Prince Edward Island's earliest inhabitants, from First Nations people to European settlers, canoed, raced their horses, fished, and skated. In the mid-1800s, however, Islanders began to take their sports more seriously, forming sleighing, golf, and tennis clubs, organizing rugby, baseball, and hockey teams, and engaging in harness racing, boxing, and track and field. With over a hundred illustrations, More Than Just a Game testifies to the vision of men and women who recognized that communities created teams, and teams strengthened communities. More Than Just a Game includes the stories of athletes such as Bill Halpenny, Prince Edward Island's first athlete to compete in the Olympics; Michael Thomas, an Island Mi'kmaq, who was the best and most highly publicized distance runner in Eastern Canada in 1912; and Joe O'Brien, the world-famous harness-racing driver from Alberton, who could communicate with horses by the way he held the reins. CHARLES BALLEM has loved sports all his life. After teaching physical education and administering programs for Prince Edward Island schools, he served as head of Dalhousie University's Recreation Division in the School of Recreation, Physical, and Health Education, where he was active as a teacher, administrator, and researcher. He is the author of Abegweit Dynasty: The Story of the Abegweit Amateur Athletic Association, 1899-1954. Now a Dalhousie University Adjunct Professor, he lives at Point Prim, Prince Edward Island.