Theoren Fleury - Playing with Fire: The Highest Highs and Lowest Lows of Theo Fleury

I REMEMBER the first time I noticed Theo. He was 19 years old, and he had just jumped on the back of one of my L.A. teammates, Ken Baumgartner, to keep him away from Tim Hunter, one of Calgarys enforcers. I couldnt believe it. Theo was almost a foot shorter than Ken, and he seemed oblivious to the fact that he was about to be murdered. I skated out and grabbed Theo by his jersey and threw him back on the bench. The kid had no fear. We played together for Team Canada several times over the years and I was always amazed at how he was a force at crucial times. He truly was a big-game player.

When it came time to choose a team for the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake, I wanted Theo there. Nobody came through in a big game like he did. I played against him when he led the Flames in the mid-90s. At five foot six and 150 pounds, he played at twice that size.

In 2002, the world saw our Canadian team as having too much of an advantage. We had too much talent; they thought it wasnt fair. I knew that Theo represented who we really were, a team that deserved to win, not because we were lucky, but because we worked harder than anyone else. When Roman Hamrlk cross-checked Theo in front of the Czech goal and it wasnt called, it really woke us upand the rest is history.

Today, Theo and I are still friends. We catch up every once in a while and talk about our battles and triumphs with both Team Canada and the NHL.

I want to wish him luck with this book, and I know that I, for one, will be reading it.

Wayne Gretzky

L UCKY . Everyone but me thought I was lucky. I had built a fifteen-year career on speed, skill and fearlessness. From a World Cup in junior, to an NHL Stanley Cup, through Team Canada and an Olympic gold medal to a guy way overweight, speed gone and full of rage.

When I was younger, playing with the Flames, if you hit me I was a rubber ballId come back harder and fasterbut now I was dangerous. Touch me and I would kill you.

What took me down was rage. Rage fuelled by drugs, alcohol and relationships. I had two exes and three great kids back home in Canada, and I lived in this fantastic mansion on two acres in the middle of the desert, yet I wanted to die. I went on a three-month bender. Just me and mounds of cocaine. I would run out into the desert at night and scream at the trees. At the end of the three months, I was just fuckin crazy. Could not stop doing drugs, could not stop drinkin, could not stop partyin.

I blamed God. I was so pissed off with Him. All my life, I had bought into what Father Paul had told me when I was an altar boy: Dont worry. God will give you only what you can handle, no more. Nobody could handle all the guilt, self-hate and dark secrets I had.

It was a beautiful dawn, and I ran out into the middle of the scrub, screaming at the universe, Fuck you, fuckin asshole-son-of-a-bitch.Ive had enough. I cant take it anymore. Dont give me any more shit! I was delirious. I had been up for weeks.

I ran back to the house and jumped into my pearl-coloured Cadillac Escalade and booted it to town. I stopped at the first pawnshop I came to, pulled out everything I had in my pockets and slapped it on the counter. About five grand in cash. The owner handed me a gun and one bullet.

I drove home, laid the gun and the bullet on the glass coffee table in front of the couch. Then I grabbed one of about ten bottles of lemon Stoli from the freezer and sat there swigging. I was trying to build enough courage to load the fucker. Night came.

I hated night because of everything I had been through in the dark. I remembered the weird, eerie feelings. Night was the reason I stayed out and partied until the sun came up. Then I could pass out and not have to relive one moment of my miserable fucking existence.

At 2 a.m., I reached over, picked up the gun, loaded it, flipped the safety off and put the barrel in my mouth with my finger shaky on the trigger. I sat there forever, shivering so hard the barrel was bouncing off my teeth. How did it taste? It tasted lonely. Cold, lonely and black.

A small, sane part of me said, Dont do it, dont do it, dont do it, itll get better. But I fought that voice off. Fuck this shit, its not going to get any better. The battle in my head went on and on.

In one quick movement, I threw the gun down on the floor. I did a couple of lines, took another shot of Stoli, and that mellowed me out a little. I remembered being at an AA meeting in Malibu on a Sunday morning just a few months earlier. A guy with sixteen years of sobriety got up and said eight wordsYou are only as sick as your secretsand then left the podium.

I had to make some changes in that direction in order to survive. I picked up the gun, ran outside and chucked it into the desert.

I think that people need to understand why. What it was that made me do what I did. I knew I was crazy, and so did everyone else.Theos in chaos all the time. Hes outta control, outta control. A fifty-million-dollar career gone up my nose, down my throat and into the hands of the casino owners across the country.

When I was with the New York Rangers in 2001, I had thirteen dirty tests in a row, but I was leading the NHL in scoring. So what were they going to do? I was putting Gatorade in the tests. And although he didnt know it, my baby Beaux was peeing for me too. The NHL doctors kept warning me, Another dirty test and were taking you out. So what did I do? Cmon, Ive never followed a rule in my life.

At the time, the Rangers were writing me yearly cheques for eight million bucks, so Id be surprised if they werent having me followed. I could feel these guys in the shadows, and once in a while, out of the corner of my eye, Id catch someone zipping across the street when I turned my head.

I didnt hang out on the surface with your average Joe. I would go five, six, seven, eight levels below the streets of New York City and party with freaks, transvestites, strippers and all kinds of shady people. On a typical game night, Id walk home dressed in my custom-made suit from Giovannis in Montreal with three or four bottles of wine. Then Id head for the Chelsea Piers, where 23rd Street meets the Hudson River, and hang out with homeless guys around a burn barrel for the rest of the night. I would ask them how they got thereIve always been interested in that kind of stuff.

The Rangers must have been shitting bricks. I dont blame the team for coercing me into the NHL Substance Abuse Program in 2002. Im sure they could see the headlines: NHL Superstar Found Dead in Alley. Twenty-eight days after entering treatment, I was sober and stayed that way for about ten or eleven months. But I was completely insane, totally out of my mind, a dry drunk. White-knuckling it. I was told if I drank again I would be out on my ass. Did I believe them? I dont know. I know I switched addictions. I started going to the casino every day. That year, I kissed three million bucksand my marriagegoodbye.

Just before I signed with the Chicago Blackhawks, I started hanging out in strip joints. Strippers were like medamaged. It was one-stop shoppingsex, drugs and booze, all under one roof. Grease the bouncer at the front door, next thing you know, youve got an ounce of fucking blow. Partys on.

A year later, I was in the gym, doing cardio on the bike at the end of my workout. About halfway through, I looked up in the mirror. My right cheekbone was still shattered from a puck, and it hurt like hell. I stopped pedalling and said, This sucks. I hate working out. I hate my life. I hate the game. I cant do this anymore. I walked out, and I didnt even phone the Blackhawks to tell them that I wasnt coming back.