For those who grew up around hockey, it's easy to understand a sentence like, He let loose a howitzer from the hash marks, roofing the puck past the stunned netminder. But for those who have no idea what that means, How to Speak Hockey provides a unique look into Canada's unofficial third language. Even lifelong lovers of the game might just learn a thing or two:

- Many hockey fans know about the five hole, but few know that there are seven holes in total

- Before the humble rubber puck, people used strange round balls called road apples

- Learn the strange and unique origins of common phrases including stood on his head and hat trick

- Find out exactly what is meant when a player dipsy doodles through traffic and breaks the ice

- In hockey, sometimes a hot dog is not just something you get at the concession stand

- Fighting has always been a part of hockey, so it's not surprising that there are so many words to describe it, from a word as innocent as dance to the biggest fight in hockey the bench-clearing brawl.

For all those wannabe hockeyists or lifelong rink rats out there, game on!

BRIAN KENNEDY was born in Montreal and spent much of his hockey-playing youth in Ontario. He went to school in the U.S. in 1981 and gained a PhD in English, before ending up in L.A. and teaching at Pasadena City College. A freelance sports writer, he uses his writing to get him everywhere from NHL locker rooms to the race shops of famous drivers of the past and present. He covers the Anaheim Ducks and the L.A. Kings, and in his spare time he rides a racing bike, practices karate and preserves memories.

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Brian Kennedy is Montreal-born and raised, and now teaches British and postcolonial literature as well as writing courses at Pasadena City College, California. He has PhD in contemporary British literature, and his previous publications include essays on Virginia Woolf, Henry James and Graham Greene, an edited book on California issues and books and academic articles on hockey and Canadian culture. He has held a research fellowship at Saint Mary’s University, Halifax; given presentations at the Bakhtin Centre at the University of Sheffield, England; and lectured on literature at colleges in Mumbai, India. His work has been translated into Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch.

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