A HOCKEY PLAYER AND HIS DEMONS

Theoren Fleury has experienced the unbelievable highs of being an Olympic Gold medallist with the Canadian Olympic Team and a Stanley Cup Champion in 1989 with the Calgary Flames. He also won a gold medal with the Canadian Junior team while being named an all star. In his NHL career he played 1084 games scoring 455 goals and had 633 assists. Known as the consummate agitator even though slight in stature, he totalled 1,840 penalty minutes, which works out to more than 30 games spent in the “sin bin”. He also was chosen to play in the NHL’s All Star game a total of seven times.

Quite a career for a hockey player who came from humble beginnings as an Aboriginal Native Canadian in Northern Manitoba Canada to reach the top of his professional career.

However, throughout, Fleury struggled and battled with an alcohol and drug problem. Some of his difficulties may have been the result of his up bringing and there were also rumours that his Junior Coach, Graham James who was convicted as a sexual predator, may have sexually abused him. To this day Fleury has remained silent on that issue.

He has maintained that the easy part of his life was when he was playing hockey. The rest of the time he had no self-respect and was on a downhill slide to complete personal destruction. His demonic alcohol addiction eventually twice led him astray of the league’s substance abuse policy and a subsequent six months suspension. Another suspension the next year while with the Chicago Black Hawks led to his being barred from the NHL. He maintains the policies used by the NHL during his difficulties were inefficient and so impersonal and callous that he really received no substantial help at all.

Where is Theoren Fleury today? He is playing professional hockey in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Belfast is as far in miles from North America as the calibre of hockey he now plays is from the hockey played in the NHL. This is definitely the twilight of his career, but he remains sober and plays with the same intensity for The Belfast Giants that enthralled and won over many fans during his time in “the show”. While he winds up his playing days, Fleury makes plans to return with his wife to his home town in Canada next summer and complete a personal full circle of both exciting and painfully trying times.

JAMES PAUL “SPORTY” SPN CORRESPONDENT

SPORTS PLAYER NETWORK (SPN)

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