I was born in Cochrane, Ontario, on January 12, 1930. During my childhood, I was infatuated with cars. I spent all my free time reading motoring books and hanging out with the town mechanics. I wrote off my parents' new Mercury on a drive between Sudbury and North Bay soon after I had got my license, one of many accidents to come. My other passion was hockey, and in 1949 I landed a contract with the Pittsburgh Hornets. With my very first paycheck, I bought a new car.

Later that year, I signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs. I was tight with my earnings throughout my career except when it came to my cars. I spent eighteen seasons with the Leafs, and each year my taste in vehicles got more extravagant. I had a two-seater Sunbeam Tiger, a Cadillac Eldorado, and ordered many exotic roadsters shipped from overseas. Whatever I was driving at any given time, you could be sure the gas pedal was fully depressed.

Despite my need for speed, I kept other aspects of my life in check. My personal values and beliefs were well balanced, much like the rules of hockey prevented constant chaos from taking place on the ice. Gordie Howe called me hockey's "strongest man", but that strength was used more to break up fights than to start them; violence only interrupted the rythm of the game, in my opinion. Some claim that I invented the slapshot, something I'm much too modest to take credit for, but I could always be counted on defensively to clear the puck from my own end.

I had many driving accidents in my life, escaping each with minor scrapes. My wife and I were in Ohio one time when I rolled our car three times. We flew through the air for what seemed like forever before finally landing back on the wheels. The car only suffered a few dents, which baffled witnesses that saw the crash. The police stopped me all the time but most of them usually recognized me and let me off with only warnings.

As my hockey career wound down, I dappled in small business ventures. I put my aging father on the payroll for one of these shops, giving him the title of 'superintendent of northern Ontario operations'. He was to 'inspect' the handful of franchises and report back to me. But Dad took this marginal work very seriously and began lecturing the employees on their performances and making drastic store changes. When he died on January 23, 1974, I took it very hard, and regretted the harsh confrontation I'd had with him a few weeks before about him meddling in my business affairs.

A month later, after suffering a blow to my jaw during a game, I met with my business partner, Ron Joyce. It was a strangely sentimental meeting, and we chatted about personal matters that we usually avoided bringing up. When I left, I stopped by a friend's house and had a few more drinks. Speeding through St. Catherines in my Pantera at 4:30 AM, a cop car clocked me at speeds later described as being 'well over 100 miles per hour'. The official accident report of the crash that followed shortly after disappeared the next day, and was never read by anyone except the officer that wrote it.

There were 1200 people at the Mills United Church for my funeral and dozens of broadcast cameras recorded the event. I had played in 1446 games and collected 518 goal and assist points along the way. I won four Stanley Cups, was a six-time All-Star, and was voted the Most Valuable Player in 1969. Recognized for developing the younger players during my last three years playing for the Buffalo Sabres, my number-2 Jersey was retired after my death. Bobby Hull said at my funeral, "Few players brought more dedication or honour to the game. He was my idea of a pro."

Ron Joyce bought out my wife's shares in the fourty coffee shops I had at the time, and set up the Childrens Foundation as a reflection of my love of kids and my desire to help the less fortunate. He was presented the Gary Wright Humanitarian Award, appointed the the Order of Canada in 1992, and later inducted into the Canadian Business Hall of Fame. Mr. Joyce never forgave himself for buying me the Pantera sports car I was killed in.

It would be tough to find a Canadian who hasn't heard of me. There are currently 56,000 employees working in over 2350 of my Canadian shops as well as 220 others that are gaining popularity in the US, which together generate over a billion dollars a year. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary recently added 'double-double' to its publication, and "Tims" or "Timmys" can only mean one place these days. Through ingenious marketing, great products, and important charity programs, my company brings to life the same morals and standards I cherished until death.

My name is Tim Horton, and when my rims rolled up, I didn't win.

"Fate is a creature of opportunity, responding to invitations extended willingly, inadvertently, defiantly. Whether on open ice or open road, fate sweeps in to claim what it always promised it would."