Today, I live in 1,400 square feet, and I wonder why the hell I needed all of that space back then.
If I could talk to a player receiving his first NHL contract, my advice would be not to spend your money as if you will be earning that amount of money the rest of your life. Don’t buy more than you need. Buy a nice ride, and live well, but don’t buy a 5,000-foot house when you only need 1,400 square feet.
And above all else, don’t let other people spend your fucking money. Learn to say no.
“Easy for you to say, your heart has never been broken, your pride has never been stolen, not yet, not yet”
—“These Days”
Foo Fighters
14. Reflections
“I’ve been cut, I’ve been opened up, I’ve been shattered by the ones I thought I loved, you left me here like a chalk outline, on the sidewalk, waiting for the rain, to wash away”
—“Chalk Outline”
Three Days Grace
You will never hear me blame the hockey culture for my substance abuse issues.
Never will I say that I drank because I had to fight. My addiction is a complicated matter that involves every aspect of my life and my personality.
In 1996, when I admitted I needed help to deal with my problem, my stepfather, Craig, was already battling multiple myeloma. I remember he told me, “We both suffer from a disease. Let’s just lean on each other for support and maybe we can help each other get through it.”
It was probably the first time that I ever considered that I was dealing with a disease. It didn’t matter whether I was a fireman, a lawyer, or a hockey player. I have wires crossed somewhere that makes my response to alcohol different than people’s. It didn’t matter what profession I chose.
Still, based on what we’ve seen happen over the last few years in the NHL, you have to wonder if you are doing long-term damage to your health when you play the role of an NHL tough guy.
The deaths of NHL tough-guys Derek Boogaard, Wade Belak, Marc Potvin, and Rick Rypien certainly gives us reason to wonder whether there is a connection between playing a physical role and depression.
Boogaard was 28 when he died of an accidental drug and alcohol overdose while recovering from a concussion. Researchers at Boston University studied his brain after his death and reported that it showed early signs of the degenerative brain disease Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE).
The BU study showed Boogaard’s CTE was more advanced than you would have expected to see in an athlete his age.
Belak was 35 and Rypien was 27 when they allegedly committed suicide. Rypien had battled depression for years, and Belak also suffered from it.
Bob Probert died of a heart attack, but researchers at Boston University also studied his brain and found evidence of CTE.
None of that surprised me because I’ve had a feeling for several years that my brain was feeling the impact of playing more than a decade in the NHL. I’ve just had a sense that my brain wasn’t normal. I can’t explain it, but I know something isn’t quite right. I am just foggier than I should be at my age.
Obviously my addiction probably has played a role, but there is certainly evidence today that suggests that constant trauma to your brain can have staggering consequences.
Boogaard had 67 NHL fights, and showed degenerative brain damage. I had exactly twice that many. When you count my minor league fights, I’ve had 184 pro fights, and that doesn’t count the preseason fights. I had 68 fighting majors over my first two seasons of professional hockey.
I was never knocked out in a fight, and I was never officially diagnosed with a documented concussion as a result of a fight. The only time a doctor told me I had a concussion came after Gary Galley checked me from behind during a game in Philadelphia.
Other than that, the only serious injury I got from a fight was slicing some tendons punching Mark Tinordi.
But over the last decade, it seems as if there has been more discussion about the accumulative effect of blows to the head. The NHL is much more cautious about head trauma now. Doctors seem to do a better job today of diagnosing and understanding concussions. The league has protocols in place designed to strengthen the diagnostic process.
Given what we now know about head trauma, it makes me wonder what my career did to my brain. At best, we can say we are not really sure. At worst, we can say it puts me at greater risk for brain-related problems in the future.
You don’t have to be a fucking doctor to look around and see that there have been a significant number of tough guys who have had a variety of serious issues.
Tough-guy Chris Nilan was recently featured in the documentary The Last Gladiators, and he has battled drug addiction for many years.
Tough-guy Marc Potvin, who played with me in Adirondack, committed suicide after his playing career was over. His death stunned me because he had been one of my mentors in my first year of professional hockey. We would always talk about hockey, fighting, and life. He was one of the veterans who taught me how to be smart about my fights. I remember when I heard of his death I tried to convince myself there was foul play involved because it didn’t make any sense to me that he would kill himself. The Potvin I knew wouldn’t kill himself.
But today I have a better understanding of how depression works and how torturous it can be on a human being.
Right before I started my professional hockey career in 1992, NHL tough-guy John Kordic died of a drug overdose.
Is there a connection between depression and head trauma? I’m no medical expert, but common sense would suggest there is.
I know there is a connection between fighting and self-medicating. When you are fighting in the NHL on a regular basis you look for ways to ease the pain or to reduce the anxiety. Drinking often seems like the answer, even though it truly isn’t. You want to be able to turn your mind off. Being an NHL fighter is a stressful occupation. You live with anxiety for an entire season because you are constantly thinking about who you might have to fight in the next game. Imagine if you had to go to work every day wondering if this is a day when you might have to have your face stitched up or suffer a concussion or break your hand or have your nose broken. You also have to worry about fighting at the right time, because if you fight at the wrong time you could end up with the coach pissed off at you.
At no point did one of my coaches ever order me to fight, though I always understood when it was time to drop the gloves. But some fighters struggle to know when they should fight and when they shouldn’t, and that causes even more stress.
There are other concerns which fans don’t know about, such as the unspoken code of conduct that most fighters follow.
Sometimes you have to fight the opposing tough guy because he needs a bout just to prove his value to the team.
That kind of request came to me from Calgary Flames tough-guy Paul Kruse at the most inopportune time at the Saddledome.
The night before the game, I had gotten hammered with Paul Coffey and Sheldon Kennedy. The next day I was nursing a killer hangover. I could play, but I certainly wasn’t in the mood to be fighting.
As we lined up for a faceoff, Kruse says, “I’m trying to stay in the line-up. Do you think we can go?”
“Yeah, sure,” I said.
Before my brain realized that I had agreed to fight, Kruse had hit me five times. That’s how groggy I was.
I remember thinking, Ah shit, I’m in a fight.
That fight wasn’t the longest fight of my career, but it sure seemed like it.
The point is that the fighter’s job is far more complicated than just dropping the gloves and swinging away. The work taxes you as much mentally as physically.
Certainly, I’m not suggesting that there isn’t fun associated with being an NHL enforcer. Tough guys are often some the funniest guys in the league. We all had a collection of insults and one-liners that we us
ed in the build-up to fights. Some fighters would do their version of stand-up comedy to get a fight started.
Many of us actually got along away from the rink. One of my favorite lighthearted moments with an enforcer came when the Red Wings were at home facing the Calgary Flames and Sandy McCarthy and I got into a stare down about who was going to leave the ice last in the warm-up. Most Detroit fans remember that it was part of superstition, or pregame ritual, to be the last player to leave the ice.
It’s what I did, just part of the idea that it was my job to make sure that everything was okay. I would wait at the gate for the second-to-last guy to leave. I wanted him to know that I was staying with him. It’s like the military phrase “I’ve got your six.”
The problem was that on this night McCarthy had the same idea. He and I were both stalling waiting for the other guy to leave. He was shooting pucks into the net. I was shooting pucks. I tossed pucks in the crowd. It was a test of our patience and willpower.
I’m sure that Detroit Zamboni driver Al Sobotka was growing impatient because he had a schedule to keep in order for the game to start on time.
Finally, McCarthy and I were both at our respective exits staring at one another. We both started laughing. What no one realized was that we knew each other. We’d been in an All-Star Game together as players, and we’d been roommates.
No end was in sight, so I made a hand-signal to him that we should settle it with a game of rock-paper-scissor. He laughed, but agreed.
I went rock. He went paper. Paper covers rock. He won. I left the ice first. A bet is a bet, particularly when it is among honorable tough guys.
In hindsight, I have positive feelings about the NHL and NHL Players’ Association drug program. The doctors in the program are only trying to help the athletes, often before the athlete knows how much trouble he is in.
My only issue with the NHL’s drug policy is its position on legitimate, necessary prescription drugs, such as Adderall. The only time during my career that I felt normal was when I was taking that drug for my ADHD.
The problem is that Adderall contains a combination of amphetamine and dextroamphetamine. Those two substances are central nervous system stimulants and they are considered performance enhancing drugs. They are banned for athletes.
It seems immoral to deny a needed drug to an athlete who is under the care of a physician who determines he or she needs that drug.
When I had to go off Adderall, my need for weed became more acute. When I smoked weed I didn’t feel as anxious. I felt more in control. Marijuana is not on the banned list because it is not a performance enhancing drug.
I faced many drug tests in my career. At one point, I even tried to use the famed Whizzinator to beat the system.
It’s basically a rubber penis, and then you fill it with synthetic urine and then you whip that out and fill the cup. Even if someone is assigned to watch, it looks like you are holding your real dick.
I paid a few hundred dollars for the set-up, and another $20 for the synthetic urine. The Whizzinator gained notoriety when former NFL running back Onterrio Smith was caught with the device in an airport in 2005. Actor Tom Sizemore also got caught trying to beat a drug test with one.
You can add me to the list of people who were caught, although my detection was never revealed by the media.
My problem was that the synthetic urine ruined the testing machine. The NHL fined me $20,000.
I flunked many drug tests in my career, but never for performance enhancing drugs. After a while, I didn’t even care if the league knew I was smoking pot.
I specifically remember telling the NHLPA doctors, “I’m gonna smoke weed, because if I don’t, I feel like I’m gonna kill someone.”
Now that I’m 40, I can feel the physical price I paid for being an NHL fighter. The impact on your body is real and long-lasting.
As a result of my long NHL career, I have a body that screams at me every day. I’m in constant pain. But I refuse to take pain pills, other than over-the-counter relievers such as ibuprofen, Tylenol, or other non-narcotics that doctors prescribe.
But given my addiction, my general rule is that I only seek drug relief when my pain is debilitating.
Even when I had major dental work, I only took prescription medicine for a couple of days, out of fear that I would become dependent on it.
Prescription narcotics are far easier to abuse than most people realize. My alcohol addiction causes me enough problems. I don’t want to travel down a different addiction road.
There is no doubt in my mind that Rypien, Belak, and Boogaard were searching for ways to treat their pain. I watched Bob Probert trying to deaden his pain with opioids.
Drugs like Vicodin and oxycodone, when abused, lead to addiction. I’ve read about former pro athletes succumbing to their addictions through suicide or accidental overdose. What they were really doing was self-medicating. I don’t want that to happen to me. That’s why I run from pills.
One of the issues facing former pro athletes is that they have no medical insurance when they leave the game, and some don’t have the money to buy medical insurance.
I explained what happened to my money, and I accept the blame for my situation. But there are also players who were non-stars who simply didn’t make enough money to be set for life. They get done with their careers after bouncing from the American Hockey League to the NHL and back again. They’re over 30 and they have no money and no idea what to do next. It’s like they’re starting over at a time when most people their age have an established career path, and without any work history or skillset.
Then there are athletes like me who have physical issues. I’m in the process of filing for disability and the Workers Compensation for Professional Athletes. But that is difficult to attain. My wife, Sheryl, and I are plowing through the paperwork process now.
Sheryl is a registered nurse and she warns me every day about the impact my addiction has on my liver. When she agreed to be with me, she made me swear off ever taking narcotics.
I use marijuana for pain. Thank God it’s legal in Michigan. I smoke regularly, just as if I’m a terminal cancer patient. It’s what gets me through the days.
For a lengthy period, I had so much back and shoulder pain that I couldn’t sleep. I was constantly in emergency rooms, and the Detroit Red Wings doctors worked with me free of charge. The pain was so bad that I didn’t even feel some of the long needles they were sticking in me. When it was concluded that surgery was my only option, Sheryl convinced me to try a chiropractor. We headed first to the Red Wings chiropractor, Dr. Bloom. He began to work with me, and the pain began to lesson. He gave me a neck-stretching device. It helped a bit, but I was still a mess.
It’s difficult to explain how much pain I was experiencing. The pain was excruciating to the point that it made me sick to my stomach. Once, when I was having an X-ray done on my shoulder, the repositioning of my shoulder caused so much pain that I began vomiting uncontrollably. I threw up everywhere.
The X-ray technicians were both stunned and grossed out. As a nurse, my wife was unfazed. She asked for towels and cleaned up the entire area. She understood the pain I was experiencing.
This happened in the summer of 2012, and later that month I was attending a celebrity golf tournament in Saginaw, Michigan, when I was debilitated by staggering pain in my shoulder and back.
I called Sheryl to pick me up early, and she was immediately concerned by my symptoms. Within moments she was on the phone to doctors at her hospital, and they expressed concern that I may be experiencing a heart attack or an aortic aneurism. We drove straight to emergency room.
Because she’d worked there for many years she knew the doctors and nurses and they brought me in the back door to prevent me from being hassled in the waiting room by fans while I was waiting to be admitted.
When nurses pegged my blood pressure at 178/12
8, doctors immediately began to treat me as though I were having a heart attack.
But tests revealed it was not a heart attack. Doctors concluded that my blood pressure simply reflected the pain my body was enduring. As I told the doctors, I have a high pain threshold. So when I say I’m in pain—it’s bring-you-to-your-knees pain.
Finally, Sheryl convinced me to go see chiropractor Dr. Dan Wild, who was located in her hometown of Clare, Michigan. Sheryl had been his patient since she was 15. He’d traveled all over the world learning advanced chiropractic techniques.
He examined me for about five or 10 minutes, stretching and lengthening me as he progressed through his examination. Then he stopped manipulating my body and said, “Ah, here is the problem.” What he discovered was that my spine had rotated and was pinching the nerves in my back. He turned my head to the right and adjusted me in between my upper shoulders and for the first time in months the pain disappeared. Instantly, I got feeling back in my fingertips. He said, “Darren, you can bring your head back to the center.” But I was afraid that if I did the pain would return. I just wanted to sit like that and relish in the euphoric feeling of NO PAIN!
When I came back to the center the pain was still gone. There was no surgery. No one was cutting me. Dr. Wild fixed me, for a $30 office visit, without taking any X-rays. Now every time we are in Clare, his office is my first stop.
That’s not to say my physical problems are permanently resolved. Far from it. The left arm that I used to pound Claude Lemieux and many other NHL combatants now can’t be raised above my left shoulder. Excruciating pain shoots through my body when I attempt to move the shoulder normally. Doctors say that I have arthritis and a very shallow socket because my shoulder was dislocated too many times.
A bulging disc and inflamed nerves cause problems in my back. The pain is often unbearable. Cortisone shots and Toradol injections provide minimal—and temporary—relief. For an eight-week stretch I slept every night in a recliner because that was the only position that allowed some measure of comfort.
My Last Fight Page 15