Flin Flon Bombers legend Reggie Leach is sharing his story.
Leach will soon release his autobiography, The Riverton Rifle: My Story – Straight Shooting on Hockey and on Life.
“I’ve been tossing the idea around [of writing a book] for a lot of years,” Leach tells the Manitoulin Expositor.
“The story follows me from growing up in my hometown [of Riverton] and goes from decade to decade from my years with the Bombers to my NHL years. The book is a lot of hockey stories, but its main focus is about the life choices people make. You read too many books where people blame everyone else for their mistakes, but I focus on the fact that whatever choices I made, I made them. Good or bad, you need to own your choices.”
Leach, 65, spent four seasons with the Bombers before cracking the NHL in 1970-71 as a member of the Boston Bruins.
In Flin Flon he played on a line with another Bombers legend, Bobby Clarke, his future teammate with the NHL’s Philadelphia Flyers. Clarke wrote the foreword for Leach’s book.
In interviews, Leach has been honest about his past struggles with alcoholism. So talented was Leach and so devastating was his addiction that the Canadian Press once wrote, “Alcoholism probably kept Reggie Leach out of the Hockey Hall of Fame.”
The Riverton Rifle will be available on Amazon.com as of Nov. 10.
