I am thrilled to announce that softcover books are now available. The retail price is $40.99 but I am selling for $40. For those in the Victoria area, I can deliver to you and save the postage. C0ntact me at heritagelady@gmail.com. For anyone else, the books are available from FriesenPress.com and online sellers. They can ship books to you cheaper than I can due to their volume of sales.
It is so gratifying to see my eight years of work conclude with a book that I can be proud of.
I am so excited to be doing the live index for the last chapter of the hockey book. I have been getting faster with every day and am using the dreary weather as an excuse to sit and work. When I started this task, I never thought I would finish it, but I am now about two hours away from being done. I am glad I had to do this detailed work as I found a few typos and some names that were spelled incorrectly in the press reports. I hope I have caught everything. Of course, when your manuscript has half a million words, there are bound to be minor errors. It is terrible to be a perfectionist as I want this book to be perfect in every way.
The manuscipt has now gone through a detailed editing process and is now much more readable. I made a couple of suggested changes to the content to better describe different situations and have returned it to Friesen’s for their next step. Progress is slow, but steady. Look for more news by November.
For the last week, I have been selecting and formatting photographs for my book. Today, I submitted the completed manuscript including three appendices along with the photographs (134 in all). Having studied David Chilton’s method of book publishing, I revised my introduction as well to make it more relevant to the reader.
This project has had a gestation period of over seven years, but is really underway.
I am extremely happy today.
I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Bill Shvetz’s son today long distance from Ottawa. He told me some stories about his father that I had never heard before. It was so much fun to talk about the 1960s hockey team and to get an insight into the man his father was.
As Bill’s death was one of the events that spurred me to get working on the book, it was important to connect with his family. I now feel I know Bill as more than a hockey player.
I hope to talk with Bill’s widow tomorrow to see about photographs and more stories.
This is what this book is all about; the players and the stories. I am having the time of my life doing the last bits of research.
I have finally finished the manuscript and had it edited for obvious typos and errors. I have signed a contract with Friesen Press for them to do a professional layout and covers. After spending seven years on research and writing, it makes sense to get a professional-looking book at the end of it. This will never be a best-seller, but I will have the distinction of being the first to document the Victoria aspect of professional hockey. I am so excited to have my dream becoming a reality.
I have finally finished writing about all the teams that had the name “Cougars.” The last few years I wrote about had names familiar to me as I used to attend games in the 1950s and early 1960s, alone or with my parents. I find it much more interesting to write about players who I have actually seen on the ice—it makes them come alive.
I have taken advantage of the unusual winter weather in Victoria to spend many hours reading old game reports and writing about them. It has paid off as I just passed 152,000 words. I know the text will have to be cut down a bit, but it will be difficult to leave all those wonderful names out of the narrative. I realized yesterday that indexing the finished book will be a lot of work as well.
Today I will start writing about the team that stole my heart back in 1964—the Victoria Maple Leafs. I had season tickets and I don’t recall ever missing a home game. I was even in Portland when they won the Lester Patrick Cup in 1966—likely the only Victoria fan in the Portland Coliseum. I had home movies of that game, but my mother was in of her cleaning jags one day and tossed them. To discover this was very disappointing, but I still have my memories.
I have finally taken the plunge and started writing the book. I have so much material on the Senators/Aristocrats/Cougars that I felt I had to start writing while I could still remember what I had read in my research. I have written 4 pages so far and the Arena is still not completed, although it is getting close. It was amazing just how easy it was to write once I got started. I am hoping to write for a couple of hours every day, whenever possible, so that I can get this first section done in a month or two.
I did get a cover designed for me on this awesome site that does thing like this for only $5.00. Considering the price, I really like the design.
Today while I was dictating data from old newspapers into my mega database, I found out when the penalty shot was scored. According to December 1921 newspapers, the rule was brought in to provides a free shot for an attacking team where a defending player deliberately commits a major file by tripping, etc., when the attacking players is in a position to shoot. It is proposed to have at least three places marked off 15 or 20 feet from where the shot will be provided. The league wanted to discourage this practice of tripping and committing major fouls under circumstances as outlined. The first penalty shot goal was scored by Tommy Dunderdale of the Victoria Aristocrats in a game against the Vancouver Millionaires on December 12, 1921. The referees seemed to have called penalty shots quite frequently, but there were not many goals scored.
While I was dictating material into my day-by-day database, I discovered that a distant cousin of my husband’s had dropped the puck in a ceremonial face-off to start the 1919 season in Vancouver. What are the odds of that? I could not believe it – my two worlds of hockey and genealogy had come together.