It might seem incongruous that a man who would one day become Canada's Minister of Finance actually went to Princeton on a hockey scholarship.
But it worked for Jim Flaherty.
Once depicted as a dangerous pit bull in political cartoons, Flaherty looks like someone just as comfortable crashing into his opponent on the ice or on the floor of the House of Commons.
From 1995 to 2005, Flaherty became known as one of the most right-wing supporters of Mike Harris' Common Sense Revolution. As the member for Whitby-Ajax, he advocated tax cuts and privatization, and tried to make homelessness illegal.
After holding a number of provincial posts, including Attorney General and Minister of Finance, Flaherty moved on to federal politics, eventually landing the key finance portfolio in Stephen Harper's minority Conservative government.
His first big announcement in that role turned out to be a broken Conservative campaign promise: a tax on income trusts. The policy enraged many, from Alberta oil executives to those running senior citizens' investment clubs.
A year later, Flaherty picked a fight with his provincial nemesis, Dalton McGuinty.
The Liberal Ontario Premier had asked the federal government to aid the province's struggling manufacturing sector.
Never a fan of a bailout, Flaherty suggested McGuinty lower taxes instead, and called Ontario "the last place" a new business would want to invest.
Just days before the 2008 election call, however, Flaherty's ministry announced a multi-million-dollar assistance package to the Windsor Ford plant and to the GM plant in his own riding of Whitby-Oshawa.
His biggest supporter in Ontario politics is also the one closest to home – his wife, Christine Elliott, won the seat he left vacant in Whitby-Ajax when he moved to federal politics.
His detractors from the income trust issue, however, continue to haunt him.
Flaherty had to miss a day of campaigning so he could travel to Louisiana to testify against a Shreveport stockbroker who was so angry over income trusts, he sent him threatening messages.
And Flaherty's Liberal opponent in the current election is an angry income trust investor and former Oshawa GM-plant worker.
But Flaherty, like any good puck-handler, has never shied away from a good battle.