Now You Know Big Book of Sports. Doug Lennox

Not surprisingly, Canada won that first event. At the first six championships (1990, 1992, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000) under the auspices of the International Ice Hockey Federation the results were the same: Canada gold, the United States silver, Finland bronze. In 2001 Canada and the United States once again took gold and silver respectively, but Russia nabbed bronze. The 2003 championship was cancelled due to the outbreak of SARS, and since then both Canada and the United States have won gold twice (Canada in 2004, 2007, the United States in 2005, 2008). The Women’s World Hockey Championship isn’t held in years when there’s a Winter Olympics. Canada’s premier women’s hockey players over the past decade and a half have been national heroes such as Angela James, Danielle Goyette, Geraldine Heaney, Nancy Drolet, and the incomparable HayleysWickenheiser.

       Five Top Canadian Women’s Hockey Players

      • Hayley Wickenheiser: Gold medals at 2002 and 2006 Olympics. Gold medals at Women’s World Hockey Championship in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2003, and 2007.

      • Angela James: Gold medals at Women’s World Hockey Championship in 1990, 1992, 1994, and 1997.

      • Cassie Campbell: Gold medals at 2002 and 2006 Olympics. Gold medals at Women’s World Hockey Championship in 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2004.

      • Danielle Goyette: Gold medals at 2002 and 2006 Olympics. Gold medals at Women’s World Hockey Championship in 1992, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2004, and 2007.

      • Geraldine Heaney: Gold medal at 2002 Olympics. Gold medals at Women’s World Hockey Championship in 1992, 1994, 1997, 1999, 2000, and 2001.

       Who were the first two women to play professional hockey in men’s leagues?

      Arguably the most famous female hockey player in the world in the early 1990s, Manon Rhéaume, born in Lac Beauport, Quebec, was the first woman to suit up with a National Hockey League team when she played goal in a 1992 pre-season match for the Tampa Bay Lightning against the St. Louis Blues. The next year she played another exhibition game for the Lightning against the Boston Bruins. After that she tended goal for a number of men’s minor-league clubs. In 1992 Rhéaume made her first appearance with Canada’s national team, and she helped it win gold medals at the Women’s World Championship in 1992 and 1994. Prior to the 1997 World Championship, she was cut from Team Canada, but she made a comeback at the 1998 Olympics in Nagano, Japan. She played well, but Canada lost the gold to the U.S. team and had to settle for silver. Rhéaume announced her retirement from hockey in the summer of 2000. The second woman to play for a men’s professional team was Glens Falls, New York–born Erin Whitten, who was also a goalie. In 1993– 94 she debuted with the Toledo Storm, a men’s club in the minor-league East Coast Hockey League. On October 30, 1993, Whitten became the first female netminder to achieve a victory in a men’s professional match. She played four seasons of women’s university hockey at the University of New Hampshire and was the top goaltender on the U.S. women’s national team. Whitten made appearances in 1992, 1994, 1997, and 1999 at the Women’s World Championship, but the U.S. team finished second to Canada every time.

       Five Top U.S. Women’s Hockey Players

      • Cammi Granato: Gold medal at 1998 Olympics. Gold medal at 2005 Women’s World Hockey Championship. Played for Team USA from 1990 to 2005.

      • Karen Bye: Gold medal at 1998 Olympics. Silver medals at six Women’s World Hockey Championships.

      • Katie King: Gold medal at 1998 Olympics. Gold medal at 2005 Women’s World Hockey Championship.

      • Angela Ruggiero: Gold medal at the 1998 Olympics. Gold medals at the Women’s World Hockey Championship in 2005 and 2008.

      • Krissy Wendell: Gold medal at 1998 Olympics. Gold medal at the Women’s World Hockey Championship in 2005.

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       Stanley Cup Playoff Hat Trick Magic

      • Wayne Gretzky: Most three-or-more-goal games in playoffs in a career (10).

      • Jari Kurri: Most three-or-more-goal games in one playoff year: (4).

      • Jari Kurri: Most three-or-more-goal games in one playoff series: (3).

       Three Biggest NHL Scoundrels

      • Harold Ballard: In 1972 the Toronto Maple Leafs’ worst owner ever was sentenced to three concurrent three-year jail sentences for tax evasion. However, the miserly, mercurial Leafs autocrat spent only one year in jail. When he got out, he continued his erratic ways as Leafs owner for another two decades, easily one of the worst periods in the franchise’s storied history. Obviously, being a jailbird only made him worse.

      • Bruce McNall: In 1992 McNall, the owner of the Los Angeles Kings, was elected chairman of the NHL’s Board of Governors. However, he didn’t get to enjoy his lofty status for long. In March 1997 he went to prison to serve five and a half years for swindling banks and investors out of $250 million.

      • Alan Eagleson: The impresario behind the 1972 Canada–Soviet Union Summit Series and the Canada Cup, one of the architects (and, as it turned out, exploiters) of the National Hockey League Players’ Association, and the most powerful agent hockey has ever seen, Eagleson was someone you didn’t dare cross in the stuffy, closed world of the NHL. That all changed, though, when the uber-agent was fined $1 million and sentenced to 18 months in jail for bilking players and purloining disability-insurance cash and profits from various Canada Cup events, money that was supposedly earmarked for the NHL players’ pension fund. Ensconced in prison, the 64-yearold Eagleson worked as a cleaner and fetched coffee. How the mighty fall! He was also stripped of his Order of Canada and forced out of the Hockey Hall of Fame.

       Top Five Penalty Kings in the NHL

      Here, with their combined career regular-season and playoff penalties, are five of the orneriest blokes ever to lace on skates.

      • Dave “Tiger” Williams: 4,421 penalty minutes in 14 seasons, 962 regular-season games, 83 playoff matches. Toronto Maple Leafs, Vancouver Canucks, Los Angeles Kings, and Hartford Whalers.

      • Dale Hunter: 4,294 penalty minutes in 19 seasons, 1,407 regular-season games, 186 playoff matches. Quebec Nordiques, Washington Capitals, and Colorado Avalanche.

      • Marty McSorley: 3,755 penalty minutes in 961 regular-season games, 115 playoff matches. Pittsburgh Penguins, Edmonton Oilers, Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers, San Jose Sharks, and Boston Bruins.

      • Tie Domi: 3,753 penalty minutes in 1,020 regular-season games, 98 playoff matches. Toronto Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, and Winnipeg Jets.

      • Chris Nilan: 3,584 penalty minutes in 688 regular-season games, 111 playoff matches. Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers, and Boston Red Sox.

soccer

       What is the origin of soccer?

      Soccer-like games that involved the kicking of a ball across a playing pitch have existed for eons in regions from China to Meso-America to the Arctic tundra. But modern soccer, as it evolved in Great Britain, has its roots in a medieval European game called “mob football,” which was played between rival villages at times of celebration and festivity, especially on Shrove Tuesday. Played in England, Normandy, Brittany, Picardy, Cornwall, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, mob football saw teams