Next to the Ice

Next to the Ice is an intimate exploration into hockey communities and culture. With six well-written essays on timely themes, Next to the Ice provides readers with keen insights into key areas of elite and professional hockey including: fan culture, franchise drama, the rise of the hockey enforcer, and the off-ice politics of hockey parents. Three university educators, parents and ex-players bring the reader inside the world of 'rink rats', hockey families, and hard-core fans and collectors of Canada's favourite professional sport. Next to the Ice is a must-have book for hockey enthusiasts, fans, academics, or anyone interested in developing a better understanding of the culture of sports.

Cam Cobb is a professor at the University of Windsor. He researches social justice, special education, andadult learning. Cobb’s work has been published in the British Journal of Special Education, theInternational Journal of Inclusive Education, Per la filosofia, and Cinema: Philosophy and the Moving Image.He is an avid collector of the ‘Jim Proudfoot player guidebooks’. Christopher J. Greig is a professor at the University of Windsor in Education and Women’s and GenderStudies. A historian of gender, Greig researches Canadian men, boys, and masculinities. His research hasbeen published in Educational Review, the Brock Journal of Education, and the Alberta Journal ofEducational Research. Greig is the co-editor of Canadian Men and Masculinities (2012) and author ofOntario Boys: Masculinity and the Idealized Boyhood in Postwar Ontario (2014). Greig’s life-long interest inice hockey started in the winter of 1969, at the age of four, when his father, Ted, built a back yard rink inLondon, Ontario. Kara Smith is editor of Teaching, Learning Assessing (2007) and the author of The Mâlain Diaries (2015).She is an award-winning education professor; international writer-in-residence; former national player;and a frequent contributor to parent hockey culture and psychological development in Ontario.