Breaking Away: A Harrowing True Story of Resilience, Courage and Triumph

In the tradition of Playing with Fire and The Crazy Game comes a new memoir about a troubled hockey life.

Patrick O'Sullivan was a kid with skills, with natural gifts that catapulted him into the spotlight and made NHL scouts rave. O€Sullivan seemed destined to become one of the next great hockey players in the world. But then it all went horribly wrong.

In Breaking Away, Patrick O€Sullivan gives readers a disturbing account of ten years of ever escalating physical abuse and emotional cruelty at the hands of his father. When Patrick proved more skilled than other eight-year-olds, John O€Sullivan decided to dedicate his life to turning his son into the player he had always dreamed of becoming. Shouting at the top of his lungs, John O€Sullivan was the over-involved parent. Many of Patrick€s teammates and their parents and coaches thought it ended there. Few had an idea of the dysfunction and violence at the O€Sullivans' home.

Breaking Away is a story about abuse, but it is also a story about triumph, as O'Sullivan revisits the ghosts of his past.