Coach: The Pat Burns Story

Coach: The Pat Burns Story

by Rosie DiManno
Coach: The Pat Burns Story

Coach: The Pat Burns Story

by Rosie DiManno

Paperback

$17.95 
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Overview

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.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780385676380
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Publication date: 10/29/2013
Pages: 336
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

ROSIE DIMANNO is a columnist with the Toronto Star, Canada's bestselling newspaper. She has been stirring controversy among her readers for longer than she cares to remember. In the '90s she covered the Toronto Maple Leafs for the paper, which brought her into close contact with Pat Burns. The author lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Running Man ix

Chapter 1 The Fatherless Boy 1

Chapter 2 Detective Story 14

Chapter 3 Adventures in the "Q" 27

Chapter 4 A Year on Serge's Farm 42

Chapter 5 Under the Montreal Microscope 52

Chapter 6 So Close 77

Chapter 7 Lost in Transition 89

Chapter 8 Rioting Russians, Milbury Mind Games 103

Chapter 9 Hoedowns and Harleys 114

Chapter 10 Last Tango in Montreal 121

Chapter 11 The Passion Returns 133

Chapter 12 Twenty-one Games in 42 Nights 155

Chapter 13 Gilmour vs. Gretzky; Burns vs. Melrose 171

Chapter 14 Out of Gas 186

Chapter 15 Locked out and Loaded 204

Chapter 16 Hitting Bottom in Leafland 216

Chapter 17 Butting heads in Beantown 233

Chapter 18 Redemption in the Meadowlands 252

Chapter 19 Chance and Fate 269

Chapter 20 A Surge of Affection 282

Requiem 297

Acknowledgements 299

Photo Credits and Permissions 301

About the Author 303

Index 305

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Coach: The Pat Burns Story is the best hockey biography of the year. . . . [DiManno’s] gifted writing ability combined with her personal insight makes for a riveting read. . . . This is an intimate biography of one of hockey’s most complex individuals. . . . Rosie Dimanno’s Coach: The Pat Burns Story is the best of the best.”
—hockeybookreviews.com

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