"I'll be unsure what my words will be until the breath reaches my lips, then, like everything else, they'll find their way through the world."Recently unemployed, newly single, and dreading the big 3-0 around the corner, Brian O'Dea sells all he can, packs up the rest in his parents' attic, then dives headfirst into the round-the-world journey he believes will be his once-in-a-lifetime, slightly premature midlife-crisis, finding-yourself, movie-perfect metamorphosi...

In the early 1980s, Brian O’Dea was operating a $100 million a year, 120-man drug smuggling business, and had developed a terrifying cocaine addiction. Under increasing threat from the DEA in 1986 for importing seventy-five tons of marijuana into the United States, he quit the trade–and the drugs–and began working with recovering addicts in Santa Barbara. Despite his life change, the authorities caught up with him years later and O’Dea was arrested, tried, and sentenced to ten years at Ter...

How a privileged son of Newfoundland became one of the world’s most efficient marijuana traffickers—and then gave it all up.An intriguing ad ran in the Employment Wanted section of a Toronto newspaper in February 2001:FORMER MARIJUANA SMUGGLER*Having successfully completed a ten-year sentence, incident free, for importing 75 tons of marijuana into the United States, I am now seeking a legal and legitimate means to support myself and my famil...

One of the greatest sports figures of all time at last breaks his silence in a memoir as unique as the man himself.Number 4. It is just about the most common number in hockey, but invoke that number and you can only be talking about one player -- the man often referred to as the greatest ever to play the game: Bobby Orr.From 1966 through the mid-70s he could change a game just by stepping on the ice. Orr could do things that others simply couldn’t, and while teammates and o...

Ask Bobby Orr who was the best ever, and he’ll tell you it was Gordie Howe. Ask Wayne Gretzky, and he’ll say the same thing. Big, skilled, mean, and nearly indestructible, Howe dominated the game and the record books for decades. Today he is still known as “Mr. Hockey,” and any bruising forward who can be relied upon to take his team on his shoulders hopes to be compared with the guy who wore number 9 for Detroit for so many years.But the fact is, there will never be another like M...

Derek Sanderson was a key player with the Big Bad Bruins in the 1970s. At one point the highest-paid athlete in the world, Sanderson played with and against the era’s legends, winning two Stanley Cups and assisting on Bobby Orr’s famous diving goal in 1970. Off the ice, “Turk” was one of a kind. He drove a burgundy Rolls-Royce, wore a fox coat and, when asked what winning the Stanley Cup meant to him said, “The difference in the money is whether I take a college chick to Cape Cod or a Play...

The inspirational memoir of the Canadian boxer who fought some of the greatest heavyweights in history, including Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier, but lost everything outside the ring.From a tough Toronto childhood as the only son of immigrant parents, through a twenty-three-year career that earned him induction into the World Boxing Hall of Fame, to the public tragedies that decimated his family long after the cheering stopped, George Chuvalo tells his life story as ...

Top Ten Things You’ll Learn When You Read This Book:Jay was beaten up by an MMA fighter on live televisionInterviewing Will Ferrell can be a harrowing experienceJay once ruined a perfectly good pair of underwear on Christmas EveFailing as a stand-up comedian can lead to a job in broadcastingJay ran a marathon to get a ticket for the 2010 men’s Olympic gold-medal hockey game

A Saturday night spent with Ron MacLean has been a tradition for twenty-five years. Known for his quick wit, arched eyebrows and encyclopedic hockey knowledge, MacLean is the skilled ringmaster of Canada’s most watched weekly program. He has interviewed the greatest players, coaches and personalities of an era and is a master at coaxing the best in substance and entertainment from his guests, as well as from his opinionated and often irascible co-host, Don Cherry, on Coach’s Corner

I Remember Me weaves an American tapestry of colorful tales, beginning with the timid musings of a young boy on the verge of becoming a man in the Jewish section of New Yorks Bronx neighborhood, and bringing us up to date with the mature insight of a man whose remarkable trajectory has sent him to the top of Hollywoods elite and sparked the careers of dozens of household-name entertainers. Along the way, Reiner treats his loyal readers to everything from the ordinary to the truly unforgett...

Over 500,000 hockey fans follow Bob McKenzie on Twitter and millions more on TSN—no one has the access or breadth and depth of experience when it comes to the hockey.Now in his very first book on the NHL, Bob goes behind the scenes, covering the inside stories, the lesser-known personalities and the events that shape Canada’s game. He talks to Bobby Orr about Connor McDavid (touted as “the next Crosby”), reveals the actual stats that NHL coaches and scouts use, and explores what it...

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 fatherles...