Varhaiset kirja-arvostelijatTerry Frei

In 2013, the Colorado Avalanche announced that Joe Sakic, a franchise legend and Hall of Fame center, would be promoted to become the new executive VP of hockey operations. Soon, Sakic was instrumental in the hiring of Patrick Roy, the greatest goaltender in NHL history, a man crucial to the Avalanche’s Stanley Cup victories in 1996 and 2001, as Colorado’s new coach. This book, a collaborative effort between seasoned sportswriters and authors Terry Frei and Adrian Dater, is an opinionated, interpretive, and in-depth look at Patrick Roy’s first season as a National Hockey League coach, and the Avalanche’s surprising 2013–14 season. Award-winning journalist, author, and screenwriter Terry Frei is in his second stint at the Denver Post. He has been a sports columnist for the Portland Oregonian, a football writer for the Sporting News, and an ESPN.com hockey columnist. Among his seven previous books are March 1939, Third Down and a War to Go, ’77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age, and Olympic Affair. His website is www.terryfrei.com. Adrian Dater covers the Colorado Avalanche for the Denver Post. He is the author of several sports books, including Blood Feud: Detroit Red Wings vs. Colorado Avalanche and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Denver Broncos. He lives in Thornton, Colorado.

In 1939, the Oregon Webfoots, coached by the visionary Howard Hobson, stormed through the first NCAA basketball tournament, which was viewed as a risky coast-to-coast undertaking and perhaps only a one-year experiment. Seventy-five years later, following the tournament’s evolution into a national obsession, the first champions are still celebrated as “The Tall Firs.” They indeed had astounding height along the front line, but with a pair of racehorse guards who had grown up across the street from each other in a historic Oregon fishing town, they also played a revolutionarily fast-paced game. Author Terry Frei’s track record as a narrative historian in such books as the acclaimed Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming, plus a personal connection as an Oregon native whose father coached football at the University of Oregon for seventeen seasons, makes him uniquely qualified to tell this story of the first tournament and the first champions, in the context of their times. Plus, Frei long has been a fan of Clair Bee, the Long Island University coach who later in life wrote the Chip Hilton Sports Series books, mesmerizing young readers who didn’t know the backstory told here. In 1939, the Bee-coached LIU Blackbirds won the NCAA tournament’s rival, the national invitation tournament in New York—then in only its second year, and still under the conflict-of-interest sponsorship of the Metropolitan Basketball Writers Association. Frei assesses both tournaments and, given the myths advanced for many years, his conclusions in many cases are surprising. Both events unfolded in a turbulent month when it was becoming increasingly apparent that Hitler's belligerence would draw Europe and perhaps the world into another war . . . soon. Amid heated debates over the extent to which America should become involved in Europe's affairs this time, the men playing in both tournaments wondered if they might be called on to serve and fight. Of course, as some of the Webfoots would demonstrate in especially notable fashion, the answer was yes. It was a March before the Madness. Award-winning journalist, author, and screenwriter Terry Frei is in his second stint at the Denver Post. He has been sports columnist for the Portland Oregonian, a football writer for the Sporting News, and an ESPN.com hockey columnist. Among his six previous books are Third Down and a War to Go, ’77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age, and Olympic Affair. His web site is www.terryfrei.com.

“I should have stayed in Germany with Leni….” Glenn Morris, Colorado farm boy turned “world’s greatest athlete” confessed on his deathbed that he should have stayed and lived his life with Leni. The Leni—Leni Riefenstahl—legendary filmmaker and darling of Hitler’s Third Reich. Having met at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, where Riefenstahl made one of her signature films, Olympia, Leni and Glenn began an intense love affair that was the subject of speculation and whispers—even during one of the most tense Olympic Games in history. Based on extensive research, Frei’s novel pieces together not only the love affair between Riefenstahl and Morris but what became of the two following the Olympics, the war years, and beyond. Olympic sports, an international romance, and world politics on the eve of World War II collide in the electrifying Olympic Affair....This meticulously researched and historically accurate novel is illuminated with plausible fictional dialog, using the same readable approach as Alex Haley's Roots and Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace....Olympic Affair is simultaneously fun, informative, and thought-provoking. — Richard C. Haney, University of Wisconsin - Whitewater, Professor of History Emeritus, Author of "When Is Daddy Coming Home?: An American Family During World War II" ...a compelling look at an historic sporting event and a love/sex scandal cloaked in intrigue and danger. Frei’s style is reporter/novelist, cleanly balanced between event and character, offering a panorama of human triumph saddened by failure. Of the books I’ve read in the past four or five years, this one is near the top of the list. — Terry Kay, Author of "To Dance with the White Dog" Award-winning journalist, author, and screenwriter Terry Frei is in his second stint with the Denver Post. A native of Oregon, he has also written for the (Portland) Oregonian and the Sporting News, and for eight years was a featured columnist on ESPN.com. Among his previous books are Horns, Hogs, and Nixon Coming; 77: Denver, the Broncos, and a Coming of Age; and Playing Piano in a Brothel. He and his wife, Helen, live in Denver.