Counsel in the Crease: A Big League Player in the Hockey Wars | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert O Swados
Creator: Scotty Bowman
Publisher: Prometheus Books
Category: Book
List Price: $25.00
Buy New: $2.21
You Save: $22.79 (91%)
New (24) Used (11) from $1.59
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 820168
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 492
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 6.2 x 1.3
ISBN: 1591023556
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.962092
EAN: 9781591023555
ASIN: 1591023556
Publication Date: October 3, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Direct From Distributor - Light Shelf Wear - No Remainder Mark
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
In his diverse, exciting, and very active forty-five-year legal career, spent mainly in the world of professional sports, attorney Robert O. Swados has worn many hatsowner, league executive, counsel, and franchise builder. In this wide-ranging and good-humored memoir, Swados offers many behind-the-scenes insights into the players, coaches, executives, and owners who have created todays sports entertainment industry. Swados describes his early involvement in professional sports through his efforts in the 1960s to bring a Major League Baseball franchise to his hometown of Buffalo, NY. The deal was so close that a New York Daily News headline announced (Swados still owns a copy) that new franchises would go to San Diego and Buffalo. But things really got interesting when in 1969 Swados helped Seymour Knox III and Northrup Knox to establish the Buffalo Sabres. Thus began an exciting thirty-year journey through the ups and downs of the National Hockey League. As part owner, vice chairman, and counsel of the Sabres, Swados has had many opportunities to "score from the crease," and sometimes the action behind the scenes is just as rough and tumble as that on the ice. He tells many fascinating tales about his dealings with winning coaches including Scotty Bowman, with General Managers Punch Imlach and John Muckler, with owner John Mcmullen, and Commissioners John Ziegler and Gary Bettman, among others. He also talks frankly about the impact of Adelphias bankruptcy on the fate of the Sabres and about the obsessions and frustrations of the 2004 NHL lockout. Perhaps no one in professional sports has had such an engaging and productive view. For hockey fans in the U.S. and Canada, especially Buffalo Sabres fans, and anyone interested in the business of bigtime sports, Robert Swadoss entertaining and informative story is a must read.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Enjoyable and informative reading June 20, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I loved this book. It was not only entertaining, but it gave a lot of insight into the workings of the legal field in pro sports as well as television and entertainment. I found myself thinking "I'd forgotten all about that" or "Is that how that came about?", and the hockey names from the past that I'd long since forgotten were brought back to the present by the writing of Mr. Swados. This was well worth the time it took to read it!
A strong memoir of his encounters with coaches, players, and owners alike March 5, 2006
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Hockey fans who are avid followers of the sport will surely recognize the name of Robert O. Swados, who has been a league owner, executive, and franchise builder in the professional hockey world for over forth years. Counsel In The Grease: A Big League Player In The Hockey Wars provides a strong memoir of his encounters with coaches, players, and owners alike, describing the many changes he's observed in the sport since his initial involvement in the 1960s, and his up and down years with the National Hockey League. A lively set of insights on the sports world as a whole makes Counsel In The Grease a highly recommended pick indeed.
 Where'sThe Fact Checker??? February 26, 2006
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
Good grief Robert, who was your fact checker?? Understandably this book was written by an aging old employee of the Sabres so a pass is given to him on his recollection of facts but GEEZ somebody at the publishing company should have checked this over before releasing this. Where do I begin? OK, Joe Daley was NOT traded for Roger Crozier...that was Tom Webster, Pat Lafontaine did not suffer his concussion against the Bruins, it was the Penguins, the Atlanta Flames entered the NHL in 1972 not 1974, the Capitals entered in 1974 not 1972, Floyd Smith was not the coach when Tony McKegney was drafted, Swados says he attended a game at the Copps Coliseum in Hamilton in 1981 and then in the next paragraph he says the building didn't exist in the early 1990's, which is it? Gil Perreault was not drafted in the Fall of 1969, Willie O'Ree was long out of the NHL (1960-61) when the Knox's had Oakland Seals ties, the Sabres did not play their first game in 1969, Dave Forman died in 1987 so how did you call him and ask for advice in the 1990's? The Buffalo Braves did not make the playoffs in the first 3 years etc. Facts like this should have been checked by SOMEBODY! All this and I'm only half way through the book. I'm all for telling the TRUE story of the Buffalo Sabres but find somebody who knows what's going on. What's Paul Wieland doing these days? John B.
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