Boy on Ice: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard

by John Branch

  “I have to work harder, and not always look for the fights,” Derek said after he scored his first goal.

  But Derek did not score again during the regular season. His reputation was cemented and his future ordained. Internet fight fans gave Derek an 18–4–4 record that season. Five other fights were not reviewed. He had 245 penalty minutes, eighth highest in the league. He was voted “toughest player” in the Western Hockey League’s Western Conference.

  GAME 4 OF Prince George’s playoff series with the Portland Winter Hawks took place on April 4, 2001, at the sold-out Multiplex. Portland led the series, two games to one, and the teams headed to overtime.

  And there was Derek, playing left wing in sudden-death of a game that Prince George was desperate to win, the score tied, 4–4, the seats filled with 6,000 anxious Cougars fans, Prince George coach Ed Dempsey looking for someone to be the star.

  “All of a sudden, Ed said our line was up,” Derek later wrote.

  Teammate Devin Wilson dumped the puck into a corner. Derek chased it down. He tried to center it to Dan Baum, but the puck bounced around before Baum was able to stab it. His shot trickled behind the Portland goalie.

  “I turned around and the puck was just sitting there,” Derek recalled.

  He swiped it in.

  The crowd erupted.

  “I don’t think I ever saw our rink, or Derek, that happy,” Thompson, then the assistant coach, said a decade later.

  Teammates ambushed Derek, burying him in a pile. One rushed to grab the puck so that Derek would have the memento.

  “It was an unbelievable feeling,” Derek wrote. “The guys came out of the bench and the place was going nuts. It was the best feeling I had the last 2 years.”

  The giddiness of the goal trailed the Cougars out of town. The series now even, the Cougars boarded their bus for Portland, 700 miles and more than 14 hours away. But the boost that Derek provided evaporated. The Winter Hawks beat Prince George handily in Game 5, shutting them out 6–0.

  The teams returned to Prince George—14 hours back north—for Game 6. Before another raucous sold-out crowd, the Cougars held a 3–1 lead midway through the second period. But the bottom dropped out in mere moments. Portland scored four unanswered goals, one of them on a power play after a Derek penalty, and the season ticked to a disappointing close.

  In the final seconds, with the score 5–3, Dempsey again sent Derek onto the ice. Just as the Portland goalie bent over to pick up the puck as a souvenir, Derek barreled into him.

  Portland coach Mike Williamson was incensed. He accused Dempsey of sending Derek out to try to hurt his players, and the coaches had a shouting match under the stands 30 minutes after the game.

  The Western Hockey League suspended Dempsey for three games and fined him $5,000. But Derek took the brunt of the punishment. He was suspended for seven games, to be served at the start of the following season.

  “It’s very unfortunate, because the talk around the league had been how much improvement Boogaard has shown recently,” WHL vice president Rick Doerksen told the Prince George Citizen. “But what he did was an unprovoked act that has no place in our league.”

  Derek never revealed Dempsey’s instructions to him. Part of the enforcer’s code was to quietly accept responsibility.

  THE NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE Entry Draft was scheduled for two days beginning June 23, Derek’s 19th birthday. Derek again wondered if he might be selected. Joanne Boogaard thought that such hope was ridiculous. She wanted Derek to quit hockey.

  In early May, 14-year-old Aaron Boogaard was chosen in the first round, 14th overall, of the WHL Bantam Draft, by the Calgary Hitmen. Aaron was already six foot one and 200 pounds, and he was a much faster, far niftier puck handler than Derek. The combination of his own abilities and his brother’s reputation made him a treasured recruit. Derek was never drafted by the WHL. He only gained notice with his size and with an out-of-character tirade in a small-town rink. Four years later, after his second year in the WHL, he was one of the better enforcers in the rough-and-tumble league, but hardly a star.

  Joanne demanded that Derek get an off-season job. She had little patience for laziness. After all, Joanne had two jobs after high school, all the way until she married Len years later. Now she was a single mother of four children. She was not going to allow Derek to sit around all summer. Hockey had become a tool of procrastination. It was time to move on—if not school, then work.

  Len Boogaard lived in a nearby apartment. He was in a full-fledged relationship with Jody Vail, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police member he had helped train in Melfort beginning in 1997. Joanne had tried to ensure that Jody would not be transferred to Regina when the Boogaards moved there, but Jody was transferred to a small town about 30 minutes away. The Boogaards divorced, after several years of tumultuous separations, and Len and Jody would marry a year later, in 2002.

  Len trod the middle ground when it came to Derek’s hockey career. Pick what you are going to do, and do it all the way, he told his son. If you want to play hockey, prepare for the next season. If you are finished, get a job.

  Derek did both. He found work at a golf course near the RCMP Depot. He hated it from the first day. He was up at 5, at work by 6, and spent eight hours on a lawn mower. After work, he went home to eat, and then to the gym.

  “At the time I was so shocked and pissed that Mom thought I wasn’t going anywhere with hockey,” Derek wrote years later. “My Dad said I could move in with him, but I was pissed right off that I didn’t want to be in the same city as the family. Now I know that times were tough for Mom because of them divorceing [sic] and my dad re-marrying. It was kind of tough for me as well but in the end the constint [sic] fighting and always arguing was and is never good.”

  Derek soon had enough. He abruptly left Regina and returned to Prince George. He moved in with Mike and Caren Tobin, taking the guest bedroom at the front of the house, overlooking the driveway. Unlike his own family, the Tobins did not disappoint. There was no fighting, no nagging, and no doubt. And because it was the off-season, the Cougars had no say in the living arrangement.

  Derek made himself at home, fixing three poached eggs and toast for himself every morning, always cleaning his own dishes. Mike Tobin let Derek drive his black GMC Sierra Denali, with the black leather interior and the Quadrasteer system. Derek helped with yard work, but not much before finding a shady spot on a chaise longue. At the birthday party for the twin girls, Derek spent hours happily shoveling children in and out of a giant bounce house in the front yard.

  Derek was at the Tobins’ when he received a call from a Minnesota Wild scout named Paul Charles. Derek felt as if he was applying for a job, and he nervously answered the questions. The thought of getting drafted suddenly consumed him.

  Derek watched the start of the draft on his birthday. Atlanta chose a Russian named Ilya Kovalchuk with the first pick. With the sixth choice, Minnesota selected Mikko Koivu of Finland. With the 12th pick, Nashville chose one of Derek’s Prince George teammates, Dan Hamhuis. Seven WHL players were chosen in the first round. Another 10 were chosen in the second, and six more in the third. Derek was not among them.

  Caren Tobin made dinner and a birthday cake. A couple of friends came over, and Derek blew out the candles. Then he and his friends headed to the Iron Horse bar. With Derek of legal drinking age, his friends made sure he celebrated his birthday with an overindulgence of beers and shots. He arrived back to the Tobins’ well after midnight.

  In Regina early the next morning, a phone rang inside the house on Woodward Avenue. Joanne answered. A man introduced himself as Tommy Thompson, the chief scout of the Minnesota Wild. He told Joanne that the Wild had drafted her son Derek.

  Joanne was confused.

  “But he’s already on a team, in Prince George,” she replied.

  “No, this is the National Hockey League,” Thompson said.

  “The NHL?” Joanne said, incredulously. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

&nb
sp; Moments later, a phone rang in Prince George. Caren Tobin answered. She called up to Derek’s room, but he was asleep and did not respond. She went upstairs and knocked on the door. Then she banged on it.

  “Take a message,” Derek moaned.

  She ordered him to the phone. She and Mike knew what was happening, and Derek came downstairs, groggy.

  “Hello?” he said. “Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Thanks.”

  He hung up, expressionless.

  “Well?” Caren said.

  “I got drafted by Minnesota,” Derek said. He was chosen in the seventh round, 202nd overall.

  The Tobins wrapped Derek in hugs.

  “I was very excited as well,” Derek wrote later. “With a huge headache.”

  THE WILD HELD a four-week camp for prospects in Breezy Point, Minnesota, a few weeks later, but Derek first had to stop in Saint Paul, the team’s headquarters. In his hotel room, he found a package of forms to fill out and information to read. It explained that teams had two years to sign a player after they drafted him, a sort of tryout period as boys move through the ranks of junior and the minor leagues.

  Derek walked to the Xcel Energy Center, the Wild’s downtown arena. The team had only played one season, and the arena still felt brand new. The dressing room was the biggest Derek had seen. An equipment manager fitted him for gear. For the first time, everything Derek tried on was new, as if made exclusively for him. He pulled a Wild jersey over his head. There was no need to sew an extra ring of material to the bottom, or at the ends of the sleeves. It fit perfectly.

  While Derek was in Breezy Point, the Cougars, far away, openly discussed trading him. They knew that Derek would miss the first seven games of the 72-game schedule because of the suspension. He had been through several billet families and now had requested to stay with the Tobins. The Cougars were weary of handling Derek. Junior hockey was an assembly line, and replacements were ready.

  “He’s got one goal, he’s drafted now, and now he probably thinks he’s going to be on the power play and on the second line,” Lubiniecki, the team’s general manager, told the Prince George Citizen.

  Derek brimmed with confidence. He returned to Prince George in tremendous shape, weighing 245 pounds. His long hair had been cut short again. He was no longer an outcast, but an NHL draft pick with a future. He was wanted.

  Derek’s family noticed the change. During a visit to Prince George, Len asked to speak privately to Mike Tobin.

  “I just can’t believe the change in Derek,” Len said. “We went to Earls the other day, and a girl walked up to our table. Six months ago, if a girl would have walked up to our table and starting talking to him, he would have crawled under the table. I can’t believe the difference.”

  Derek was gone again, back with the Wild for training camp and a rookie camp for several NHL teams in Traverse City, Michigan. During one scrimmage, Derek thought he had a player lined up for a big hit. He took several long strides and turned his shoulder to smash the opponent into the side boards. The other player ducked at the last moment.

  Derek crashed through the glass, shattering it into thousands of tiny pieces. His body folded over the boards and flipped out of the rink. The arena went silent as coaches and scouts rose with worry and awe.

  Derek stood and, with a sheepish grin, climbed back over the boards, onto the ice. Pebbles of broken glass encrusted his jersey. When Derek came to the rink the next day, he found a taped outline of a large player on the new pane of glass, as if it were the sidewalk of a crime scene.

  Derek was with the Wild for training camp in Saint Paul during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. Two days later, during a scrimmage, he exchanged punches with the Wild’s veteran enforcer, Matt Johnson.

  Wild head coach Jacques Lemaire was not a fan of players beating up teammates. He shouted down from his seat in the stands, asking another player to break up the fight. A day later, Derek was sent, as expected, back to Prince George for the WHL season.

  Derek did not want to be there, and the Cougars were not excited to have him. He sat out the first seven games because of his suspension, but other players combined to take on Derek’s role, fighting 13 times in the seven games. The Cougars had won three of their last four games when they, along with Derek, embarked on a long, eastward road trip.

  At the first stop, in Red Deer, Alberta, Derek twice fought Jeff Smith, a sturdy 20-year-old enforcer from Regina. Derek looked stronger and more fearless than ever.

  But he snapped the next night in Calgary. On Derek’s first shift, 80 seconds into the first period against the Hitmen, he was penalized for roughing. Later, the teams had two bloody brawls while Derek was penned in the bench. Prince George led, 5–3, early in the third period, when Derek was called for roughing again. This time, he did not quietly skate toward the penalty box. He could not be constrained.

  It was unlike anything Derek’s family had seen since his rampage into the opponents’ bench as a 14-year-old in Melfort. A linesman tried to pry Derek away and escort him off the ice. Derek shoved him—a huge breach of rules and protocol. He threw his helmet toward opposing players. He flashed his middle finger to the referee.

  Derek was immediately ejected from the game, and the WHL quickly suspended him indefinitely. The Cougars were furious. They had been trying to trade him.

  “He’s got to get smarter,” Lubiniecki told the Prince George Citizen. “The bottom line is, right now Derek Boogaard just can’t keep it together. He’s becoming a liability from the fact that he can’t play the games because the league won’t let him. He won’t use the thought process he needs to, to keep himself in games. If anyone has tried to make this guy a responsible player, it’s our organization.”

  The league ultimately handed Derek a four-game suspension, but the Cougars were finished with him. Before he could play again for Prince George, Derek was traded to the Medicine Hat Tigers. In return, Prince George received a 19-year-old third-line center named Denny Johnston and a fourth-round pick in the next year’s bantam draft.

  “I painted my own picture,” Derek told the Prince George Citizen. “It was me who caused this trade to happen.”

  Only Derek and his mother knew what truly had made Derek snap in Calgary. Joanne had driven from Regina to Calgary, eight hours away, because there was something she wanted to tell her son. And she did not want to do it over the phone.

  Months earlier, the same week that Len had moved out, Joanne received a letter from social services. Joanne had become pregnant when she was in high school, years before she met Len, a decade before she had Derek. She had the baby, a healthy boy, and then gave him up for adoption. She’d kept it a secret, even from the birth father, a boy she barely knew. It was still a secret nearly three decades later. But the baby boy had grown into a man and had come looking for his birth mother, the way Joanne always wondered if he might. His name was Curtis Heide.

  Curtis had grown up in the family of an RCMP member, too, and the coincidences did not end there. His adoptive father had been posted across Saskatchewan, just like Len. At times, they were posted in nearby detachments. The men and their families never crossed paths.

  Of course, Joanne wanted to meet the son she never knew. Curtis was tall and strong, like the Boogaard kids. He was quiet and humble, too, though never much of a hockey player. He had a good job in the oil-and-gas exploration industry that fueled much of the economy in the Prairie provinces.

  Joanne told her three youngest children, all of whom were supportive of the news and the addition of another family member. Then she came to Calgary to tell Derek, at a restaurant before Prince George’s game against the Hitmen.

  He did not take the news well. He was devastated to know that his mother had kept a secret from him all his life. He was hurt to learn that he was not the oldest of her children. For most of his life, family was the one reliable thing that Derek had. It had collapsed like a thin facade, first through divorce, now through anothe
r kind of betrayal.

  “I don’t want to know about this,” he said, pushing the photograph of his half-brother back across the table. “I don’t want to hear about this.”

  Derek carried the emotion silently to that night’s game at Calgary’s Saddledome. And with his mother in the stands watching, Derek did just what he was growing accustomed to doing whenever he needed an outlet from the hurt and pain, whenever he felt someone he could trust had disappointed him.

  He brought it to the ice. And he took it out on someone else.

  THE FIRST TIME Derek laid eyes on his girlfriend was when he flew her to Minnesota to sneak her into the Wild’s summer camp in 2002.

  Janella D’Amore. You couldn’t make up a name like that. And when she walked toward him inside the terminal of the tiny airport, Derek tried his best to play it cool. He leaned against a post and watched her walk his way. In those few heart-fluttering moments, he saw everything he hoped to see. She was petite and pretty and perky, the kind of girl Derek always liked but rarely captured, with big brown eyes and wavy brown hair. And it wasn’t just how she looked. She had come all that way just for him.

  Derek was 20. He was still shy and insecure around women, a trait he never could shake, the meek alter ego behind his on-ice invincibility. But in junior hockey, many young women knew who he was, especially once he was drafted.

  One such woman discovered Derek when the Medicine Hat Tigers came to Portland, Oregon, in the winter of 2001 and 2002. She talked about him with her friends, including Janella, a figure skater who worked at the ice rink. Janella had not met Derek, but she was always a willing matchmaker. To gauge Derek’s interest in her friend, Janella sent him instant messages on the computer, the era’s version of passing notes. Derek responded with a dismissive remark about the other woman.

  What a jerk, Janella thought. Communication stopped.

  But then, from nowhere, Derek sent an instant message to Janella a few weeks later.

  “Hi,” he wrote. Oh, no, Janella thought. This guy.

  She thought about not answering. But she did. And she slowly found Derek to be nothing like what she imagined. His words were self-effacing and sweet. The ogre she had conjured in her mind was surprisingly kind and gentle. Janella tried to make sense of it. She asked him why he had been so rude to her friend.