Teena Spencer knows from experience what it is to live through months of hockey mania and endless weeks of playoff insanity, when your partner is sprawled on the couch, knocking back beer and yelling at the TV. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, she decided, and proceeded to learn the ins and outs of Canada's national game. From butt-ending to dipsy-doodles, icing to offsides, The Girlfriend's Guide to Hockey illuminates the often arcane language of hockey in clear, humourous text. It's all here: the jargon, positions, rules, teams, top players and rituals and trivia, with details on women in hockey, including Canada's silver-medal-winning 1998 Olympic team (who, after all, did better than the men!).

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Travel writer and novelist Will Ferguson is the author of several award-winning memoirs, including Beyond Belfast, about a 560-mile walk across Northern Ireland in the rain; Hitching Rides with Buddha, about an end-to-end journey across Japan by thumb; and most recently the humour collection Canadian Pie, which includes his travels from Yukon to PEI.

Ferguson's novels include Happiness™, a satire set in the world of self-help publishing, and Spanish Fly, a coming-of-age tale of con men and call girls set amid the jazz clubs of the Great Depression. His work, which has been published in more than twenty languages around the world, has been nominated for both an IMPAC Dublin Award and a Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and he is a three-time winner of the Leacock Medal.

www.willferguson.com

Will Ferguson's profile page

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