In an otherwise unpredictable AHL postseason, perhaps the surest bet of all is that not many players will choose to wind down the afternoon before a game by reading the book American Shaolin.

Yet that’s precisely what calmed the nerves of San Antonio left wing David Spina as he sat in his Toronto hotel room hours before Game 2 against the Toronto Marlies on April 18. A man’s quest to turn his life around by visiting China’s Shaolin Temple, the ancient home of the fighting monks, was Spina’s latest gulp aimed at his never-ending thirst for expanding horizons. ...more