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 & Bucks: 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. Despite his rather leprechaun-like stature, "Murph" had tall dreams, a gift of gab and the ability to bring together a diverse group of people to work toward a common goal. After seeing some children playing hockey on inline skates on a suburban street, Murphy was inspired to create a professional league that ran from 1993-1999 and which soared and then crashed much like the inline skating craze of the 1990s. What's best about this book, however, are the stories that Graham has collected from the league's founders, team owners, players, administrators, referees and fans. You will alternately be amused and astounded by some of the hilarious events, player pranks, episodes of shortsightedness shown by some of the league's founders and team owners, the controversy over the league's puck and more. Particularly moving are the stories of players whose dreams of playing professional sports came true in Roller Hockey International. 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. With its hundreds of stories about players, coaches, managers, team owners and league administrators, Graham's book is similar in scope and depth to "Loose Balls" Terry Pluto's classic about the American Basketball, and as funny as Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" (but not as mean). Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & Bucks chronicles the fastest rise and fall of any sports league in modern history, and countless hours of research, interviews and off-the-record conversations have paid off for Mr. Graham and the reader. We meet the wheelers (the players), most of who were minor-league ice-hockey journeymen. These players were propelled by a new sport to take center stage at major NBA and NHL arenas during the summer months, fulfilling their dreams of fame and not so much fortune. Next are the dealers like Dennis Murphy, with connections so strong he could gather the top 10 sports moguls in a room with a single phone call. The disappointing saga of the puck specifically designed for roller hockey, which was counted on to supply the bucks to bankroll the league (imagine if the NBA earned a royalty for every basketball sold in the entire world), is a lesson that even today's big-league commissioners should heed. All sports fans and especially those who want to understand the operations of a league and its teams will benefit from this book. Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & Bucks: A Rocking History of Roller Hockey International recounts the six crazy seasons of Roller Hockey International and could well become the next great sports movie -- featuring characters even the greatest scriptwriters couldn't create. The foreword was written by Jeanie Buss, a former Roller Hockey International team owner and a current executive vice president for the 16-time NBA Champion Los Angeles Lakers. For wild action (both on and off the playing surface), humor and the true story of Roller Hockey International, Wheelers, Dealers, Pucks & Bucks can't be touched with a 10-foot-long hockey stick.
About the Author: Richard Graham is the former editor of such print magazines as Triathlete, Roller Hockey, and InLine Hockey News, and he was an associate editor at Sports Afield. He currently owns a website called Inline Hockey Central, where he continues to write about the sport that captured the imagination of the public in the 1990s -- roller hockey. At Triathlete, Graham won a silver cup from the Miller Brewing Company for his story on the star-crossed triathlon star Lisa Laiti, whose horrific bicycle crashes are the stuff of legend in that sport. At Sports Afield, Graham and the SA staff were awarded the Western Publications Association's Certificate of Excellence for the December 2003 issue of America's oldest hunting and fishing magazine (now a big-game hunting magazine). As a freelance writer, Graham has written news and feature articles for the New York Times, Women's Sports & Fitness, American Golf, Ford Times, Iron Horse, American Hockey, NARCh Player, Roller Hockey Today, Rehab Management, and more. As a photographer, Graham has shot award-winning images for Triathlete, City Sports, Self, the New York Times, Women's Sports & Fitness, Ford Times, Competitor, Bicycle Guide, Roller Hockey and InLine Hockey News. Graham was also a weekly humor columnist for San Diego State's Daily Aztec in the early 1980s, and he intends to publish a compilation of those columns as his next book. Graham is currently editing the autobiography of Roller Hockey International founder Dennis Murphy, and in early March 2011, Graham was named an associate producer for an upcoming documentary on Murphy's life in sports. The documentary, which the producers hope to sell to ESPN or Fox Sports, will feature many big names from Murphy's countless leagues, including Julius Irving, Dick Sharman and team owner Pat Boone of the American Basketball Association; Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe and Wayne Gretzky of the World Hockey Association; and Ralph Backstrom, Larry King, Rob Laurie, Hugo Belanger and Christian Skoryna of Roller Hockey International.