Book excerpt: In August 1956 at 3 o’clock in the morning a 15-year old aspiring hockey player boarded a Greyhound bus in Yorkton, Saskatchewan to begin a journey that first took him to Maple Leaf Gardens where he achieved his childhood dream of playing in the NHL and then the journey unexpectantly led him down a path where he was able to build a 45-year career as a scientist in modern molecular medicine. Leslie Kozak explores his early life to determine how the environment created his intense competitive spirit. This exploration of life takes the reader through Leslie’s years at St. Michael’s College School, a short interlude as a Trappist monk, success as a Toronto Maple Leaf, then followed within days by a depressed fracture of his skull that ended his hockey career. Out of this journey emerges a molecular geneticist who dedicates himself in a 45-year research career to the exploration of body heat production and energy metabolism in response to a cold environment and how they could provide solutions to obesity and type 2 diabetes.