5/19/05 at 05:14 AM

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Click here: SI.com - Writers - The 10 Spot: May 18, 2005 - Wednesday May 18, 2005 3:30PM



9. When the Czech Republic won the world hockey championship on Sunday in Vienna, one of hockey's most daring goalies sat in a jail cell about 100 miles away. Attila Ambrus' renown doesn't come from his on-ice performance -- he once allowed 88 goals in a six-game stretch in the Hungarian league -- but from his string of nearly 30 robberies over seven years. In all, Ambrus stole some $840,000 before he was captured while holding up the OTP Bank in Budapest. He was known as the Whiskey Robber for his habit of hitting a bar for a few slugs of Johnnie Walker before a heist. Ambrus is the subject of Julian Rubinstein's best-selling book Ballad of the Whiskey Robber. The book has been optioned by Warner Brothers, with Johnny Depp slated to play the lead character if he ever stops making pirate movies.