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Sports & Recreation Hockey

Iron Mike

My Life Behind the Bench

by (author) Mike Keenan & Scott Morrison

Publisher
Random House of Canada
Initial publish date
Oct 2024
Category
Hockey, General, Sports
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780735281851
    Publish Date
    Oct 2024
    List Price
    $35.00

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Description

The must-read autobiography of one of the NHL's most controversial and successful coaches, winner of the 1994 Stanley Cup with the New York Rangers.

In the fraternity of NHL coaches, some stand out for their winning records, some for their big personalities and some for their unprecedented methods. Mike Keenan stands out on all counts, and more.
Breaking into the NHL as head coach of the Philadelphia Flyers in 1984, Keenan got instant results. The Flyers hadn't won a playoff round in three seasons; he led them to the Cup Final in his first year. In 1987, he coached a fractious Team Canada to victory in the Canada Cup using a strategy few of his peers had to master: if your team doesn't get along, give them somebody to hate, together. Keenan instilled unity in his teams by making sure they all wanted to show him up. The wins took care of themselves.
Keenan's teams won at every level. With championships in the OHL and AHL, it seemed only a matter of time before his resume would include the ultimate prize, and in typical Mike Keenan fashion he would win it on the grandest of stages. The NHL's most valuable franchise, the New York Rangers, hadn't won a Cup in 54 years. At the time, it was the league's longest championship drought. But with five-time Stanley Cup champion Mark Messier now captain of a star-studded Rangers lineup, there was only one thing missing for a championship run on Broadway: a coach who could focus all the talent and desire on victory. After a season of controversy and clashing egos, many of them involving the team's bedevilling new coach, in 1994 the Stanley Cup finally returned to Madison Square Garden, considered by many to be the greatest Cup win by a US-based NHL team.
In the hands of veteran journalist and bestselling author Scott Morrison, Iron Mike takes readers behind the scenes of one of the most explosive runs to the Cup in NHL history, one that has never been told like Keenan at long last shares in this book. Fans also get their long-awaited chance to understand what one of hockey's greatest and most confounding coaches was up to. There is only one Iron Mike in hockey, and love him or hate him, his memoir is a must-read for any fan of the game.

About the authors

Mike Keenan's profile page

SCOTT MORRISON, is a 25-year veteran hockey journalist and recipient of the Hockey Hall of Fame's 2006 Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award. Scott appears on the Satellite Hot Stove feature on Hockey Night in Canada. A highly respected hockey journalist, the Toronto native began his career at the Toronto Sun in 1979. After spending more than 11 years as a hockey writer and columnist at the paper, Morrison became Sports Editor in 1991 and led the section to being named one of North America's top-ten sports sections in 1999 — the first sports section in Canada to receive the AP Sports Editors North American Award. Morrison has authored several hockey books and served two terms as President of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association.

Scott Morrison's profile page

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