When you leave rehab, they put on this big graduation ceremony for you. Everyone shows up like it’s high school. Most people are in rehab for a short period of time, but because I’d been there for half a year, all the counsellors and doctors and staff members showed up. That had never happened before. I was the longest-standing resident they had ever had.
All of the characters I met there helped me in some special way. As much as I wanted to push them all away, we became a sort of team. It didn’t matter if we were in there because of heroin, alcohol, overspending, overeating or attempting suicide. We understood each other because we could see that we all had broken pieces. We just needed a little help to find our way to wholeness. I hope I gave them back a fraction of what they gave me.
I stood at the front of the room and talked about everything I had gone through and about how painful the last six months had been. It hurt like hell, but I knew I was a better man for it.
Most patients there dealt with addiction, but I had a bullet in my head. I was crying. I can’t remember everything I said. When I was done, everyone got up—the doctors, the counsellors, the patients—everyone I had dragged through this hell with me. They all stood and clapped and cheered while I cried.
33
On the Outside
BACK ON THE RANCH, BACK IN THE WORLD, MY DAYS NEEDED A routine. I signed up for a regular AA meeting and found a church to go to. Our neighbour was a pastor, so we joined his congregation. I needed to surround myself with good feelings and good friends.
I needed to repair my relationship with Joanie. I’d shattered it to pieces, and it was my responsibility to put it back together again. It will be difficult for people to believe this, but I loved her so much. Even when I hated her, even when I blamed her for putting me into rehab and convinced myself that she was keeping me there—even when I spouted off terrible things that I could never pull back, I loved Joanie so damn much. Still, I’d tried to push her away. Looking back, I guess that’s something I’ve done in a lot of my relationships. But with Joanie, it was gigantic. I was emotionally abusive to her. I was an animal—I mean, off the charts. But that wasn’t me. Or, at least, it wasn’t the real me.
The bearded man who threatened to throw people out of windows in rehab, that angry son of a bitch buried deep inside of me, was gone. I had no intention of letting him return. Now I had to make up for the damage he had caused. Even as we tried to move forward, Joanie blamed herself for a long time. I was always thinking, “Poor me, poor me.” I didn’t even think about how this shit affected her.
Logic told her it wasn’t her fault, but poisonous thoughts haunted her—What could I have done? What did I do? I tried to pull her out of that. Despite everything, Joanie stayed. I owed her my life.
We did our best to get back to living. We redid the tack shed, painted it up and changed some things to make it look more like an old-time saloon. We did a lot of work around the ranch, planting trees and redoing the gardens. I got back on the horses. We had lots of friends over to ride with us and enjoy the ranch. My old happy ways returned.
Joanie and I have the same sense of humour. We were able to look back on a lot of the shit we’d been through and laugh—getting into a fight with those goons at the gym, giving away my clothes in a psych ward, stuff like that. Laughter is a good way to deal with a dark past.
Slowly, life felt good again. We were falling back in love.
Returning to the real world wasn’t easy. Getting back into a daily routine, adjusting to social settings, trying to deal with the pressures of finding work—it was overwhelming.
My biggest worry in rehab wasn’t that I wouldn’t be able to quit drinking or get control of my disease. It was that I’d never get my job back. There was a very real possibility that I might never work in the NHL again. It was the main anxiety I faced while cooped up in rehab. The NHLPA said the deal was that I had to stay in rehab if I wanted to keep my job. If I left before I was ready, I was done. But I knew it would all go to shit anyway.
The Blue Jackets had told me there was a job waiting for me when I got back. But in my mind, I’d been thinking, You think this is my first time in the NHL? I know how this works.
When I got out of rehab, I got in touch with Scott Howson, the general manager in Columbus, and said, “Look, I’m out. You know, I’d really like to get back in the saddle.” He said exactly what I thought he’d say. “We’re just going to keep it status quo for the time being. We’re going to the playoffs. We don’t want to make another change.”
I wasn’t surprised at how it turned out. And I really wasn’t angry about it. The Blue Jackets had been very good to me. Scott was incredibly supportive, and I owe him a lot. I’m sure he really meant what he said at the time, but I knew my job was gone.
Scott said, “At the end of the season, we’re definitely interested, but we’re just going to wait and see. We’ll talk in a couple weeks.” A couple weeks went by, and he hadn’t called. I’d heard the rumblings that they’d let Steve Mason have his old goalie coach come and work with him. So I called him back. When we finally connected, Scott let me down easy. It wasn’t a knock on me or my skills, he said. “Mase really likes you, but you haven’t worked with him that much …”
My history spoke for itself. I’d worked with Luongo and Leclaire and had all kinds of success with them, but nothing is guaranteed when you coach in the NHL, especially when you’re a goalie coach. I hadn’t worked with Mason all year. Understandably, I was a tough sell. “Listen, we’re going to talk to Mason’s goalie coach at the combine in Toronto,” Scott said. “We’re going to offer him the job, but if he doesn’t take it, we’re coming right back to you.”
“Yeah, I figured that,” I said. “I knew that.”
Scott was kind of shocked. “How did you know that?”
“Listen, Scott,” I said. “I don’t want to go into detail, but I knew I didn’t have a chance to work with Mason much and build a rapport. Didn’t get a chance to put my stamp on him like I did with Leclaire and Luongo.”
I think that kind of made him feel better. Columbus was great through everything. I’ll never say a bad thing about the organization. Gary Agnew, one of the coaches, was particularly supportive through everything, and I owe him and the rest of that Blue Jackets staff a lot of gratitude.
That fall was difficult. I’d only been out of rehab a few months, and the anniversary of the shooting was coming up quickly in October. Any opportunities in the hockey world were fading fast at that point. I sat there on my ranch, staring at the mountains, thinking I’d still be sitting there when there was snow on them. Boy, did I screw my life up, I thought. Usually in September, I was off at training camp. I’d be going back and forth between the ranch and Columbus, Florida or whichever team needed my help. But here I was, an NHL goalie coach with a great track record, and I couldn’t even get an interview.
Money was a problem. Thankfully, the NHLPA had taken care of most of our bills while I was in rehab, but now I was closing in on a year without a steady paycheque. The horse dentistry brought in some money, but nowhere near what we’d need to get by.
And I could tell I was drifting back into depression—I was much more aware of where my mind was heading now than I was before rehab.
Depression was so common in my life at this point that it felt like the return of an old friend you’ve been trying to ditch because he’s a bum, but he keeps coming back again. Look, we’ve all been sad, we’ve all been blue, lost a job—whatever. But to get to that clinically depressed state is something that’s hard to describe. If you’ve felt it, you’ve felt it.
I carried depression throughout my life. It affected my ability to play hockey, it affected my marriages and it affected friendships. It took a long time to realize that it was a disease related to a chemical imbalance in my brain. Even when I was told that, it was hard to really comprehend. You feel weak—like a failure. The world outside your mind doesn’t understand what’s going on inside you. You don’t under
stand it, either, so you’re screwed.
Physical pain doesn’t destroy me. I can take a broken leg—my pain tolerance is extremely high in that sense. When I was in the worst of the worst of my depression and anxiety, I’d pray to God, Bust my leg—a compound fracture. I can take that. I can’t take this. When I had back surgery, I practically crawled into the hospital—it was the most excruciating pain. I’d take that any day over the torment and anguish of depression.
What kept me going as a kid was being able to put all my energy into hockey. Hockey, hockey, hockey—all day, every day, into the night. You can’t be sad on the ice. You just play the game and make that your life. When I look back on my career, I can’t help but think about how much better I could have been if I had had control of my depression and OCD.
Maybe I don’t give myself enough credit for what I accomplished in the NHL. But in my heart of hearts, I really believe that my mental condition ended my career. I was a good goalie. I could have been great.
This all swirled through my mind as I sat back at my ranch, staring at the mountains, waiting for the season to change.
I was healthy. I wasn’t chasing demons anymore. It was under control now. I understood my medication, which I was taking in properly regulated doses. And I understood my mind better than I ever had before. I could control my moods and sense when things were starting to go awry. Still, it was hard to convince people that my ship could still sail after everyone had watched it sink.
I didn’t know if I’d ever be invited back into the NHL fraternity. Maybe I’d gone too far to come home again. There was still such a stigma around mental illness. On the surface, I’d received a lot of support. I knew my close friends, like Rick Dudley, would never turn their backs on me. But there was an asterisk beside my name now; the footnote read “crazy.” My reputation brought to mind words like unpredictable, uncontrollable, uncooperative, unhinged—unemployable. Who the hell hires crazy?
The bills piled up. It would take a while to rebuild my equine dentistry clientele. And even if Joanie and I could get that back off the ground, it likely wouldn’t pay enough to get us out of the hole. And my heart was in hockey. It was the only place I ever belonged, but now it had no place for me.
The first anniversary of the shooting was difficult. I tried to make October 7 blend into the rest of the month by keeping myself busy. It wasn’t a significant day—just a terrible one that I wanted to forget. But for a week and a half, Joanie kept saying that we’d have to do something on Wednesday. It was like she’d marked the date in her head. A lot of the details remained hazy for me. But not for Joanie—she’s the one who saw everything. I just did it and was unconscious. She saw the shit go down. Joanie will never be able to wipe away that stain.
I understood that, but she also marked it in the calendar. I didn’t think it was a good thing to do. Maybe it was still the “get knocked off, you get back on” mentality, but I really didn’t want to dwell on it. I don’t think the body and mind are connected through a date. I needed to guard and monitor myself against revisiting that dark time. I was aware that it could hit me anytime—maybe that day, maybe in three weeks. It was impossible to know, especially with me.
We decided to just get out of the house that day—maybe go to a movie. I’d seen the trailer for that zombie movie with Woody Harrelson. It looked good. Or maybe, I suggested, we’d just go out for a hamburger.
Figuratively, I wanted to get back on the horse and move on, and stop letting the past seep back into our lives. What better way than to literally get in the saddle—like the time, soon after, when I rode naked around the ranch, getting my pasty-white ass cheeks burned in the desert sun. I sent pictures to my buddies—I’m sure I sent one to Chris Reichart and Dean Kennedy, my old friends from the Sabres days. I know for sure that Duds has seen my full-moon riding. I posted one to Coleman, too. Naked ranching is the kind of activity that tells the world you’re back and riding free. The cowboy goalie had returned—even if that bucking bronco was about to knock my naked ass back to the dirt.
34
Relapse
A YEAR WENT BY WITHOUT HOCKEY. NO JOBS, NO CONSULTING gigs, nothing. I’d watch games and see what all these guys were doing wrong—it was infuriating. I needed another chance to prove myself. Still, all season, nobody in the hockey world so much as looked my way. So I went heavy into horses, trying to scrape out my living with the dentistry thing.
An opportunity came up that took me to upstate New York to work with the horses of a few high-profile people, like Martha Stewart and Calvin Klein. It had been arranged as a kind of test gig by this vet from Florida I’d been connected with. I flew all the way to New York from Nevada. The vet from Florida liked the work I did, so she invited me to come down to Florida to work with her. She said they’d provide an apartment and everything. So I made the trip in my silver pickup truck from Nevada.
When I got to Florida, some of the Ottawa Senators staff happened to be on a southern scouting trip, and I connected with them. Pascal Leclaire, my goalie in Columbus, was now playing for the Senators, and we’d kept in touch. Bryan Murray, my old coach in Washington, was Ottawa’s general manger. The team was looking for a new goalie coach. It was the perfect situation.
We set up a meeting between me, Murray and the entire coaching staff at the hotel the Senators staff were staying at. It went very well. They seemed eager to hire me.
Meanwhile, the dentistry job fell apart. When I got to the vet’s place, she showed me the apartment I was supposed to stay in. It was this little room above the barn. It was absolutely disgusting—piss on the sheets and bed, mouse shit everywhere. It took me five days of driving across the States to get to this hole? Screw that. I got in my truck and drove home, hoping that my phone would ring and the Senators would offer me the job.
A few days went by. Nothing. A couple more. Nothing. A week. Nothing. Another week. Still nothing. I started to get stressed out. I followed up with the Senators but still didn’t hear back from Bryan. The anxiety of being so close to this job started to build. My head started to race again, and I needed to keep things in check. One night, I went to my regular AA meeting. I’d go to several a week; I’d been really good about attending since I got out of rehab.
But that day, when the meeting was over, my anxiety was still there. I couldn’t shake it. On the drive home, I called Joanie and told her I was going to grab a coffee with a couple of the guys from AA. Then I pulled into a bar called French. I had a few beers. And then a few more. I was alone.
Joanie phoned several times, but I just let it go to voice mail. “Where are you?” she asked. “It’s been two hours.”
What made me drink? Well, what didn’t? There was the guilt that I felt over screwing up and losing my job in the first place. Or my NHL exile. Or my disappearing bank balance—I used to be an NHL hockey player, and here I was, flat broke. Or the shooting itself, and how the world viewed me now: as just another breathing disaster waiting to implode.
So yeah, I downed my drink and had the bartender pour me another.
I left the bar in my Dodge pickup with the Canuck Ranch logo on it. A few minutes on the road, and red lights filled my rearview mirror. Shit!
The cop said I was weaving across the road. He gave me a Breathalyzer test. I blew high—really high. Double the legal limit. The cop put me in the back of his cruiser and took me to the local jail.
The officer who booked me at the local did horseshoeing on the side, so we knew each other. “Clint, I wish I could do something,” he said. But there was nothing he could do—nothing he should do. I was busted. I had messed up. After spending six months getting my life back together, I threw it all away in one night. I had all the tools, but I still couldn’t stop myself.
They kept me in the cell overnight. I cried all night in that damn jail. I’d ruined everything. The local paper caught wind of the story, and the Associated Press picked it up. By morning, news of the DUI was everywhere.
Bryan Murray called
me. He had read about it in the Ottawa papers and asked if it was true. The Senators were going to hire me, but now there was no way they could. It was too much of a shitstorm.
“I understand, Bryan,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
I was so pissed off at myself. I was so close, and then I screwed it all up with my stupid binge. It wasn’t just the Senators job; now everyone would assume I was a loose cannon. I felt like hope was completely gone. I think it’s important for people to know that recovery is a battle. Sometimes you lose, but you have to keep fighting.
Once again, thank God for Rick Dudley. After Joanie and her wonderful parents, Duds had been the first friend to visit me in rehab. And just as he had done many times before, he came through when I needed him most. He called me during the summer of 2010. Duds always said there wasn’t a situation a player could face that I couldn’t relate to. As shitty as everything I had gone through had been, it had made me a good coach. Rick knew that.
By this time, he was the associate general manager of the Atlanta Thrashers, back with Don Waddell. The guys who had given me a chance in San Diego almost two decades earlier, when I lost my goaltending spot in the NHL, gave me another chance to return. The circle seemed complete.
“Are you ready?” he asked. “Can you do it?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m ready.”
Atlanta was an important opportunity for me. The Thrashers gave me a fresh start in the NHL. It was a contract under which I was supposed to be with the team for two weeks at a time, but I’d often stay for the whole month. I loved being around the team. Our staff was great. The team’s strength coach, Barry Brennan, let me stay at his condo. He and I had worked together with the Columbus Blue Jackets. It was nice to actually stay with a friend instead of living out of a hotel. Craig Ramsay was the Thrashers’ head coach—he was a great guy to work with. My goalies were veteran Chris Mason, whom I’d had in Florida, and young Ondrej Pavelec, who reminded me a lot of Pascal Leclaire. He was such a nice kid.
The Crazy Game Page 24