The Crazy Game

by Clint Malarchuk

  At least, that was the story we told to disguise the truth. John Butsch, our team doctor, told the press I’d had a reaction to my pain medication triggered by the beers. That was true—so far as it went. The whole truth is much more complicated.

  We did go to the Super Bowl party. I did have a few beers with the boys. And I did my best to act normally, but I was out of my mind with anxiety. One of my teammates complimented my wife’s body—he said something to me about how good she looked. Later, I saw him hovering over her. And then they were gone. I searched all over for them. He was gone and she was gone.

  I didn’t actually see him screwing her. But in my mind … I don’t know, I just thought, I’m not stupid. I didn’t really know whether anything happened between them, but I sure thought it did. She was gone for a while. When I finally found her, I was furious. What the hell was that? You’re gone for an hour? He’s gone for an hour? And he’s telling me how hot you are? I was so upset. It was still early in the evening, and we were the first to leave the party. Whether it was justified or not, I don’t know. We went home and had a massive fight. I was so pissed off at her. I wasn’t being rational. I was seeing things in my head—my wife and my teammate—and I couldn’t make them go away. It was anger and rage and frustration and fear, all twisting and turning inside of me. It was exhaustion. And I was hurt and angry—feeling mean. You bitch. You goddamn bitch …

  I opened a bottle of whiskey and drank it all. The label on the pain medication said not to take the pills with alcohol because it would cause drowsiness. I thought, Fuck it. I’m going to sleep tonight. And I don’t care if I wake up, either. I had thought about suicide before, but I don’t know that I wanted to kill myself that night. Maybe I didn’t care if I did. But I just wanted to sleep, because I hadn’t slept in so long.

  I swallowed a handful of pills. It’s all blurry; a crazy haze. I just remember wanting to close my eyes and make it all go away.

  A few minutes later, I collapsed on the bedroom floor.

  My wife screamed.

  My heart stopped beating.

  There were shadows in the bright lights—people watching over me. I thought I was dead, but then I blinked a few times and the world came into focus. Nurses. Doctors. Hospital. I tasted charcoal. A sharp, constant pain in my chest. Shit. Couldn’t close my mouth because there were tubes shoved down my nose and throat. They hurt a lot. My arm was stabbed with an IV and I was hooked up to some weird machines. I threw up several times.

  My wife had saved my life. She was a flight attendant and knew CPR. She pounded on my chest and gave me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation until the paramedics got to our house and stabilized me.

  I woke up at Erie County Medical Center. Doctors kept asking me if this was a suicide attempt, and I kept saying no. That’s when I told them I hadn’t slept in days and that my mind was all over the map. One of the doctors I spoke with said it sounded like I had obsessive-compulsive disorder.

  The story was buried in the papers as a minor injury brief. On January 28, the Toronto Star published a short paragraph between the news that my teammate Pat LaFontaine had been named NHL player of the week and an item saying that Wayne Gretzky had agreed to be part of a strike if the NHL Players’ Association voted for one.

  Malarchuk in hospital: Buffalo Sabres goalie Clint Malarchuk was sent to hospital yesterday because of an alcohol-related reaction to pain medication. Malarchuk drank alcohol Sunday, which reacted with pain medication he had been taking, team doctor John Butsch said. His condition is not serious.

  I was in the hospital for four or five days. A psychiatrist evaluated me and officially diagnosed me with obsessive-compulsive disorder and depression. “You’re going through some shit, son,” he said. It was the first time the chaos inside me was given a label. We discussed my depression but focused on treating the OCD because it appeared to be the catalyst for my anxiety. He gave me medication and set me up with a psychologist in Rochester whom I’d have to meet with once a week.

  I went back to the team shortly after being released from the hospital. It was uncomfortable. Really uncomfortable. I’d tried so hard to hide my problems. Most guys in the dressing room were completely shocked by what had happened. They knew how upset I was at the party and they quickly found out about the pills. Clint Malarchuk? The dressing-room joker? The game-day monk? The guy who played after getting his jugular sliced? No way. I was the last guy that they imagined this could happen to. I felt exposed. Like all my deepest, darkest shit was just hanging in my stall behind me.

  The press wasn’t satisfied with our story. They seemed to think Dr. Butsch’s narrative was too tidy and they wanted more details. I explained that I’d been having trouble sleeping, and after having three or four beers at the party, I went home and tried to concoct my own sleeping potion by mixing my pain medication with more alcohol. They didn’t know that my heart had stopped. They only knew that I had knocked myself out and woken up in the hospital. But they could see how uncomfortable I was as I tried to answer their questions. “His voice quavered, his forehead sweated, he had a pained expression as he spoke,” wrote the Associated Press. I worried that the incident would mar my character. I’d been very active in the community in Buffalo over the past few years, something I always prided myself on as a pro athlete. I believe players have an obligation to the fans who make their dreams possible.

  “I think I established myself as a real community man and a pretty big role model to a lot of kids,” I told the scrum that day. “And I think anytime you’re that, you don’t want to be involved in anything with drugs or alcohol. And there’s no way I’m a drinker. In fact, it was probably the first time I drank this season.” Honestly, it was. I always stayed away from booze during the season.

  My first game back was on February 11. We lost 5–1 to Hartford. Three days later, I played poorly and was pulled in a 7–6 win over the San Jose Sharks. During the same west coast road trip, I left the Sabres to deal with a child custody issue from my first marriage. The added stress of that situation compounded my mental state. The departure also raised speculation in the press that my days in Buffalo were numbered. At the time, there was buzz that the Sabres were looking for a new goalie. Puppa wasn’t playing very well and speculation about my personal problems made it seem like I was an unstable alternative.

  The team’s spin about my reaction to the pain medication did little to stop the stories from spreading around the league. Everyone believed I had overdosed on drugs or booze. I knew other players were whispering about what happened. Only a few knew how bad it really was. I certainly wasn’t going to tell the world that I basically did myself in by draining a bottle of whiskey and taking a handful of pills. I couldn’t have that in print, on the record, for everyone to see. It means you’re a coward. That you took the easy way out. That’s what I thought at the time, because I still barely understood the reality of depression and anxiety. I’d spent my life battling mental illness without knowing it. I was screwed up without knowing how screwed up. More than anything, I was confused by what I had done to myself. I hadn’t made a conscious, drawn-out decision to commit suicide. I’d fought away those thoughts in the past and had never taken it this far. I certainly hadn’t planned anything. But on the other hand, why would you take a handful of pills and drink a bottle of whiskey? Why would I do that to myself? It was so confusing. It’s hard to explain. Anyone who has been clinically depressed—not just blue or sad—will understand what I’m trying to say.

  I wasn’t going to tell the whole truth. But I also didn’t want to be known as some sort of addict. I really wasn’t a substance-abuse guy back then. This was just the beginning of my self-medicating with alcohol. I drank with the boys, sure, but I worked too hard to let a good time affect my game. I was too obsessed with playing well to let that happen. And I wasn’t some druggy or someone taking Oxycontin all the time. I’d never used drugs, never even tried marijuana. I didn’t hang out with that kind of crowd. I was around it, sure, but playe
rs were very discreet with that shit. I didn’t want anything to do with it. It was so important to me that people knew I wouldn’t mess everything up with drugs or alcohol. I’d rather be known as mental-fucking-kooky.

  So after a couple of weeks, I went public about being diagnosed with OCD. I told reporters I’d seen a psychiatrist and a psychologist who had diagnosed me. I stuck with the same story Dr. Butsch had told about the bad reaction to my pain medication and gave a bit of context to some of the stuff I was going through. My anxiety had gotten the best of me, and I finally had a name for something I struggled with my entire life.

  “It just now got to the point where it was severe,” I told the press. “It’s under control now, though … I feel good and I know I’m getting better. The doctors think I should be able to resume my career very soon.”

  It was scary. But then all kinds of people wrote in to the Sabres and thanked me for speaking about this publicly. It felt good to know that others felt the same way I did and that I’d managed to help them in some way by sharing my struggle.

  But it wasn’t even close to being done.

  The Sabres sent me down to Rochester in the American Hockey League on a conditioning stint. The doctor I was seeing there had me on Prozac. I remember thinking I was cured, or at least hoping I was. I just wanted to get back on the ice and leave everything behind me.

  When you’re messed up like that, you can’t tell if you’re feeling good or not. How do you know what normal feels like? Prozac made me shake. It didn’t work very well, but I kept thinking, I’m on this drug—I must be okay. I have to be okay. I’m seeing this doctor. I’m getting help. But it really wasn’t helping. Eventually, the doctor in Rochester switched me to another drug called Haldol, which is an antipsychotic. It made me feel like a zombie.

  We played the Binghamton Rangers in my first game down in the AHL. I shut them out and the fans were chanting my name. I wasn’t healthy yet, but I came back strong between the pipes—regardless of what was going on in my head, I could still play the game.

  The Binghamton players laughed at me every time I skated by their bench—”Hey, you crazy fucker, take another pill.” I was aggressive all game; I chopped guys and I pushed guys. It was pure rage. Near the end of the third, when we were up 2–0, one of the Rangers forwards chirped me during a stoppage in play: “You need a happy pill to make you feel good?” The game was pretty much over and we were going to win anyway. So I thought, You don’t know the hell I’ve been through. I took off my mask and my mitts and set everything on top of the net. Then I turned around and pummelled him. I kicked his ass all over the ice. It started a line brawl. When the linesman had us tied up, another of the Binghamton players said something about being crazy. I don’t know who it was, but I threw a right hand over the linesman and knocked him on his ass.

  I got a shutout, was the game’s first star and started a line brawl in my return. I was really proud of that game. Afterwards, I saw Binghamton’s goalie, Mark LaForest, in the hallway. Mark was a veteran, too, and we’d played each other many times when he was with the Detroit Red Wings. I pummelled him in a line brawl when I was with the Nordiques. They called him Trees; he was a great guy. During the brawl, he stood at his blue line but didn’t come after me. Goalies usually square off in these kinds of things. “Trees, why didn’t you come down to fight?” I asked him. “Why’d you stop at the blue line?”

  He just started laughing. “I just came down to make it look good,” he said. “There was no way I was fighting you again.”

  I played one more game in the minors before returning to the Sabres’ lineup. I felt confident because I’d played well and defended myself—I beat that dumbass. I smoked him. Obviously, I wasn’t well. But, you know, that’s hockey.

  My first game back with the Sabres was in Quebec City, where it all began. It was April 14, the second-to-last game of the regular season.

  It was the last game I would play in the NHL.

  I was anxious before the puck dropped. I was glad to be back but very nervous. That season, the Nordiques had guys like Joe Sakic, Mats Sundin and Owen Nolan.

  During a Nordiques rush, the puck came into our zone and Herb Raglan came barrelling in after it. I went out chasing the puck, and this guy went down on his knees and slid through me. I tried to jump over him, but he clipped me at the knees and I went up and over him. I landed right on my head and almost broke my neck. My legs hyperextended over top of me. I was down for a moment and Jim Pizzutelli, the trainer, came running out onto the ice thinking I might be paralyzed. Just as he got to me, I picked myself up and shouted, “You motherfucker!” Jim thought I was yelling at him. He saw the rage in my eyes. I was just looking around for anyone to pummel, so I pushed past Jim and went after the first guy I saw. I dropped my gloves and started throwing bombs. I didn’t really care who it was, but it turned out to be Joe Sakic—the twenty-three-year-old future Hall of Famer that the Nordiques selected with the draft pick they exchanged for me and Dale Hunter. He was nowhere near the play when it happened. I’d just attacked Quebec’s superstar. “It wasn’t me!” he shouted as a linesman grabbed hold of me.

  The game got rough after that. There was a line brawl, and a Nordiques fan jumped into our bench and Rob Ray drilled him about twenty times. Quebec lit us up 7–3. I didn’t play terribly (five of their goals were on the power play), but I wasn’t spectacular, either.

  Afterwards, the Nordiques fans wanted blood. They were mad at me for going after Sakic, and at Ray for going after one of them. They surrounded our bus and rocked it back and forth as the driver tried to pull away without killing anyone. It felt like they were going to tip it over.

  After a terrible start that cost Rick Dudley his job, we finished third in the Adams Division and faced Boston in the first round. I ended the season with twenty-nine games played and a 3.73 goals-against average. The Sabres called up rookie goalie Tom Draper in the playoffs and played him ahead of Puppa and me. He played very well, but we lost in seven games.

  It was clear that I was on the way out of Buffalo. In June, the NHL held an expansion draft to stock the new teams in Ottawa and Tampa Bay, and the Sabres left me off their protected list. I was the most experienced goalie on the market, with 338 games played, a 3.47 career goals-against average and twelve shutouts, but I wasn’t one of the four goalies chosen. The Ottawa Senators chose Peter Sidorkiewicz and Mark LaForest—Trees hadn’t played in the NHL since 1989–90. Tampa Bay took Wendell Young and Fred Chabot (who was traded back to Montreal). I didn’t mind at the time because I still hoped to stick with the Sabres. But in August, the Sabres picked up Dominik Hasek from Chicago. He would go on to do quite a few noteworthy things in Buffalo. We didn’t interact much—we only really crossed paths in training camp.

  I drank a lot that summer. When I returned to Buffalo for training camp, I was terrible. I was known for doing well in the pre-season because I always showed up in shape and ready to play. I was hoping to do well in camp, but my head wasn’t right. I was a step behind, and everyone knew it. Buffalo put me on waivers before the season started, but no team picked me up. Before one of the practices near the end of training camp, John Muckler, who had taken over as our coach when Rick Dudley was fired a third of the way into the 1991–92 season, called me into his office. I sat down. John was always a straightforward guy. He looked me in the eye and said, “Clint, I think you can still play in the NHL. But not for us.”

  I didn’t say anything. I was broken, but I was impressed with his honesty.

  “You’ve got two options,” John said. “Rick Dudley wants you down in San Diego, in the IHL. And the Canadian Olympic team would like you to play for them.”

  For the first time in my life, hockey wasn’t the most important thing. My problems had consumed me. I couldn’t do the Olympic thing, because I’d be in Europe all the time and I wanted to be able to see my daughter, Kelli. Meanwhile, I still had a good relationship with Dudley. It was the only option left.

  I packed
my bags and went west.

  17

  Can’t Do This

  THE SAN DIEGO GULLS WERE MADE UP OF A BUNCH OF FORMER pros who had found themselves on the last legs of their professional careers for some reason or another. At the time, the American Hockey League, with sixteen teams, was the primary development league for the NHL. Buffalo’s main farm team, the Rochester Americans, were in the AHL, for example. The International Hockey League, in which San Diego played, was a mix of NHL farm teams and independents. We were in the latter category, and we had a stacked team with a few ex-Sabres, including Lindy Ruff, Scott Arniel and Dale DeGray. Rick Knickle and I shared the goaltending duties. The Sabres picked up most of my $230,000 salary.

  Several articles were written about my condition when I arrived in San Diego. It was a novelty to have an athlete talking about this kind of stuff. After getting over my initial fears, I was okay with sharing. I framed the move to San Diego as a positive development. “It’s great weather, always sunny after all those gloomy winter days in Buffalo,” I said. “My health has come a long way. You have your good and bad days.”

  But I was just as screwed up in San Diego as I had been in Buffalo. I remember thinking, I’m on this medication now. I must be doing better. I’d seen all these doctors. They’d put me on Prozac and then switched me off it because it made me shake. They’d put me on this other stuff, called Haldol, and then one called Orap, which is like a tranquilizer. You’re hoping and thinking you’re doing better, and believing maybe you are. But you don’t know because you’ve been screwed up in the head so long. You’ve got nothing to measure your state of mind against. It didn’t seem the drugs were working, because I wanted to sleep all day. I’d lock myself in our bedroom and wouldn’t leave unless I was going to the rink. I didn’t leave the house. I hardly left my room. I cried constantly.