JULY 1, Canada Day, is the start of hockey’s fiscal year, which means the beginning of free-agent season. I had turned 31 two days earlier. I was in my prime, I was considered one of the biggest prizes in hockey and I could pick and choose. I’d played 15 games before the end of the season for the Avalanche and scored 10 goals and 14 assists, then another 5 goals and 12 assists for 17 points in 18 playoff games.
I had given the Flames my heart and soul, and they had rewarded me by making me one of the lowest-paid franchise players in the league. Salary-wise, I didn’t even crack the top fifty. Detroit’s Sergei Fedorov was number one, at $14 million, and he scored 63 points in 1998–99. He was on a team with Steve Yzerman, who was paid $4. 8 million with 74 points, and Larry Murphy, who made $3 million with 52. That same season, I had 93 points in the regular season on a $2.4 million contract.
The New York Rangers had made it clear to the media that they wanted me, and that felt good. The Rangers’ general manager, Neil Smith, and Dave Checketts, the president of Madison Square Garden, flew to Winnipeg on the team’s private jet to negotiate with Baizley on the very first day of free agency. I was at my cabin in the Shuswap. Within five hours, I got a fax that had to be a mile long. When I got to the numbers, I said, “You gotta be fuckin’ kidding. They want to pay me this much?”
The contract said that I had three hours to decide, and if I didn’t sign with New York they “were going in a different direction.” Wayne Gretzky, who had just retired after playing his last three years with the Rangers, had called me earlier in the year and told me how great it was to live in New York. I discussed it with Veronica. “What do you think about me going to New York?” She supported it. It’s hard to say no to $28 million over four years. So I ended up taking the contract and going to New York.
The Rangers were looking forward to having me on their team because they thought I could get some of the apathetic New York fans to quit sitting on their hands and at the same time needle the Islanders fans. But looking back, it was probably not a good place for me to be. Take a kid to a candy store and what does he want? Candy. And there’s plenty of candy in New York. I wasn’t prepared for what came next, and I didn’t have the tools to deal with it.
Bearcat Murray had worked as the Rangers’ equipment manager in 1980. He used to say that the people who hung around the rink in New York were absolute animals. Later, when things went to hell for me, he said he wasn’t surprised. “It’s full of just terrible people, happy and patting you on the back with a knife in their hands. It’s a tough spoonful to take living down there, and you have to live there to understand it.”
The Rangers were like an army of mercenaries. In a two-week period during the summer of 1999, Neil Smith handed out millions in contracts. He went for every top unrestricted free agent in sight. In addition to me, there was Valeri Kamensky and Stéphane Quintal, goalie Kirk McLean, Tim Taylor and Sylvain Lefebvre. Finally, just before the start of the season, he acquired a tough and talented defenceman, Kevin Hatcher, from Pittsburgh in exchange for Peter Popovic—that cost another $2 million. The team’s payroll was not just the highest in the league, it was the most any hockey team had ever spent: $59.4 million. But mercenaries do not always beat guerilla fighters. Why? Because guerilla fighters form a brotherhood. New York had a different feeling—it was all about the money. On every other team in the NHL, players hang out together. They golf together, their wives know each other and they have dinner together. In Calgary, we knew what the other guys had for breakfast. The problem with the Rangers was that the single guys lived in the city, near Madison Square Garden, and the married guys lived out in a place called Rye, near the team’s Playland practice rink. I mean, it was like playing on two different teams. Very dysfunctional.
Veronica and I flew to New York and met with the real estate agent the team had lined up for us. We looked around at different properties and decided on a house in Greenwich, Connecticut, right next door to New York’s Westchester County. It was ten minutes from the practice rink, and forty-five minutes to the Garden in my brand-new BMW 740 IL. Fully loaded. Greenwich, along the coast overlooking Long Island Sound, has beautiful beaches and meadows. It has woods and fields with lots of wildlife.
It was a big two-storey house, and it was pretty nice, newly constructed on a great lot, but believe me, relative to the homes around us, it was not spectacular. Greenwich has one of the most exclusive zip codes in the United States, and at $1.6 million, ours was the cheapest house in the neighbourhood. We were located in the hills along with Tommy Hilfiger, Diana Ross, Mel Gibson, Ron Howard, Jack Nicholson, Regis Philbin and Oprah’s buddy, Gayle King. Sprinkled in between were big-time stockbrokers.
Madison Square Garden was this incredible meeting place where every celebrity in the city seemed to meet up at one time or another. There was a green room where family and friends went before and after the games. The girls, our wives, also got to know unbelievable people. I met a whole new group of deviant fellows like me. Jason Priestley became a really good friend, and still is. The Rangers would stage an exhibition hockey game once a year before the All-Star Game, where we’d split the roster in two, rounding out the two teams with celebrities who played hockey like Alan Thicke, Michael J. Fox, the Barenaked Ladies, Mike Myers and Chris Reeve. It was all part of what made New York so cool.
I tried my hardest to bring the Rangers together as a team, but money changes people. Sometimes the guys who lived in the country had to stay home with the kids so their wives could go shopping. NHL wives come from small towns all over North America, and suddenly they have limo drivers and Fifth Avenue charge accounts. It changes their values. You don’t see too many marriages last, and if they do it’s purely materialistic. I got caught up in the whole thing. Relationship-wise, playing in New York made things very complex. It was impossible for Veronica to know where I would be from day to day. So I could indulge in my addiction all I liked. I could say, “Hey, we’re staying in the city tonight because we’ve got practice at the Garden tomorrow morning and then we are leaving for Philly.” And I would take off wherever. There was just no accountability.
On top of everything else, the media in New York were like pit bulls. They segregated us to a point where we could hardly function as a group the way a hockey team needs to. Guys like me score goals partly because tough guys take care of us. Look at the relationship between Marty McSorley and Wayne Gretzky. McSorley always had Gretz’s back. If the media had made McSorley out to be a nobody and a zero, while pumping up Gretzky as a world-class hero, Marty might not have been so interested in keeping Mr. Gretzky from getting hurt.
The New York Times wrote some flattering things about me in the pre-season, building me up, making me out to be the hardest-working player in the NHL and a folk hero. Every story ever written about me said that I was an underdog because of my size. I told the Times the same thing I told every reporter—“I don’t play small. I don’t act small. Small is just a word.”
We got off to a decent start, but then it went downhill. Coach John Muckler was a different cat. He was another one of those old-school guys. I’d finally escaped Brian Sutter and his two-hour practices, and now here I was in New York, playing for Muckler, who was basically the same guy. I was just, like, fuck! I think Muckler respected me as a player, but our personalities clashed. He wanted me because he said he hated me when he coached in Edmonton and I played for Calgary. He thought I could replace Gretz. But I wasn’t Gretz, I was Theoren Fleury. And I wasn’t the 21-year-old Theo Fleury of 1990 that Muckler wanted me to be—an instigator out to prove himself. I was so far past that. I was so tired of being mentally burnt out due to coaching from the ground up. Learn this system and that system, watch this video and on and on. I had become a totally different player. I played with finesse, and I was smarter, older—and bigger. I weighed 178 now, which was twenty-five pounds of muscle that I didn’t have at age 18.
Muckler was a bag-skater. Every day we were bag-skated, which means you skate till your bag falls off. Some guys would puke, everyone got dehydrated. Sometimes he would bag-skate us the day of a game. Muckler did win a few, like the Cup in Edmonton in 1989–90, and in six years coaching the Oilers and Sabres he’d made the playoffs every year, but I just don’t know how guys like him keep getting jobs over and over and over again.
Adam Graves, one of my linemates, was my roommate—a fantastic guy, great guy, and the ultimate team player—but I didn’t click with Petr Nedvěd. He was all over the place, really hard to play with. He wasn’t very good in his own zone, which meant we would get scored on, which meant my line would sit on the bench.
Overall, it was just a nightmare, just a fucking nightmare.
THERE WERE REALLY GOOD GUYS on the team. John MacLean, a longtime New Jersey Devil, signed as a free agent the year before I did. He was a great addition to the Rangers. He’d won the Cup with the Devils in 1994–95, and he scored a lot of clutch goals. A great team guy. Funny, quick-witted, a veteran who had been around the block, an honest player and a good family man.
Jan Hlaváč was a talented guy, big-time talent, although he was a bit lazy. We called that group—Hlaváč, Nedvěd and Radek Dvořàk, who joined us in December 1999—the Czech mafia. They didn’t worry about coming back into their own zone too often, they just liked to score goals. For them, hockey was all about offence. They would not backcheck. But sometimes you have to play defence. I found them frustrating to play with because they stayed out way too long on their shifts. Often, they would hurt the team by not playing along with the team concept. But most of the time, the Czech guys really loved to laugh and have fun. They were very easy going and laid-back off the ice.
Alexandre Daigle, what a beauty, that guy. He was a strange cat. Probably one of the fastest guys I ever played with. He had all the tools, but no box to go with it. Dumb as a post—he didn’t get it. He could have been a superstar, but he was too dumb to realize you have to work hard and not blame everybody around you for your failings. Guys who use excuses and place blame on others don’t get it. In that respect, he was like Gary Leeman, who played in Calgary in 1991–92 and 1992–93. He told Doug Risebrough, “You never gave me a chance.” Riser said, “You are playing on a line with Theo Fleury and Joe Nieuwendyk, what more of a chance can you have?” Anyway, Daigle was on one of those whirlwind tours, trying to find his place in life. He made it more difficult for himself than he had to. Super-cocky dude. He always made it out that he was better than he was. Muckler didn’t like that kind of guy.
Tim Taylor was very serious and steady. He would chip in with the odd big goal. Tim wasn’t hugely talented, but he had a great work ethic. He was one of those unsung heroes that you have to have on your team. A quiet family man.
Mike Knuble was a big, strong winger. Hard worker, great fore-checker. He found his game when he went to Boston and got to play with Joe Thornton. Eric Lacroix was a hard worker too. He didn’t have a lot of talent, but, man, he could hit. He could knock you into next Tuesday.
Kevin Stevens had won two Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh. He ended up in the NHL Substance Abuse Program too. He was arrested near St. Louis in 2000 and charged with soliciting a prostitute and possessing drug paraphernalia. He was ordered to complete an eighteen-month court-supervised drug program. He is doing all right now, scouting for his old linemate Mario Lemieux, which is nice to know. Back then he was a big, incredibly strong kid from Boston. He had the accent, you know like the joke, “Khakis—what you need to start your car in Boston.” He was phenomenal playing with Mario. He had back-to-back 50-goal seasons.
Todd Harvey was a happy-go-lucky guy. He wasn’t the greatest skater in the world, but he worked really hard and was emotional. He played with his heart on his sleeve. He would fight every once in a while. He really would do anything for the team. A character player. I played against Rob DiMaio in junior when he was in Medicine Hat. He was tough for his size. Pretty quiet off the ice.
Valeri Kamensky was a scary-talented dude, but by that time he was playing out his last few years and making big money. He was a typical Russian player from the Central Red Army team. There was no joy or passion for hockey there. That had been beaten out of them in Russia. When they came to North America, it was all about Versace and Mercedes-Benz.
If you look at our defence, on paper it was probably the best in the league. Kevin Hatcher was a huge dude. Talented but near the end of his career. He wasn’t as hungry as he once was. Nice guy, though. I hung out with him sometimes. I never really got to know Mathieu Schneider. Let’s just say he and Muckler had a difference of opinion of how one should play and one should coach. But he was a real steady defenceman. Good on the power play, great passer. Kim Johnsson had a lot of talent, but he was a rookie. Playing defence in the NHL takes a while to learn. He was a quiet guy.
Stéphane Quintal was one of the free agents brought in that year. He didn’t handle the pressure in New York very well. He played like shit all year and his plus-minus was minus-10. That’s bad. Great players like Nicklas Lidström in Detroit end up with a great number, something like plus-40, year in and year out.
Sylvain Lefebvre came from Colorado with me. He was a nice guy—not a flashy player but steady. He played well on defence with Brian Leetch, but things went sideways for him in New York.
Rich Pilon had a kind of a lisp. He always got dehydrated, so they were always trying to restore his electrolytes, which are basically salts that carry an electrical charge. You lose electrolytes through your sweat, mainly sodium and potassium, and that causes you to dehydrate. So the trainers gave him Pedialyte, which is normally for children. He was always seizing up because he wasn’t in very good shape. But it was hard to play against him because he was tough and mean. He wasn’t overly quick, but he was a hacker, whacker and slasher. Back then, you could hack and whack all you wanted.
Dale Purinton was a tough guy. He had more ink on his body than a newspaper. He had his name tattooed on his back.
Our trainer, Jim Ramsay, was a real character. Very funny in a perverted way. He didn’t hold anything back, was always making comments about guys’ wives. He might say, “Man, your wife has a tight ass.” He was a big flirt with the women.
Kirk McLean, his nickname was Weird. He had Weird embroidered all over his goalie equipment. I have never met a goalie who was normal. McLean was even more eccentric than usual and had kind of a perverted sense of humour. Nice and funny but different, for sure. He was probably the last stand-up goalie that played in the NHL. You would rarely see him flopping around, but he was effective. Great glove hand and good technically, and very smart, but out there. When you talked to him he would give you this intense stare. You never knew what he was thinking.
I can describe Mike Richter in two words—great guy. Quickest feet on a goalie I have ever seen. His career ended due to knee injuries and a skull fracture and concussion, but he was the first Ranger with 300 NHL wins. Mike tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in his right knee in 2001, the second time in one year, but he played through his troubles and saved our asses more than once. His last few years of hockey were not a whole lot of fun for him. He wound up going to Yale and getting a bachelor’s degree in ethics, politics and economics. Really smart guy.
Brian Leetch was the captain. He was a hero to the fans because he played on Team USA. But I thought Leetch did not recognize how much talent was on our team. I think if he could have seen it, he might’ve been able to bring the team together. That is the captain’s job. He always seemed pretty cozy with the coaches and management, and I figured he would finish his career in New York and then become a suit after hockey. Instead, he retired after playing eighteen years, but he finished his career with the Bruins and apparently he blames Slats for that.
The biggest issue that first year in New York was that we did not buy into what Muckler was selling. Muckler had a defensive system, but nobody really played it. It was the standard Buddy Ryan system, named after the 1985 Chicago Bears defensive coach. It is a defence system that eliminates the passing. As a result, we gave up way too many goals. Secondly, we were not committed as a group. Our guys were not willing to work that hard. The play in our zone was horrendous. Guys would get out-muscled. It’s never just the coaches that are to blame, the fault is the group’s collectively. I have since told my wife that if I ever think of coaching, she should kick me in the nuts as hard as she can. It’s an ulcer waiting to happen.
We tried to fix our problems with a lot of team meetings after practices and games. It was like group therapy, everybody airing out their differences. I was trying to bond with my team, so I would go out to the bar with them, and when they all went home I would take off and find another place to keep partying. Most nights, I was happy with booze and a nice comfy bar stool in Greenwich, near my house. I didn’t advertise that I was snorting and rolling in at dawn, but I did not make any secret out of what I was doing either. I always trusted my teammates 100 per cent. I mean, these guys had my back. They were fighting a war in the same foxhole with me, day in and day out. Anyway, around February, as I was packing for a game against the Leafs in Toronto, I got a call from Dr. Brian Shaw, who represented the NHL Players’ Association in the NHL Substance Abuse Program, and Dan Cronin, who was the program’s director of counselling. Dan was the liaison between Dr. Shaw and Dr. David Lewis, who worked for the owners. “We’re concerned about you, Theo,” Dr. Shaw said. “There are a whole bunch of rumours around about you taking drugs and staying out late. What is going on?” Dan said, “When you get to Toronto, why don’t you come and have a meeting with us? We will talk.”
So I met with them. They knew that I was partying and doing drugs. They said they could see it in my play. They wanted me to sign up for the substance abuse program. They told me that all I had to do was take the odd drug test so they could protect me. They suggested I play out the season and then go to rehab that summer. It all sounded reasonable, so I signed up. But once I was in it, I thought it was one of the worst mistakes I made in my life, because it took away my freedom, my coping tools (drugs) and left me unhigh and dry.
How could the program know what I was up to? Someone on the team had told the coach about me, that’s how. I thought I could hide in New York, but it turned out someone was spying on me. I figured out who it was, and to this day I have no time for this person. But I won’t mention his name because unlike him, I am not a rat. After that, I think the Rangers had me followed by professionals, though I guarantee that you will never get anyone from that organization to admit it. I can’t blame them—I was an $8-million-per-year investment.
Right after that, I became extremely secretive. I would go for a couple of beers with the guys, just to make an appearance, hire a limo to meet me out front, get in and have the driver take me around the block. Then I would get back out of the car and go back into the restaurant. The limo would drive around a bit. Then I would head to the back of the restaurant, through the kitchen and escape into the alley, where the limo was waiting. They wanted to play their game, I would play my game.
New York is a city that never goes to sleep, with bars that never close. For an alcoholic it is an all-you-can-eat buffet.
VERONICA WANTED STABILITY for our kids and she was eight months pregnant, so when I played for Colorado she stayed in Calgary until our daughter was born. But with New York I was on a multi-year contract, so she came with me. When we first got there, she had Chuck’s oldest daughter, a really sweet kid named Christa, and Christa’s boyfriend there to watch the kids and for company. Veronica, like most NHL wives, was crazy about clothes and loved to shop. Having that much money changes you. I was wearing Versace shirts and she was carrying Prada and Louis Vuitton. We had two credit cards with $50,000 limits on them.
I spent very little time at home. The strippers and cheating were not new behaviours for me, but I think in New York when I was on the road I wasn’t as careful about hiding it as I was in Calgary and Colorado. So Veronica started to ask a lot more questions. This is how it is for a lot of the hockey wives from the bigger teams. But a lot of hockey players have a different view of women than the rest of the world. Chuck put it this way: “Wrong as it is, hockey players view women like cars. You have your own car and you love your car and you want to take care of your car, and you want to take your car to every important meeting you have, and you want it to be beautiful and shiny and sometimes with new headlights. But you love other guys’ cars. You love looking at their cars. You don’t want to have their cars, but you would love to take them for a drive once in a while, and it’s a horrible premise for a relationship.”