Black Ice - The Val James Story

Valmore James

Summary

The first black American in the NHL tells his story
		
		 
Val James became the first African American player in the NHL when he took to the ice with the Buffalo Sabres in 1982, and in 1987 he became the first black player of any nationality to skate for the Toronto Maple Leafs.
		
		 
Born in central Florida, James grew up on Long Island and received his first pair of skates for his 13th birthday. At 16, James left home to play in Canada, where he was the only black person in junior and, often, in the whole town. While popular for his tough play and winning personality, the teenager faced racist taunts at opposing arenas, and the prejudice continued at all levels of the game. In his two NHL stints, James defined himself as a smart team player and opponent, known for his pugilistic skills.
		
		 
Black Ice is the untold story of a trail-blazing athlete who endured and overcame discrimination to realize his dreams and become an inspiration for future generations.

Available since: 02/01/2015.

Print length: 224 pages.

Other books that might interest you

Under the Duvet

Marian Keyes

High heels, movie deals, wagon wheels, shoes, reviews, having the blues, builders, babies, families and other calamities...  Many think that Marian leads a glitzy life of limos, television, and showbiz parties - but she would argue that she spends the majority of her life writing alone, wearing her PJs, and eating bananas with a laptop on a pillow in front of her. Under the Duvet is a wide collection of her journalism and stories, all personal, closely observed, and painfully funny...A W. F. Howes audio production.

Show book

The Grandes Dames

Stephen Birmingham

The Grandes Dames gives brief and lively portraits of eight American women who wielded their wealth and influence to reshape the nation in the period between the 1870s and the Second World War.

Show book

Terrible Swift Sword - The Life...

Joseph Wheelan

Alongside Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman, Philip H. Sheridan is the least known of the triumvirate of generals most responsible for winning the Civil War. Yet, before Sherman's famous march through Georgia, it was General Sheridan who introduced scorched-earth warfare to the South, and it was his Cavalry Corps that compelled Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Courthouse. Sheridan's innovative cavalry tactics and "total war" strategy became staples of twentieth-century warfare.After the war, Sheridan ruthlessly suppressed the raiding Plains Indians much as he had the  Confederates-by killing warriors and burning villages-but he also defended reservation Indians from corrupt agents and contractors. Sheridan, an enthusiastic hunter and conservationist, later ordered the U.S. cavalry to occupy and operate Yellowstone National Park to safeguard it from commercial exploitation.

Show book

William Jones: The March on...

PBS NewsHour

Historian William P. Jones joins Gwen Ifill to offer an overview of how the March on Washington came to be, why President Kennedy feared it would cause negative aftermath and what roles women of color played on that historic day. Their discussion is one a series of conversations looking back at the legacy of August 28, 1963.

Show book

Black Folk Could Fly - Selected...

Randall Kenan, Tayari Jones

A personal, social, and intellectual self-portrait of the beloved and enormously influential late Randall Kenan, a master of both fiction and nonfiction.Virtuosic in his use of literary forms, nurtured and unbounded by his identities as a Black man, a gay man, an intellectual, and a Southerner, Randall Kenan was known for his groundbreaking fiction. Less visible were his extraordinary nonfiction essays, published as introductions to anthologies and in small journals, revealing countless facets of Kenan's life and work.Flying under the radar, these writings were his most personal and autobiographical: memories of the three women who raised him—a grandmother, a schoolteacher great-aunt, and the great-aunt's best friend; recollections of his boyhood fear of snakes and his rapturous discoveries in books; sensual evocations of the land, seasons, and crops—the labor of tobacco picking and hog killing—of the eastern North Carolina lowlands where he grew up; and the food (oh the deliriously delectable Southern foods!) that sustained him. Here too is his intellectual coming of age; his passionate appreciations of kindred spirits as far-flung as Eartha Kitt, Gordon Parks, Ingmar Bergman, and James Baldwin. This powerful collection is a testament to a great mind, a great soul, and a great writer.

Show book

My Secret Life Volume Seven...

Dominic Crawford Collins

My Secret Life is an anonymously penned memoir written during a period from the 1840s to the 1880s by a wealthy and sex obsessed English gentleman who refers to himself simply as ‘Walter’. Part confessional, part investigative erotic journalism, it meticulously documents every detail of the author’s prolific sexual encounters, offering us in the process an eye and thigh opening account of life behind closed doors in the Victorian age.Women, in both mind and body, were the all consuming object of Walter’s interest. From early youth through to old age his quest for erotic discovery and adventure with them was never diminished.Unlike contemporary 19th century erotic texts, such as The Pearl, whose sole object was to titillate, Walter’s interest in his subjects did not end with the extinguishing of the carnal flame. His hunger to understand the circumstances and minds of the women he encountered is never upstaged by the sex. Their potted life histories, their most intimate desires and acts were shared with him and in turn meticulously recorded by him, written down verbatim while still fresh in his mind.The resulting poignant record of a lost era and the intimate moments of the women who inhabited it offer us a remarkable insight into the 19th century that cannot be gleaned from any other source.The complete unabridged text is being released as a fully scored audiofilm (an audio book with accompanying music soundtrack) by film composer Dominic Crawford Collins.Volume 7 Chapter 13The Christmas cattle show. • Mrs. Winifred P* * * *e. • Recognition. • Assignation. • A conversation in a cab. • Talking and groping at a brothel. • Both on heat. • Winifred's marriage night. • The utility of the monthlies. • The husband humbugged. • An explicit account of marital habits. • Her husband's tool and toolings. • A gamahuche. • A lick of a prick. • Our last meeting. • Fifteen minutes' hard ramming. • We part for ever. • About my remaining manuscript.

Show book