Frank the Animal

Abstract

Male stripper. Pimp. Drug dealer. Money collector. Professional hockey player. Frank the Animal is the story of a promising young hockey player’s meteoric rise from the depths of the Winnipeg underworld to the pinnacle of professional hockey. As the first-born son of poor Polish immigrants living in Winnipeg, Frank Bialowas rejected his parents’ conservative metric of success and dreamt of making something more of himself. Frank worked hard to become one of Manitoba’s toughest brawlers in junior hockey, but at eighteen-years-old, a local criminal lured Frank into Winnipeg’s seedy underworld because of its promise of fast money and beautiful women. Long before he was nicknamed “the Animal,” Frank Bialowas was better known in his native Winnipeg as Max the Millionaire, the stripper who pimped, sold drugs, and collected money for motorcycle gangs. After serving a stint in a Manitoba jail, Frank’s family convinced him to give hockey one last chance with a minor-pro team in Virginia. Frank reluctantly left behind his life of crime and went on to great success in the American Hockey League, where he became one of Philadelphia’s most iconic bad boys. Despite the success he enjoyed in professional hockey, Frank’s self-destructive tendencies resulted in many devastating setbacks throughout his playing career and personal life. Like other compelling antiheroes, Frank’s talent was limited only by his struggle to maintain selfcontrol.