New Book on Canadian Innovative Sports Entrepreneur

TORONTO - Sept. 9, 2013 - PRLog -- THE BOOK BAND

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PRESS RELEASE

For Immediate Release

Woodstock, Ontario – Seraphim Editions (www.seraphimeditions.com ) announces the publication of a book about a Canadian innovative sports entrepreneur. Lloyd Percival: Coach and Visionary by Gary Mossman will be launched in Toronto on September 15, 2013.

Born in Toronto on June 3^rd, 1913, Lloyd Percival was an all-round athlete who was a finalist in the Canadian Junior Tennis Championships, a Golden Gloves boxing champion, and a member of the Canadian cricket team that toured England in 1936. Recognized as the first modern track and field coach in Canada, Percival “coached” the entire nation in all aspects of sport, health and fitness for 20 years through his popular CBC radio program, “Sports College of the Air”. In 1946 he founded the North Toronto Track and Field Club (later, the Toronto Track and Field Club), and its members engaged in interval training and weight-lifting, received massages, and were encouraged to adopt a healthy diet — all Percival innovations. He created the age-class competition structure, and was a pioneer in the training of female athletes. His book on training techniques for ice hockey, The Hockey Handbook, published in 1951, was rejected by the NHL, but enjoyed international impact.

“I was unaware of any biographical material on [Percival], in spite of his celebrity status during his lifetime,” Gary Mossman says. The book, he adds, “is intended to expose Canadians to the evolution of sport, as well as health and fitness, in Canada following WWII, and to the pivotal role Percival played in the way government and individuals in Canada understand sport and fitness today.”

In June of this year, Lloyd Percival was inducted into the Athletics Canada Hall of Fame in Moncton, New Brunswick. Percival, who would have been 100 on June 3^rd, was inducted under the In Memoriam category. He died on July 23, 1974.

About the Author

Gary Mossman is a freelance writer living in Toronto, and a member of the Society for International Hockey Research (SIHR). He is the author of Fifty Years at the Royal Ashburn Golf Club (2012), and his book on a biography of Father David Bauer is awaiting publication.

Book Launch

Sunday, September 15, 2013 at the Women’s Art Association Gallery, 23 Prince Arthur Ave., Toronto, ON at 2:00 p.m. For information, please contact: info@thebookband.com

Seraphim Editions (www.seraphimeditions.com) has published some of Canada’s best-known authors along with emerging newer voices, as well as books on vital social justice issues.

For more information or to arrange an interview with the author, please contact: info@thebookband.com

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $157 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil  a investi 157 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays.