Rick Reilly is the author of the novel Missing Links. His "Life of Reilly" column appears each week in Sports Illustrated. Five out of the last six years, his peers have voted him National Sportswriter of the Year. He lives in Denver, Colorado.
Although hockey has achieved worldwide popularity, it originated in Canada. Mike Leonetti helps carry on the Canadian hockey heritage through his writing. Leonetti lives in Toronto and demonstrates his familiarity with professional hockey history in that city through such books as The Toronto Maple Leaf Trivia Book. The author also shows his expertise and great interest in the pre-expansion, pre-1967 seasons of the National Hockey League through such writings as Hockey's Golden Era, which focuses heavily on specific, and famous, hockey player personalities from the era of the sport's "original six" teams--Boston, Chicago, Montreal, Toronto, New York, and Detroit. Mike Leonetti has also… ensured a place for himself in current hockey tradition through his work on Hockey Year Calendar, which he began in 1989.Mike Leonettihas written more than twenty-five books, including best-selling hockey titles such asHockey Now, Maple Leaf Legends, Canadiens Legends, andMaple Leafs Top 100. He has also written several best-selling children's picture books, includingMy Leafs Sweater, A Hero Named Howe, Number Four, Bobby Orr, andWendel and the Great One. He owns an extensive archive of hockey photographs and memorabilia-including the Harold Barkley Archives-and is a walking encyclopedia of Maple Leafs trivia. He lives in Woodbridge, Ontario. Harold Barkleywas a pioneer of sports photography. Covering three decades worth of NHL hockey for theToronto Starduring the golden era of the Original Six, he was the first to use an electronic flash to take stop-action hockey pictures and he developed special equipment for shooting colour. For close to twenty seasons,Jean Béliveauwas “the gentle giant” centreman and captain of the fabled Montréal Canadiens during the team’s glory years in the 1950s and 1960s. Retiring from active play in 1971, he went on to a successful twenty-two-year career as the Canadien’s senior vice-president of corporate affairs and to life-long service as a goodwill ambassador for the sport.