That Old Gang of Mine — Scott Young

The Canadian Olympic Hockey Team is killed in an airplane crash just as fans begin to dare to hope that Canada might regain its preeminence in world hockey.

Pete Gordon, executive assistant to Myra Cope, the minister for Sport and Recreation, and Bill Spunska, a Canadian studying at Princeton, put together a ragtag team of friends from their old team from Northwest High in Winnipeg who by chance or choice decided not to pursue a hockey career. Scott Young's “Old Gang” is the grown up bunch of “scrubs” from his popular juvenile novel, Scrubs on Skates.

 
There are just six weeks for an aching “Team Nobody” to get into shape for a European exhibition tour and the tournament in Moscow They play their first game against the U.S. national team -- and lose.

The Canadians straggle across Europe gradually becoming a team. In Cortina, RCMP officer “Hawkshaw” catches a whiff of a Russian cigarette, and the Canadian and Soviet secret hockey agents set about a good-natured sparring that turns unpleasant and threatens to end in disaster in Moscow.

Scott Young describes an insider's view of life in Olympic Village and a tourist's Moscow, as well as the thrill of Olympic competition as Team Canada battles its way into the finals -- against the Soviet team.