IT WAS ON THE SUNNY patio of a Minneapolis coffee house a few blocks from where Derek died that Len Boogaard started to talk about the life and death of his son. I had never met Derek. But I planned on writing a story about him for the New York Times, a deep look into his life and death, and hoped that the family would be willing to cooperate. Len agreed to meet for an informal conversation, a chance for me to explain my intentions and a chance for us to get to know one another.
Aaron, Derek’s brother, sat at Len’s side, quiet and deferential. It had been five weeks since Derek’s death, and there remained the thick pall of grief and fatigue that might never fade entirely. Len, the Canadian Mountie, answered questions without meandering asides, like someone careful not to reveal too much. But it quickly became clear that Len appreciated direct questions and believed in direct answers. He spoke unflinchingly about Derek’s childhood, his unexpected rise in hockey, and his unimaginable fall. After more than two hours, we stood and parted, promising to be in touch. I would continue to report, and he would consider his level of cooperation with whatever it was I was doing.
Fifteen minutes later, while I was driving to another interview in another coffee shop, this one at the other end of the Twin Cities, in Saint Paul, the phone rang. It was Len.
“One other thing,” he said, in the straight-talking baritone that soon became recognizable with the first syllable of every conversation. “We found some notes of Derek’s in his belongings—16 pages or something about his childhood, in his handwriting. Would you be interested in seeing those?”
It would have been possible to write what became a three-part series on Derek, titled “Punched Out,” without the cooperation of Len and Derek’s mother, Joanne Boogaard, and their other children. The loose idea of telling the story behind and beyond the death of one of the National Hockey League’s scariest enforcers was conjured with or without the family’s input. But the story would have been emptier, void of the feeling and context and humanity that only parents and siblings can provide. By extension, this book likely would not have been written without their help and trust.
With no promise other than to have Derek’s story told as fully and honestly as possible, even if the findings or the material proved painful or embarrassing, Len and Joanne never blanched in their willingness to help. Len, living in Ottawa, and Joanne, living in Regina, dug through files and scrapbooks and the deep recesses of their memories. They answered all the calls and e-mails, and they welcomed me into their homes for long stretches over many days, with patience, kindness, and good humor, qualities that they could have been forgiven for forfeiting in light of the enduring heartache.
Len, especially, was instrumental in turning a newspaper story into a book. He followed Derek’s death with a police-style investigation, a one-man mission to assemble the puzzle pieces of his son’s final months and years. He gathered cell-phone and banking records. He requested, and mostly received, medical reports from team doctors, prescription records from pharmacies, notes from rehabilitation clinics, and results from drug testing companies—bits and bytes that only a next of kin could request and receive. And when Len put them together, answering questions and raising more, he shared them. In a lot of ways, I think Len saw it as the last gift—the only gift—he could give Derek after he was gone.
Ryan Boogaard and his longtime girlfriend, Lisa McCormick, (they married in 2013), provided both help and shelter. Ryan, a Royal Canadian Mounted Police member like his father, was stationed at Deschambault Lake, many hours north of Saskatoon and into the deep woods of Saskatchewan. He and Lisa opened their home over the course of two days and one night. Ryan provided his vast collection of Derek’s hockey fights, which he had archived as a sort of scout and curator for his older brother from the time they were teens. Ryan also willingly described his life with Derek, from their first childhood memories to the afternoon when Ryan entered Derek’s Minneapolis apartment to find him dead on the bed.
Aaron, four years younger than Derek, became Derek’s best friend in his later years, the two of them on similar arcs in careers as hockey players expected to fight. Aaron was the last to see Derek alive and, with Ryan, the first to discover his death, and the fallout included his arrest for his role in hiding and dispensing prescription painkillers to his brother when he demanded them. Aaron, over many interviews, provided candid snapshots of Derek, including the episodes that, in hindsight, leave scattered, serpentine trails of destruction.
Krysten Boogaard, six years younger than Derek, deserves special mention for her openness, as well. So does Curtis Heide, the half-brother that Derek did not know he had until the men were grown, and who became the sort of big-brother figure Derek never had.
The help and trust of all the Boogaards was extraordinary. They made things infinitely easier and, I hope, feel some sense of warmth that Derek’s name will continue to live, and inform, through these printed and electronic pages.
But, now, a step back: this book never would have happened without Joe Sexton, the former sports editor of the New York Times. It was Joe who, a couple of weeks after Derek’s death in May 2011, asked if I wanted to take a deeper look into the late enforcer’s life. The Boogaard family had donated Derek’s brain to scientists at Boston University, and the Times, especially reporter Alan Schwarz, had published groundbreaking stories about concussion research, particularly among former National Football League players.
Sexton recognized that Derek’s story was one that we at the Times needed to follow. But he wanted to go beyond any sense of obligation. Enforcers represented a small and misunderstood fraternity, as we both knew from years of covering hockey. Perhaps this was a chance to delve into that world beyond the commotion of their theatrics. What is the toll?
It was Sexton and deputy sports editor Jason Stallman who kept me steered straight into the unknown, coaxing me to keep reporting and to keep writing. As the project grew in scope and size, absorbing the magical touches of wizards in the photo, video, and graphics departments, Sexton and Stallman also steered the project deftly through the barriers of newsroom convention. The story became one of the longest published by the Times, broken into three parts, each roughly 5,000 words. The online version was accompanied by a 37-minute documentary, shattering the preconceived confines of video for a newspaper web site (and earning an Emmy nomination), and included such a bevy of multimedia components that its complex design was immediately lauded and quickly copied.
Those with the veto power to stop such an audacious project, most notably executive editor Jill Abramson, instead gave it a clear runway. Her appearance at my cubicle shortly before the story was published is a career highlight—a warm handshake and the words that will never leave me: “I would be proud to publish this wonderful piece of journalism.”
There are too many others at the New York Times to thank, but the top of any list includes photographer Marcus Yam and video journalist Shayla Harris. They accompanied me during the reporting of the newspaper story on an odyssey that included a 2,000-mile route through Saskatchewan and many other trips in the hope of illuminating Derek’s world and the people in it. They are two of the finest journalists I know, but I now consider them friends first.
Among those who read the story and saw the potential for a book, none showed the enthusiasm of literary agent Luke Janklow at Janklow & Nesbitt, whose first e-mail to me included a memorable line: “I would almost kill a man to represent you.” Luke saw potential in me that I did not see in myself—namely, an ability to write a book, an idea I usually dismissed as beyond my means, patience, and capability. His confidence, advice, and enthusiasm have been welcoming mileposts on this long highway. His assistant, Claire Dippel, showed a knack, intended or not, for eliciting a smile with every phone call or e-mail exchange.
I am forever grateful for two editors who enthusiastically expressed their desire to publish a book by a first-time author about the life and death of Derek Boogaard: Matt Weiland at W. W. Norton & Company and Jim Gifford at HarperCollins Canada. Theirs was an unusual partnership, co-editing one book to be published in two different countries. They made it seamless. If there were wrinkles of philosophical differences, they were ironed out before I knew. Both supplied guidance and ideas. Matt, the point man, patiently read every draft, then subtly wielded a red pen full of suggestions that made the next draft better. Writers and editors are not meant to get along as well as Matt and I do. His assistant, Sam MacLaughlin, ably and kindly kept the process going to the end. And sharp-eyed copy editor Lloyd Davis saved me, I hope, from a litany of grammatical errors and embarrassing mistakes.
It would have been easy to turn Derek Boogaard into a one-dimensional character, a caricature, as he was so often portrayed. But Matt and Jim never saw this project in absolutes—not as a sports story, not a hockey story, not a goon story, not a story about fighting or drugs or concussions. It is all of these, to be sure, but they shared my belief that it was something both simpler and more complex. It was a story about a boy.
The gears that quietly go to work to publish a book are extraordinary. The teams at W. W. Norton and HarperCollins Canada were nothing but gracious and professional. They are well-oiled machines, and deserving of my utmost appreciation.
And, finally, I owe the biggest debt of gratitude to my family—my wife, Cathy, and our children, Joe and Ally. The reason I had not written books in the past, when receiving occasional interest from those asking if I would, was my great concern over the toll it would take on the three most important people in my life. I worried about what kind of husband and father I could be when hidden in some quiet corner of the house or hunched at the table behind a laptop and stacks of papers and notebooks, answering their innocent questions with a far-off stare.
Writing a book, I know, is not for the timid; writing a book while working full time for the New York Times and raising two grade-school children might only be for the delusional. Without their support and understanding—and suggestions for a title and the occasional bragging about this endeavor to classmates—this project never had a chance. I nearly did not write this book because of you. In the end, you were the exact reason I did. I hope you’re proud.