John Branch - Boy on Ice

The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter's heartbreaking account of the life and shocking death of the toughest man in hockey. 

Derek Boogaard lived an almost mythic sports story: from pond-hockey on the prairies of Saskatchewan to a first NHL contract in Minnesota to the storied New York Rangers as the most feared enforcer in the league. A gentle young man, he was a brutal fighter on ice skates, capable of delivering career-ending punches and intimidating entire teams. But his death at age twenty-eight from an overdose of painkillers in the wake of a series of concussions helped shatter the silence about violence in professional sports. Boy on Ice ($26.95) is New York Times reporter John Branch's chronicle of Boogaard's tragic life and death. A human story in the tradition of Friday Night Lights and The Blind Side, it's a book that raises deep and disturbing questions about the systemic brutality of contact sports-from peewees to professionals-and damage that reaches far beyond the game.

John Branch is a reporter for the New York Times. His "Snow Fall" won the Pulitzer Prize for feature writing. He lives near San Francisco.
 

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Boy on Ice: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard By John Branch Cover Image
$28.00
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ISBN: 9780393239393
Published: W. W. Norton & Company - October 1st, 2014