My Last Fight

by Darren McCarty

  The truth is that I had a difficult time dealing with the temptations of the women who were attracted to professional athletes. I’m going to set the record straight about me, not anyone else who played in the NHL in my era. If they want to talk about what they were doing, or who they were doing, they can write their own books. This chapter is exclusively about my exploits, and the mistakes I made.

  For a long time, I believed wives lived in denial about the temptation that athletes faced on the road. As an athlete, I’d spent many, many days on the road traveling without any checks and balances. No one knew what I was doing on the road, not even my closest teammates. I was making a boat-load of money and felt like a modern day gladiator. That lifestyle brought temptations that I couldn’t resist. Frankly, I made no effort to resist them. To me, I had received an open invitation to stray. I was out “living the dream” while my wife was at home turning a blind eye. I believed she was happy being married to the “lifestyle.” She didn’t see, or didn’t want to see, what I was doing on the road. When a woman marries an athlete, she has to know she is marrying into a culture where there are always women chasing after their husbands.

  I’m certainly not suggesting that wives are doing anything to deserve their husbands’ infidelity. I’m suggesting that they often ignore the signs of infidelity because they don’t want to face the consequences of confrontation or divorce.

  Often, these are millionaire couples who both have much to lose through a divorce. The wife often is faced with the emotional choice of confronting a cheating husband or the economic choice of letting it go to preserve the family’s affluent lifestyle.

  Sometimes, keeping a relationship intact isn’t about love. It’s about money. We often read about athletes caught cheating. The list of athletes who are unfaithful husbands is long, and I bet there are others whose wives give them a pass because they don’t want to deal with the financial consequences of confronting them.

  No one wants to hear that said, but it’s the truth.

  To be very clear, let me say that I accept full blame for my philandering ways. I am guilty of promiscuous behavior, but the women involved were just as guilty. I never took advantage of anyone. They knew everything about me when they became involved with me, including the fact that I was married. I was a whore. They were whores. In the end, we both were trying to fill some void by being together.

  My first sexual experience came when I was 16 years old and playing Junior B hockey in Peterborough. Although at the time the legal drinking age was 19 in Canada, I had secured a fake ID that allowed me to enter bars with my older buddies.

  One night, I met a 20-year-old woman at a bar. Her name was Kim. She was a 5'8", 120-pound young beauty. She was a brunette, and at that age I knew just enough to know that I preferred brunettes.

  Kim was there with her sister, and they invited me back to their house because their parents weren’t home.

  I lost my virginity that night to Kim. I had no idea what the fuck I was doing, but I sure liked what was happening. She and I dated—if you can call it that—for five or six months. When my parents came to their cottage in Peterborough one weekend, I even introduced her as my girlfriend.

  I’m reasonably sure my mom was mortified that her 16-year-old son was dating a then-21-year-old woman. I bet my dad was proud though.

  Ten years later, Kim stopped me after the Red Wings had played the Maple Leafs in Toronto. She asked me if I remembered her. I honestly didn’t. She had to refresh my memory. It was embarrassing for just a moment. It was strange seeing her standing there with her husband and two young children.

  She was my first sexual experience, and that opened up Pandora’s box. It occurred to me after spending time with Kim that being an athlete could open doors as well as girls’ legs.

  After I played Junior B in Peterborough, I came home that summer as a teenager on the prowl for sexual conquests. Believe me when I say I made the rounds with the girls in my tiny town of Leamington. My parents had transformed our garage into a spacious bedroom with a sliding door to the outside. That was my room when I was home.

  My stepdad got up for work every day at 5:00 in the morning. Many times that summer, I had barely slipped through the sliding door, and dove onto the bed before he flicked on that light to make sure I’d made it home. I was definitely out and about every night with various girls and women from my community.

  When I played in the OHL for the Belleville Bulls I was in a serious relationship with Cheryl, the woman who would become my first wife in 1992.

  I didn’t even stay faithful through the innocent honeymoon period of that relationship. My mother once walked in on me when I had a girl in my bed at the family home in Leamington. I had snuck her in the night before.

  My mom was unhappy that her son had brought an unknown woman into her home for sex. But she was more devastated over the fact that I was cheating on Cheryl. She pointed out that my little sister could’ve walked in and then told Cheryl, who was still living in Belleville.

  I always had a problem with monogamy and should’ve realized that before I ever married. When I was playing for Belleville I had at least 10 sexual partners even though I was in a supposed “committed” relationship. I’d attend parties, or hangouts, and women just flocked to the hockey players, especially to me because I was considered a high-end NHL prospect. Plus, I had a cool mullet.

  When I finally became an NHL player my opportunities for sexual experiences went to a whole new level. It’s hard to explain my mindset at the time, but it suffices to say that I had a warped approach to my marriage.

  If you value the sanctity of marriage, as I do today, you will not like this story. I don’t like telling this story, but I want to be honest about how I lived my life. Maybe someone will learn from my experiences.

  I thought of marriage as a house. I looked at my wife as if she was my mother—or my warden. Our home was like a hotel and she was the keeper of the inn.

  To me, marriage was not about sex and romance. It was a business partnership, the constant discussion of money and bills and the logistical decisions about our lives. Then children came along, and that made the business partnership more complicated. That doesn’t mean I didn’t love my kids, because through all of the ups and downs, I’ve always loved my kids. But outside the walls of my home, I had another awesome life I was enjoying. I lived a second life in which I had endless money, endless opportunities, endless fun, and endless pussy.

  When I returned home to base camp, I could park my car in a safe place and lay in my familiar bed. Being sexually faithful to my wife didn’t even seem like a consideration. Frankly, it wasn’t an option, considering the opportunities being thrown in my face.

  Again, I’m not suggesting for a moment that my actions were justified. I’m explaining the warped vision I had of my marriage.

  Women who chased me were relentless, and they still are today. And at the height of my NHL career, there were herds of these women. At every game I played at Joe Louis Arena, there were women sitting in the stands believing they were going to spend the night with Darren McCarty.

  My watering holes were well established, and the women who wanted me knew where to find me. When I was drinking—and even when I was sober—I was like hunted prey. I was a rich, horny, well-built professional athlete in the prime of my career, and women seemed to love me.

  I fucked women in walk-in coolers, public bathrooms, bar offices, cars, and everywhere else you can imagine. I’m not going to lie about this: it was fun. I felt like I was King of the World. And for some reason the women felt important, too.

  Eventually, I discovered there were women who would fly in to cities to meet me when I took road trips. For example, I had a chick in Chicago; I’d leave her a key to my room when I played the Blackhawks, and after the game she’d be in the room, or in a room of her own if I had a roommate. If they weren’t from the city I was playi
ng in, they’d fly to meet me there. We’d have sex all night and they’d fly out in the morning. It was funny because when I had roommates and would have to meet the chick in her own room, a few times on the plane the next morning my teammates would be talking about how the person in the next room was having sex so loudly and about the headboard banging on the wall all night. They had no idea it was me. I’d just laugh to myself because they had no clue. These women paid for their own airfare and didn’t even want tickets to the game. I kept it very low-key most of the time. It amazes me the lengths women would go to to be able to say they slept with an NHL player. They had to make it very convenient for me or it simply wouldn’t happen. “Convenient and relentless” are the two best words to describe them.

  During my various surgeries, some of these women would even come to the hospital after my wife left to “take care” of me, if you know what I mean. Even tethered to an IV, I was having sex.

  My Detroit teammates were never really sure what was going on because I liked to disappear on the road. I would drop my bag in the room, and then DMac would vanish.

  Guys would joke about me having ninja dust or a Houdini act.

  I would hang with my Detroit teammates for a while, and then I would stray, like an alley cat on the prowl. Kris Draper never liked that I had two sets of friends—my hockey friends and others. Drapes always thought it was my other friends who were getting me in trouble.

  He may have been right, but it was my own doing. I liked to do my own thing, like when I went through my stripper phase.

  As an aside, it’s true what they say about strip clubs having the best food. I have never once had a bad meal at a strip joint.

  I would go to a strip club at 1:00 pm and then stay until 7:00 pm for shift change. I did that to give myself a look at the entire field. Then I would invite two or three of them to a hotel room to take care of business and then I would call taxis to take them wherever they needed to go. Strippers rarely said no to that invitation. Strippers always lined up for the opportunity to go with No. 25.

  This happened once or twice a month. If I was pressed for time, I felt like I could go into a club at 5:00 or 6:00 pm and have enough time to chat up the first-shift women before the next shift arrived. Even when you’re whoring, there are strategies involved.

  Over the course of my career, I slept with many strippers, famous actresses, flight attendants, and even a porn star. When I slept with the porn star, I checked that off my bucket list.

  I even fell in love with one stripper. I was in my early twenties and she was almost 40. She was a stripper that always came out and danced to Frank Sinatra songs. I used to call her “Frankie.” That woman taught me many tricks.

  In 2001 or 2002, my stripper train came to a screeching halt. I was finally taught a lesson when a stripper tried to extort money from me. I would see her regularly to party and have sex. This is when I was heavily into ecstasy. This stripper claimed I knocked her up and she threatened to tell my wife if I didn’t pay her off.

  She said if I gave her the cash she would move away and keep her mouth shut. I knew I was always “safe” sexually with her so I held her off until the child was born. My assistant at the time intervened and called bullshit. She told her she wasn’t getting a dime and threatened her into having a paternity test. The kid wasn’t mine, of course. It was fathered by her husband, who was in on the shakedown scam. I was done with strippers at that point. I burned myself out on that lifestyle.

  Today, you can barely drag me into a strip club. It actually totally turns me off now.

  Over the years I had a few long-term affairs. There was a bartender that I met at a Detroit-area establishment. We had an affair for several years. She eventually married a mutual acquaintance of my first wife and mine. We were ballsy during our affair. She attended parties and gatherings that my wife and I attended, even some at my home. My new wife and I have run into her recently. I told Sheryl who she was and about the affair we had and about how bold we were.

  Sheryl said she wanted to punch her in the mouth for my ex-wife Cheryl’s sake. It felt good to be able to be honest about her.

  It baffles me to think how bold she and I were back then. I just didn’t care. I’m ashamed now, but at the time it seemed exciting.

  I had another long-term relationship with a woman that started during my Grinder days when I was still married. It was near the end of my marriage. I actually moved her in with me after my divorce from Cheryl. She got into pills and alcohol deeply. Ironically, it was at a time when I wasn’t abusing anything. I sent her to rehab and paid the $30,000 rehab program fee for her.

  When I was signed to Calgary we ended our relationship. She came to visit in Calgary once. Then I met Anna, who became my second wife. When I would leave Anna in Calgary and come back to Michigan to visit family I would hook up with this woman time and time again. When I moved back in 2007 to Detroit she and I connected again until 2008.

  She wanted to settle down and have kids. I wanted to party and be free. That’s why I ended it for good.

  It baffled me then, and still does today, that women act foolishly when it comes to being able to “spend time” with a pro athlete. Sheryl is the first woman that handles being with me and dealing with fans without showing fits of jealousy or anger.

  Because of that, I’ve been able to be completely honest with her about my past.

  She and I get a huge kick out of it most times and have good laughs about the actions and lengths some women go to reach out to me. But there is now a line that I have drawn. When the line is crossed, my wife softly reminds the “female fan” with a smile to simply “be respectful.”

  That usually works. It takes excessive behavior for Sheryl to even get to the point where she feels she has to say something. For example, there was a well-dressed woman in her early forties who came barreling through a crowd when I was signing autographs at a festival in Northern Michigan. This woman finally pushed through the crowd of people and reached me. She stood directly in front of me and grabbed my hand and started to push it down her pants, in front of Sheryl. I jerked my hand back when I realized what was happening and screamed, “Get the fuck outta here!”

  Sheryl looked the woman in the eyes and said, “You should be embarrassed, that’s pathetic, stop being desperate, get some class.”

  There was another incident when we were at a local bar during a holiday weekend and I was signing autographs. Keep in mind, my wife is not a drinker. Still, I drag her with me everywhere because I feel like she’s my security blanket. People were coming up to me getting photographs and autographs. The bar was busy and the crowd situation became chaotic. My two friends were handling it. But a woman in her early twenties kept coming up to me and literally dry humping my leg. Whispering in my ear, she was begging me to take her with me. She was telling me over and over the things she wanted to do to me. It was the strangest situation ever. We’d pull her off of me and she’d push through the crowd and grab me again. She continued to gyrate on my leg like a dog in heat. The dirty talk also continued. I pointed to Sheryl (who was only my girlfriend at the time) and told the crazy girl that Sheryl was my wife and that she would kill her if she didn’t go away.

  She replied, “Fuck your wife, I don’t care!”

  I pushed her off my leg and my guy friends grabbed her and put her back into the crowd. Even her friends would come and fetch her. But in a flash she’d be back. I kept motioning for Sheryl, who was sitting a few feet away, to come deal with her because she clearly wasn’t listening to my guy friends.

  Sheryl would just look over and point and laugh, not realizing how serious the situation was becoming, Sheryl would wink and blow kisses just to be a smart ass.

  Finally, about the fifth or sixth time this girl came back, she almost knocked me over along with a few patient fans who had waited respectfully, and I told her to get away from me.

  However,
this time I bellowed it loudly and pushed her off my leg. She came right back like a magnet, forcing her crotch into my leg. Sheryl heard me and realized that I was serious. I turned around and grabbed Sheryl and said, “Either you take care of this crazy bitch or I’m going to!”

  Sheryl pulled the woman off my leg and said, “Sweety, be respectful, people are waiting to meet Darren and you’re embarrassing yourself. Just be respectful.”

  The crazy woman screamed, “Fuck you!” right in Sheryl’s face. Sheryl smiled at her and told her, “Last warning, go away and don’t come back. You’ve had your time, leave him alone.”

  The woman’s friends saw the commotion again and grabbed her and took her away. Literally within 20 seconds the girl came raging back and straight to my leg. The next thing I knew my buddy said “Darren turn around—LOOK!”

  I turned around and saw that Sheryl, who stands 6', had this woman up in the air off her feet by her throat and literally threw her across the bar. She went flying, knocking down tables and chairs and people. Sheryl cleared the bar like a bowling ball knocking down pins. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea.

  The woman’s male friend ran up to Sheryl and grabbed her. I spun around as Sheryl was mid-swing, and grabbed her arm before her fist made contact with his face. I grabbed him by his neck. The bouncers and owner (who is a friend of mine) came and intervened and threw him out. I instructed the owner to throw the girl out too, and that’s exactly what they did.

  Some people have no limits. Some treat me like I’m public property—especially women. It always annoyed me, but at times I’d take advantage of the situation if it involved a really hot crazy chick. Now that I am a committed man, though, it really pisses me off.

  A lady in her late fifties walked by me at a restaurant as I was eating dinner and grabbed a hold of my hair—she literally grabbed a handful and just jerked it. After she jerked my head back she smiled and walked away. Without saying a word, Sheryl got up and walked over to the lady and grabbed her by her arm and made her come apologize to me. She told the lady either she was going to walk over and apologize for grabbing my hair or she was going to get dragged over by her hair to apologize. She explained that I am not public property. The lady apologized and Sheryl let her go.