Jim Barber managed to find time to write this book while working as the Sports and Arts Editor for The Barrie Advance, and as the Editor for the Collingwood-Wasaga Beach Connection, two community newspapers in Central Ontario.
Jim is a recipient of the Ontario Community Newspaper Association Award for Sportswriting and a Canadian Community Newspaper Award for editorial writing.
Educated at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario and Toronto's Centennial College, he has had a passion (obsession?) for hockey and hockey history most of his adult life. The books of Scott Young and Brian McFarlane inspired him as a youth, as do the works of Andrew Podnieks, Douglas Hunter, and Bruce Dowbiggin today.
A member of the Society for International Hockey Research, current chairman of the Barrie Sports Hall of Fame Society, and executive member of the Collingwood Historical Society, Jim lives in a very old house, in a very small village called Nottawa, a few kilometers from the shores of Georgian Bay, near Collingwood, Ontario. He has a beautiful wife, two great stepsons, a somewhat annoying but loveable dog, an unnatural affinity for odd hockey stuff, and way too many books on his bookshelves.