Leon Maliniak: A Full 360° Turnaround
By education - Bones was a lawyer - and an excellent one. But he was so much more - he was a great multi-sport athlete - playing football for McGill - hockey -and a very good game of squash and tennis. He put himself through school as a professional musician. And even more interesting is his abilities as a scientific mind. He has explored a wide variety of subject areas - coming up with alternative therapies for some. As testament to his guidance from above, he wrote, scored and performed an amazing love song he envisioned Celine Dion singing to Réné Angelil - Love of my Life.
I have always had great respect for Leon - as a person and as a great mind with an ability to realize the things he envisioned. We were always wanting to get together to form one business or another. In the mid '90's we collaborated on a venture we called Ross Harvey Sports International - with Leon negotiating for us a contract with a leading British designer of racquets for tennis, squash, racquetball and badminton. Not only did he negotiate a contract for North and South America - but he also got us our first order on consignment (no up front payment). We had just started to push forward with our marketing strategy when Robin Burns the founder of Itech Sports Products approached me - offering to open up a new division of Itech called the Eclipse Division - focused on building a product line in my two passions - racquet sports and golf. Robin told me there was no room for Leon in this and that I should offer to buy him out of our 50/50 deal. Leon thought this was a great opportunity for me and backed down - not only this but he served as my lawyer and brokered a great deal for me with Itech which included me getting a great full time salary with exciting bonuses for sales as well as keeping my two other positions as squash and racquetball professional at Le Sporting Club du Sanctuaire and golf professional at St. Lambert Golf Club.
In successive years Leon and I considered involvement in a restaurant on his lake in the Laurentians. This was following several year of experience I had running two of my own bars and restaurants. i was really looking forward to this, but it never developed fully.
In the early 2000's we experienced a difficult time as friends. Leon was sold on an idea and product which I didn't believe in - and I told him about it and belaboured the point - he point-blank told me that if I brought it up again he would never speak to me again. And I did - egging him on. We didn't speak for a long time - but in all the time I would hear of my friends meeting him and of them having conversations with him about me - and that all he ever had to say about me was good things. This speaks to the goodness of Bones' character.
It has been a long time and I have missed my friend. We partook in a myriad of activities together and always enjoyed our times together. Great friends like this are rare. Less than a year ago I learned that Bones had a serious health concern. He had dwindled from his normally robust 195 lbs down to 117 lbs. He finally checked into the hospital where the doctors said if he would have waited another day he would have been dead. It is about 3 months down the road from that time. Leon has gained back 45 or 50 lbs and looks the picture of health. His eyes are bright - his hand shake - like a vice grip - and he is back to the Bones I remember from bygone years. Today I had a wonderful in-person conversation with him and look forward to many more - regularly. This blog is about finding and living Heaven on Earth here. I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Leon has found this - and I can't begin to tell you how happy I am for my great friend!
Wishing you peace, love and joy always...
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