“I get knocked down but I get up again, never gonna keep me down”
—“Tubthumping”
Chumbawamba
As the New Jersey Devils celebrated their Stanley Cup championship in 1995 on the ice at Brendan Byrne Arena, a few of us forced ourselves to watch. It was our self-imposed punishment for not getting the job done.
I specifically remember Kris Draper saying, “We are never, ever going to let this happen to us again.”
Despite Draper’s promise, the following season we set an NHL record of 62 wins and still didn’t win the Stanley Cup. We registered 131 points that season, the highest point total produced by any team since Scotty Bowman’s Montreal Canadiens had 132 points in 1976–77.
We ranked first in goals-against and first in penalty killing, and we were third overall in goal scoring. We went 13 games (12–0–1) at one point without losing, and twice we registered nine-game winning streaks. We had six 20-goal scorers, and had the third-highest scoring team in the league.
But the Colorado Avalanche, playing their first season in Denver after moving from Quebec City, took us out in the playoffs in six games.
In that the Western Conference Final, Claude Lemieux had been suspended for a game for punching Slava Kozlov. Then in Game 6, he checked Draper from behind and drove him face-first into the boards. It happened near enough to the Detroit bench that we could all hear the bones in Draper’s face being crushed by the blow. It was a sickening sound.
Draper suffered a broken nose, severe facial cuts, and a fractured jaw that required surgery. His teeth and jaw had to be wired shut and he wasn’t able to eat solid foods for six weeks.
For his crime, Lemieux was suspended for the first two games of the Stanley Cup Final, when the Avalanche played the Florida Panthers. In hindsight, that would turn out to be only a small part of his punishment.
There was a lot of talk in the newspapers and on talk radio about how the Red Wings needed to get bigger, stronger, and tougher. Some of my teammates said Lemieux would pay a price down the road, but honestly, Draper and I never had a real conversation about the topic. He didn’t ask me to go after Lemieux. There was no master plan for exacting revenge.
When I picked Drapes up at the hospital, it wasn’t as if Lemieux was a main topic of conversation.
While we were driving home, I simply said, “I’ll take care of this.”
That was all that was said. There was no lengthy discussion about when it would be done, or how it would be done. Draper really couldn’t say much because his jaw was wired. Mostly I told him about our plans to get all of the boys together to go to the U.S. Open at Oakland Hills.
When Draper had his mouth wired up, it represented the only time during our long friendship that he has ever shut up long enough for me to say much of anything.
All of us were concerned about what Lemieux did to Draper, but we were also concerned that we had lost the series. Within the organization, there was clearly a discussion about whether we had the right mix to win a championship.
As players, we wondered that ourselves. Before the 1995 Stanley Cup Final, Detroit veteran Dino Ciccarelli had warned us not to squander our chance because you can’t be sure you will ever return to the Stanley Cup Final.
“You have to take advantage of it when you get to the Final,” Ciccarelli said.
When we lost to the Colorado Avalanche in 1996, many of us remembered Ciccarelli’s warning and wondered whether we would ever reach the Final again.
Obviously, we did play in the Stanley Cup Final again, and we won three championships in a span of six seasons. When I look back at those glory years, it’s clear to me that the key factors that resulted in us coming together as a team were the trade for Brendan Shanahan, signing Joey Kocur out of the beer league, and our ability to exorcize our Colorado Avalanche demons.
Shanahan was acquired from the Hartford Whalers on October 9, 1996, the day of our home opener against the Edmonton Oilers. We gave up Paul Coffey and Keith Primeau, both of whom had been in Scotty’s doghouse, plus a first-round pick to get Shanahan and Brian Glynn.
Shanahan dramatically changed our team in a variety of ways. He was a big, physical player who could fight and score goals. He stood up for his teammates. He was a presence on the ice and in the room.
Shanny was only a few years older than Martin Lapointe and me, but he taught us so much. I couldn’t one-time the puck worth a damn until Shanny worked with me. Shanahan had one of the best one-timers in the league, right up there with Brett Hull.
I remember playing on a line with him, and asking him where he wanted the puck when I passed it to him.
“Just put it somewhere near me,” he said.
That’s truly all you needed to do. I could pass the puck to his front foot, his back foot, or anywhere in between, and Shanny, a right-hand shot, would open up, adjust his body, and then rocket the puck on net. Even if he didn’t score, he would always end up with a great scoring chance. It was an impressive skill.
He worked with Marty Lapointe on being a goal scorer. Many times after practice, Shanny, Lapointe, and I would stay on the ice and work on our shots or talk about what goes into playing a power forward role. It was Shanny who helped me learn how to better pick my spots for fighting.
The importance of the Kocur acquisition is often overlooked. He was out of hockey, playing defense in a recreational league in summer hockey when Ken Holland signed him to give us more toughness. He was called “Papa” for a reason; he was a fatherly figure who brought a calming influence to our dressing room.
He had helped the New York Rangers win a Stanley Cup in 1994. He had done it all, and seen it all, and when the pressure started to build he had the ability to get us to relax.
On the ice he was an intimidating presence. Nobody wanted to fuck with us because they were fearful that they would have to face Joey. As I previously mentioned, he was a scary fighter.
But off the ice he was just as effective. Our captain, Steve Yzerman, considered Kocur a close friend, meaning that Kocur was in the leadership inner circle. The younger players worshipped Kocur, meaning he was considered one of the boys.
I always felt that Mike Vernon also never got enough credit for helping us develop into a championship team. He came to Detroit in 1994 in a trade for Steve Chiasson and he taught us all how to battle.
The day he showed up in Detroit, we all went out and I remember thinking, This guy is going to be fucking awesome.
He was funnier than hell, and it was clear that he was a team-first guy. What we soon discovered is that this little guy battled and battled and battled like his life depended on each save. Yet when the game was over he had that Western Canadian cowboy attitude of not letting anything bother him. He could let go of a game the minute it was over, and that trait is crucial for a goalie. He didn’t dwell on what happened yesterday.
In addition to what he gave us in the net, Vernon was also the perfect mentor for Chris Osgood. He helped Osgood develop that hardened edge that you need to shake off bad games or bad plays. Without Vernon’s tutoring, I wonder whether Ozzie would have been the same goalie he turned out to be. By the time Vernon left, Ozzie was very similar to Vernon in terms of their mental approach to playing the position.
We were all coming into our prime years at the same time. At the start of the 1996–97 season I was 24, Maltby was 24, Ozzie was almost 24, Draper was 25, Marty Lapointe and Holmstrom were 23, Nick Lidstrom and Sergei Fedorov were 26, and Shanahan was 27.
You have to lose to learn how to win. We needed to have that experience against New Jersey and getting beat by Colorado in 1996. It hardened us. It gave us a better understanding of what needed to be done.
There were multiple reasons why we didn’t beat New Jersey. If you ask Scotty Bowman, he might say we lost because New Jersey defenseman Scott Niedermayer dropped his stick and my teammate Shawn Burr picked it up for him. Niedermayer then beat Burr down the ice to score on Mike Vernon. I saw the video years ago, and it wasn’t exactly like that. And none of the players actually blamed Burr for the loss.
I think we lost to New Jersey because the Devils were clicking on all cylinders. Plus, we simply didn’t know how to deal with the clutch-and-grab style that was more prevalent in the Eastern Conference.
More important, we didn’t possess the “fear of failure” that you need to be a champion. We didn’t know how to deal with being a favorite.
There was probably another event that happened before the 1996–97 season that perhaps contributed to our success. I confronted my substance abuse issues for the first time.
By then, my problem was starting to affect my work. I never played high, and I tried to time my drinking binges to make sure I was ready to play games. But all of my teammates knew what was going on because I started to become the worst practice player in NHL history. My hangovers had become a disruption to the team.
Yzerman, Paul Coffey, and Kris Draper had all had serious talks with me at various times, but I was only hearing their words, and not truly listening.
Draper tried to be my guardian angel, trying to convince me on a regular basis to “slow down” or to drink only beer and not hard liquor. I would agree to that plan, but when Drapes wasn’t looking, I would sneak down to the end of the bar and line up a row of tequila or Jagermeister shots.
Then I’d look up to see Draper watching me, just shaking his head. The truth is you can’t stop an alcoholic from drinking unless he or she wants to stop.
Early in my career, it seemed as if I was just like every other hockey player, going out and having a good time. But guys like Draper, Osgood, Lapointe, and others all knew when it was time to go home. They weren’t continually hammered to the point that they struggled to get up in the morning.
I hung out with my teammates, but when my night was over with them, I started to find a new group of after-hour friends. I could tell Draper was concerned with the company I was keeping.
One day Scotty Bowman summoned me to his office after a particularly rugged practice and told me it was time for me to get my act together. I had embarrassed myself at practice that morning. At one point, we were skating in line rushes and Lapointe and Draper were at the net putting a shot on goal while I was still laboring to get across the blue line.
Bowman told me that he liked me as a player and that I was important, but I wasn’t bigger than the team. He said I was hurting the team. Basically, he told me I had to get my shit together.
If you think that having a coaching legend dressing me down for my lifestyle would be enough to pursue sobriety, you would be wrong.
I knew when I was 20 that I had a drinking problem. My grandfather, Jigs, was an alcoholic, and I knew the signs of problem drinking. I knew I had the symptoms. When I received the news that my grandfather died in 1993, I had been at a charity event in Belleville, Ontario. I started drinking that day and didn’t stop.
Angry over the loss of my grandfather, I stole a boat that belonged to the neighbor of the Bulls’ owner, Dr. Robert Vaughan. I took it across the lake to attend the party. Everyone at the party knew whose boat it was. I should have been arrested. But I wasn’t.
The summers of 1994, 1995, and 1996 are a blur to me because I spent the off-season drinking. I had different pods of friends and bounced from one pod to the next, mostly because I didn’t want anyone to have the complete picture of how much drinking I was doing.
I would be with my friends on the east side for one night and then my friends from the west side. In many of my pods, I was put on a pedestal because I was a Detroit Red Wings player. In those pods, no one ever questioned any of my choices. The only people who were scrutinizing my behavior were teammates and family members. I began to see them less and less.
And when I was with family or teammates I always painted a rosy picture. I had been drinking since I was 15, and I had learned what to say to people to get them off my back. I could say the right thing, I just couldn’t do the right things. I would lie to those trying to help me, and lie to myself about my ability to quit.
But the lying ended in the summer of 1996. I left my house one day to attend the U.S. Open at Oakland Hills. I didn’t come home for a week.
Drapes and several of our friends were with me at Oakland Hills. We sat under a tree at the 18th with a tray of beers and enjoyed the tournament. Steve Jones won by one stroke over Tom Lehman and Davis Love III, but honestly I’m hazy about the details of that tournament, even though I was there every day.
At that point, I was more of a binge drinker than an everyday drinker. When I found a space in my life to drink, I took it over the edge. Normal folks go out, drink some beers, and have some fun—maybe even have a blowout night—and then they resume their normal routine. But my blowout nights would last for three or four days or longer. Once I climbed on the train, it was hard for me to get off.
Draper was the teammate who best understood that my life was starting to unravel. Even though I told Bowman that I would get my drinking under control, I had not made any lasting changes.
Sensing that I needed immediate help, Draper kept calling from his summer residence in Toronto and Cheryl had to tell him that she had no idea where I was.
At the time, I didn’t know where I was either. I was drinking, partying, and crashing at whatever location I happened to be at when the room stopped spinning.
Cheryl packed up my newborn son, Griffin, and headed back to Belleville to live with her parents. When I finally emerged from my stupor, I offered her my usual babble about how I would change and get my drinking under control.
But Cheryl had heard it all before. This time, she pulled no punches, telling me bluntly I needed to get clean for the sake of my family. Griffin had been born a week before we were knocked out by the Avalanche. I’d gone on a bender when my son was only about a month old.
“I love you to death, and I always will, but I’m not going to let you do this to us,” Cheryl told me. “Doing this to me is one thing. I can handle it because I know what you’re like. But you are not going to do this to Griffin.”
I had grown up not knowing my real father, and I had always vowed that I would be there for my kids. I’ve always been someone who does what he says he’s going to do.
I asked myself a question that day: What’s more important, booze or your family?
The answer was easy, but the solution was not. It was the middle of the summer, and I had to tell the Red Wings I was entering the Maplegrove Center for chemical dependency outpatient program in West Bloomfield, Michigan. I was concerned about what the team might do because the Red Wings had grown weary of dealing with Bob Probert’s substance abuse issues.
But I remember GM Jim Devellano told me that I had taken the first step toward solving the problem by admitting it.
To be honest, I can thank Probie for the fact that my substance abuse issue didn’t cause me even greater damage.
As I’ve said many times, I was primarily a good drunk. I never was arrested during my career, and never found myself in any serious trouble. I had witnessed what happened to Bob because of his substance abuse and I knew I did not want it to happen to me. Because of Bob’s experiences, I understood the consequences of the disease.
I didn’t want to follow Bob’s game plan for life. I never wanted to let myself become so out-of-control that I couldn’t find my way back. Because I’d witnessed what Bob went through, I knew it was time for me to seek help.
This period of time was trying for my family because my attempts to get sober came six months after my stepfather Craig had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare form of cancer. Life expectancy for people with that disease is two to three years. By that time in my life, I had started to view Craig as one of my true supporters. It was devastating news to hear that another male figure in my life was sick.
But the truth is that we bonded over our illnesses. I think we drew strength from each other. We began to mend the fences and tear down the walls that separated us. We decided to fight our battles together. Our relationship strengthened during that time period.
When I showed up at training camp that fall, my mind and body were clean and clear for the first time in years. I was focused on the mission of winning a championship.
The one thing I noticed when I was sober was that life slowed down. When I was drinking, my life was always a blur. The days blended together, particularly the days when I had been drinking to excess. It always seemed as if my brain was partly cloudy.
It seemed like there was more time to enjoy my life when I wasn’t getting high or scheming to get high. It is amazing how draining it can be to be involved in a non-stop party life.
In 1996–97, when I wasn’t drinking or doing drugs, I enjoyed my best NHL season, scoring 19 goals and 30 assists for 49 points.
There was certainly evidence to prove to me that being a clean-and-sober McCarty was in my best interest. But that didn’t mean my battle against substance abuse would be an easy fight. Probably at that time in my life I felt like I had licked my problem. But I would soon discover that my fight was far from over.
