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Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & Bucks: A Rocking History of Roller Hockey International
Who won the first professional sports championship for the city of Anaheim? Which Roller Hockey International team owner posed for Playboy? Which RHI team’s logo did Sports Illustrated describe as looking like “a malevolent vacuum-cleaner attachment?” Which coach won two championships for two different teams in RHI’s first two seasons? Why were fans nearly ejected from the Oakland Skates’ arena for celebrating a hat trick? All those questions and more are answered in “Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & A Rocking History of Roller Hockey International.” Author Richard Graham takes you behind the scenes to show how Dennis Murphy created Roller Hockey International, and why Murphy might be the most unlikely, least known and most influential visionary in North American professional sports history. RHI was a professional league that ran from 1993-1999 and soared and then crashed much like the inline skating craze of the 1990s. Full of thrills, spills and body checks, along with an abundance of humor, “Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & Bucks” is the story of a niche sport and a professional league that dared to dream big.
340 pages, Paperback
First published July 30, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 27, 2015
As a child I was a fan of Roller Hockey International and remember watching games on TV and attended a game. This book was a bit of a trip down memory lane. However, as a child I was unaware of the business side of the league. This book illuminated much of that part of the league's history.
The book does suffer from two issues though. The first is it was not thoroughly proof read and fact checked. The author had a few typographical errors, writing 1998 instead of 1988 and several misspellings of words (or typing errors perhaps). Also, what annoyed me was the author neglecting to put end quotation marks at the end of quotations. I realize this is a minor quibble, but it did annoy me throughout the book.
The second issue is that the author wrote for a roller hockey magazine and it appears was the Anaheim Bullfrogs beat writer. In most league history books, you would find an even handed assortment of stories, game accounts etc. from all league teams. Instead, some teams are barely mentioned at all. For instance I was a fan of the Edmonton Sled Dogs, who only lasted the 1995 season. The author neglected to mention much beyond a mention of the team being added and a small story about Wild Bill Hunter, who was a team executive, doing a pratfall at a league meeting. Otherwise, they barely existed in the body of the book. No mention of the players, game results or anything. I was a little disappointed about that aspect.
The book also suffers from a lack of research sources. While the quotes the author has from the players are invaluable, the only secondary source the author uses is the roller hockey magazine he worked for. I distinctly remember the league receiving major coverage in The Hockey News and I am certain (at least in some markets) local newspapers covered the teams.
Now this may sound as if I hated the book and that couldn't be further from the truth. I quite enjoyed this book, as it covers a league that is largely forgotten from the hockey world's consciousness. It does contain a lot of "insider" information that unless you worked within the league, you would have never heard about. Overall, if you were a fan of the league or really a hockey fan in general, you should read this book. It does capture the microcosm of not just this league, but really the 90s gung ho spirit that lived in the minor sports boom and bust that typified that decade in the sports business world.
Throughout the 90s, it was a bit of the Wild West for minor league sports start ups, with leagues staking their tenuous claim to a piece of the sports landscape. While this book stays self contained to the RHI, it does show the reader what it was truly like in these underfunded pipedreams that popped up through out the 1990s. Alas most of these are now resigned to nostalgia and this book helps you relive that.
The book does suffer from two issues though. The first is it was not thoroughly proof read and fact checked. The author had a few typographical errors, writing 1998 instead of 1988 and several misspellings of words (or typing errors perhaps). Also, what annoyed me was the author neglecting to put end quotation marks at the end of quotations. I realize this is a minor quibble, but it did annoy me throughout the book.
The second issue is that the author wrote for a roller hockey magazine and it appears was the Anaheim Bullfrogs beat writer. In most league history books, you would find an even handed assortment of stories, game accounts etc. from all league teams. Instead, some teams are barely mentioned at all. For instance I was a fan of the Edmonton Sled Dogs, who only lasted the 1995 season. The author neglected to mention much beyond a mention of the team being added and a small story about Wild Bill Hunter, who was a team executive, doing a pratfall at a league meeting. Otherwise, they barely existed in the body of the book. No mention of the players, game results or anything. I was a little disappointed about that aspect.
The book also suffers from a lack of research sources. While the quotes the author has from the players are invaluable, the only secondary source the author uses is the roller hockey magazine he worked for. I distinctly remember the league receiving major coverage in The Hockey News and I am certain (at least in some markets) local newspapers covered the teams.
Now this may sound as if I hated the book and that couldn't be further from the truth. I quite enjoyed this book, as it covers a league that is largely forgotten from the hockey world's consciousness. It does contain a lot of "insider" information that unless you worked within the league, you would have never heard about. Overall, if you were a fan of the league or really a hockey fan in general, you should read this book. It does capture the microcosm of not just this league, but really the 90s gung ho spirit that lived in the minor sports boom and bust that typified that decade in the sports business world.
Throughout the 90s, it was a bit of the Wild West for minor league sports start ups, with leagues staking their tenuous claim to a piece of the sports landscape. While this book stays self contained to the RHI, it does show the reader what it was truly like in these underfunded pipedreams that popped up through out the 1990s. Alas most of these are now resigned to nostalgia and this book helps you relive that.
February 11, 2025
Graham was a magazine reporter who covered RHI during its existence, so it's logical he wrote this book. It's mainly comprised of quotes from figures involved in the league (players, coaches, team owners, league executives) which is useful, and does cover the 7 years the league existed (in which it played for 6 of them). That said, it could do to have some editing, which likely stems from being a self-published book, but not enough to detract from the overall book.
October 10, 2017
Poor Job Waste of time and Money
This author is terrible
This author is terrible
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews