Shoot to Thrill

Book excerpt: In 2005, the National Hockey League adopted the shootout to settle ties in regular season games. The shootout is used if the game remains tied after five minutes of overtime. Ten years later, the shootout is one of the most significant and controversial rule changes in all of sports. Some maintain that the shootout erases a sixty-five-minute emotional rollercoaster between two teams—and that it’s wrong for games to be decided based on a one-on-one battle between a shooter and a goalie. Others argue that shootouts provide edge-of-your seat excitement as two supremely skilled players go head-to-head for all the marbles. Shoot to Thrill blends history, stats, and personal perspectives from players, coaches, officials, and broadcasters. Mark Rosenman and Howie Karpin explore how players and coaches prepare for shootouts, what they think of them, and how shootouts have helped shape hockey history over the past decade—including the shootout in the last game of the 2010 season that sent the Philadelphia Flyers into the playoffs and on to the Stanley Cup Finals. Some rule changes are instituted without anyone’s noticing. Others shake the game to its very foundations. Like the designated-hitter rule in baseball, hockey’s shootout has left no fan impartial to it. This is the book for them. Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Sports Publishing imprint, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in sports—books about baseball, pro football, college football, pro and college basketball, hockey, or soccer, we have a book about your sport or your team. Whether you are a New York Yankees fan or hail from Red Sox nation; whether you are a die-hard Green Bay Packers or Dallas Cowboys fan; whether you root for the Kentucky Wildcats, Louisville Cardinals, UCLA Bruins, or Kansas Jayhawks; whether you route for the Boston Bruins, Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, or Los Angeles Kings; we have a book for you. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to publishing books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked by other publishers and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.