Description
Breakaway transcends Americans passions for sports and casino gambling as it follows two professional hockey team owners and the most-storied trophy in all of sports. No one can lift hockey’s Stanley Cup on his own. Winning a championship takes talented athletes, committed owners, creative executives, and enthusiastic fans. For the Pittsburgh Penguins, it also meant breaking away from tradition. With team owners desperate to replace the leagues oldest rink and leakiest arena, the Penguins win the rights to draft the hottest player in a generation. A Pittsburgh legend returns to the team on and off the ice to lead them into the future. But how to turn around the fortunes of this troubled franchise? Breakaway tells the story of how the Penguins went from bankruptcy and last place to a profitable new arena and a championship by taking chances others never considered and risking everything to win it all.
Reviews
Breakaway mixes the perfect blend of dogged reporting with colorful story-telling. The detail Andrew Conte provides while lifting the curtain on the behind-the-scenes maneuvering to keep the Penguins in Pittsburgh is remark-able. This is not just a hockey book, this is story of politics and of business that shares the blueprint in how to successfully run an organization. Even the most die-hard Penguins fan will learn something new about the power brokers who saved their franchise. —Craig Custance, National Hockey Writer, ESPN the Magazine
A detailed, fascinating account of Penguins rise from bankruptcy to Stanley Cup champion that takes you inside the board rooms as well as the players dressing rooms. —David Shoalts, hockey columnist, The Globe and Mail
When I grew up playing hockey in Pittsburgh, those of us who played and went to Penguin games were cult-like. Andrew Conte in Breakaway, explains how and why we are so lucky to be one of the best hockey cities in the world. How did it happen? Andrew gives you every single detail and reminds everyone how Mario Lemieux is and was the Penguins savior. —Paul Alexander, Host, Sports Radio 93.7 The Fan, Pittsburgh –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
Andrew Conte is the founding director of the Center for Media Innovation at Park University. He has worked as an investigative reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and has won multiple national and statewide awards for his work. The Pennsylvania Society of Professional Journalists has recognized Andrew three times with the Spotlight Award, its annual prize for investigative reporting, and the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania has given him its annual top reporting prize four times. He is the author of the best-selling book Breakway: The Inside Story of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ Rebirth and the Silver Benjamin Franklin Award-winning book, The Color of Sundays. Andrew is a graduate of Dickinson College and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.
