players of all ages dream not just of winning the championship but of actually hoisting the glittering silver trophy high above their heads. It is one of sport?s ultimate icons and perhaps the world?s best-known piece of folk art.Included in The Ultimate Prize are chapters on Stanley Cup heroes, top play-off moments, and the history of the Stanley family. Did you know that Lord Stanley never watched a team that won his trophy, nor ever played the game himself? All seven of his sons played hockey as a team and were outstanding athletes. Daughter Isobel Stanley played the game, too. In truth, the Stanley family is every bit as responsible for the ?Stanley Cup legacy? as his Lordship himself.The Ultimate Prize is chock-full of fascinating facts about the Cup-?misspelled player and team names, wrong names, erroneous years won, and even double listing of players. Every hockey fan or sports enthusiast will want a copy of this treasure.
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From Booklist:
Arguably the grandest trophy in professional sports, the National Hockey League's Stanley Cup was donated by Lord Frederick Arthur Stanley more than a century ago. After introductory chapters on the cup's physical attributes and the donation, Diamond and company chart cup competition through 2002. During 1893-1926, the cup was "a challenge trophy." To win it, a team had to finish ahead of the present holder in league play or challenge and defeat the reigning champions in a special series. Without the NHL assuring head-to-head competition, such a series wasn't guaranteed, but "theoretically any senior Canadian amateur team . . . could issue a challenge." Ultimately, the NHL outlasted other hockey leagues, and in 1927 the cup officially became its ultimate prize. The bulk of the book consists of year-by-year summaries of cup finals through 2002 and biographical sketches of notable participants. What with copious illustrations, statistics, and the invocation of such championship moments as the Rocket's Dazed Dance (see p. 125), a fine book about a sport and its trophy. Mike Tribby
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- PublisherAndrews McMeel Publishing
- Publication date2003
- ISBN 10 0740738305
- ISBN 13 9780740738302
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages192
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Rating