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Worst Goalie in Jail for Robbing Banks
BRILLIANT book on this guy...BALLAD OF THE WHISKEY ROBBER
By JIM LITKE,AP Sports
Posted: 2007-10-05 03:28:21
(Oct. 4) -- The worst goalie in the history of professional hockey is spending his 40th birthday in prison.
Hungarian bank robber Attila Ambrus, center, is a former goalie who once surrendered 88 goals in a five-game stretch. Ambrus is currently serving a 17-year sentence.Not for atrocious goaltending, mind you - though Attila Ambrus once gave up 23 goals in a game, and 88 in a memorable five-game stretch - but for robbing banks during a post-Iron Curtain crime spree that became the stuff of legend.
Seven years into a 17-year sentence, one of his few regrets is that it's become harder than ever to follow the just-launched NHL season. So quit complaining about trying to find "Versus" on your cable system.
"The only time I can see clips," Ambrus lamented in a recent jailhouse interview, "is through the state-owned Hungarian television channel."
How Ambrus got from a one-street village in Transylvania, Romania, to a maximum-security prison in Satoraljaujhely, Hungary, is a long story that's exquisitely told in author Julian Rubinstein's "Ballad of the Whiskey Robber." It's a tale of daring crime and dashing celebrity, equal parts Robin Hood, John Dillinger and Johnny Depp (who's expressed interest in playing Ambrus in the movie version), and it's got serious legs.
At the time of his capture in 1999, Ambrus' popular support among his adopted countrymen was at 80 percent. As recently as two years ago, supporters in a dozen cities around the world toasted his 38th birthday. Ambrus still gets hundreds of letters, inquiries and flirty proposals on his Myspace page, but he's urging friends to mark his birthday Saturday as quietly as possible.
"I had a big problem out of this," Ambrus told Rubinstein about the worldwide toast. It turns out Oct. 6 also is Hungary's national day of mourning, so birthday bash seemed almost disrespectful. "The whole thing came back to haunt me."
The same can't be said for his time between the posts for the UTE hockey club, where Ambrus was the backup goalkeeper, janitor and drove the Zamboni. He talked his way into a tryout in 1988 with UTE, coming off seven straight national championships, after escaping the cruel Communist regime in Romania while clinging to the underside of a freight train.
Ambrus was a terrible goalie, but his devotion to the game and maniacal work ethic won him both pity and the support of his teammates. Club officials, who couldn't afford better players as the first wave of capitalism swept across Eastern Europe, paid him a pittance. To keep his job, Ambrus slept on a cot in a stadium closet, ate meals at churches and worked as a gravedigger, dog walker, building superintendent and pelt-smuggler. In January, 1993, deep in debt due to bribes he hoped would get him citizenship papers, Ambrus began planning to knock over a post office.
For three days straight, he skipped practice and drank whiskey, then bought a wig and toy gun at a flea market. He launched his new career by yelling "Freeze!" politely collected the cash on hand - 548,000 forints, about $5,900 at the time - locked the tellers inside and then ran home and threw up. Things went so swimmingly, though, that over the next 12 months, the gentlemanly bandit pulled another 10 heists.
"I tried to toe the line," he told Rubinstein in an earlier interview. "But I finally realized I didn't have a chance."
It's hard now to explain the sensational appeal of the "Whiskey Robber" - so dubbed by the Budapest media because he was often seen in cafes near the banks he robbed, getting sloshed in outrageous costumes. He became the darling of a populace angered by seeing its corrupt Communist masters replaced by equally corrupt capitalist officials.
And his stature only climbed once Ambrus began handing out flowers to the bank tellers he robbed and sending bottles of wine to the inept investigators trying to catch him. There was a cabaret show about him and even a chart-topping rap song called "The Whiskey Robber Is the King."
For all the celebrity his alter-ego inspired, though, Ambrus the lowly goalkeeper somehow escaped suspicion. But not because he was hiding his newfound wealth. He frequented the city's casinos, showed up at practice with a new car, regaled his teammates with tales of vacations to exotic locations, and even paid to renovate the team's locker room.
But all that high-rolling screeched to a halt on Jan. 15, 1999. Chased by the cops after exiting a bank, Ambrus got as far as the Romanian border, where a fax had arrived moments earlier with his description. The "Whiskey Robber" surrendered without protest. But not for long. In July, Ambrus escaped from the Budapest jail on a bedsheet, then robbed three more banks. Three months later, a tip led the largest manhunt in modern Eastern European history to his door.
"I don't rebel anymore," Ambrus said a few months ago. "I have short-term goals - to keep me alive."
In prison, he's studied ceramics and tried to follow his heroes in the NHL, especially Czech goalkeeper Dominik Hasek. For a while, a banner reading "Tallyho Whiskey Robber!" flew outside the UTE stadium and his replica jerseys fetched a few hundred dollars at local auctions.
These days, though, most of what little satisfaction Ambrus derives from all that notoriety comes in the form of notes admirers leave on his Myspace page. They barely get him through the day.
"I always have to think of the distance and the years I have to face," Ambrus said, "which can be a big obstacle."
Jim Litke is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jlitke@ap.org
If DEPP does play him in the movie adaptaion...he'll win an oscar...this book had me laughing like a hyena at 3:00am.....INCREDIBLE
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