The Final Call: Hockey Stories from a Legend in Stripes - Hockey Stories from a Legend in Stripes

Pat Burns was one of the great NHL coaches. He worked with the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins and New Jersey Devils, and seemed always to enjoy instant success. He capped his extraordinary career by coaching the New Jersey Devils to a Stanley Cup victory in 2003. Cancer--his third bout--finally claimed him in 2010, aged 58. 

Rosie DiManno, who knew Burns well, has written a revealing, exhilarating and heartfelt account of his life: his childhood as a fatherless, solitary male surrounded by many women, his years as a police officer, his glorious coaching career and his long and characteristically valiant ending.

Coach is both the first major biography of Burns and one that, with its revelations, personal insights and riveting prose, is--like the man himself--sure to be both controversial and hard to beat. Rosie DiManno knew, liked and admired Burns, and in the writing of this book has interviewed many, many people from every stage of his life. She is not blind to his less endearing qualities, but seeks to explain them.

DiManno reveals a man of contradictions--gruff and crude, bullying and sentimental, and easily wounded. She shows, moreover, a man of hockey. The Burns who rode motorcycles, dressed like a cowboy, and sweet-talked the ladies was, says DiManno, a self-creation. His one indisputable, true talent was for coaching hockey. He was a pure coach. 

DiManno tells a compelling story and helps us to understand a complex man, one who gave little of himself to the public and yet whose funeral was a spectacle. How did that happen? Who was Pat Burns? Rosie DiManno, who witnessed much of the story, has the answers.

The unique life story of late golfer Moe Norman

Moe Norman has been called “The Mysterious Genius of Golf.” His swing, his mannerisms, and his lifestyle were unusual to say the least: Moe played very quickly, never took a practice swing, often repeated phrases when talking, and lived in motel rooms most of this life. Moe, who died in 2004 at age 75, suffered from crippling insecurity and introversion, which kept him from succeeding at the highest levels of play. Yet Tiger Woods has said that only Moe and Ben Hogan actually “owned” their swings, and Moe described himself as “the happiest guy on two feet.”

In Moe and Me, Lorne Rubenstein, a sports journalist who knew Moe for 40 years, examines Moe Norman’s unique swing, his character, and how he lived his life well, despite being limited in significant ways. Rubenstein also offers his views on what made Moe special and what this most sensitive and peculiar man meant to him and to others.