“When I stepped on the ice it was my happy place and I knew exactly what to do when I stepped on the ice.”
Theoren Fleury, former Calgary Flames player, spoke from the heart during the Sundre Minor Hockey Association's (SMHA) annual one-day golf tournament on Sept. 20 at Coyote Creek Golf & RV Resort.
“Nobody loved to play hockey more than I did. Nobody. I was willing to die to win,” said Fleury.
The SMHA paid big bucks to bring Fleury out to the tournament as a golfer and a speaker. As part of the contract, he also spoke at Sundre High School Friday morning.
Kim Reed, fundraising and event coordinator for the SMHA, declined to release the dollar amount, but said it was “a lot” of money.
“I think it was worth it after seeing him speak at the high school this morning,” said Reed, Friday evening. “No matter the profit of it, the profits are beyond that with what the kids got to hear from his message.”
It was the only fundraiser that the SMHA plans to have this year, aside from hosting out-of-town teams during home tournaments.
“Proceeds from the golf tournament will go directly to enhancing our hockey program and help to offset registration costs for families with children playing hockey,” she said.
The amount of money raised from the event was not available at press time.
“It's a hockey-related event and we were trying to attract people to our event. He's (Fleury) got a compelling story, he was an amazing hockey player and has a really important message,” she said.
Fleury was sexually abused by his coach Graham James several years ago and spiralled into drugs and alcohol. He has now been sober for eight years. In 2009, he released a book about his life called Playing with Fire and has spoken about it since.
“This is quite the place. It's a nice part of the country,” said Fleury in a personal interview, adding that it was his first time in Sundre.
He said it's important for him to speak about his life because sexual abuse “is the biggest epidemic on the planet”.
“(I speak) about my life, overcoming obstacles, facing challenges and overcoming drugs and alcohol, abuse,” he said. “For hundreds of thousands of years nobody really talked about it and by epidemic there's eight million survivors of sexual abuse in this country.”
He said the abuse caused him many problems in his life, but that his hockey career was what kept him going.
“It caused me many problems in my life. All that shame and anger and resentment I was carrying around for a lot of my life. It didn't do me any good,” he said.
During his speech, he said he scored 1,000 points in the NHL and gained 10,000 hours of practice from age six to 16. Playing in the NHL was his dream.
“We put our kids in sports to learn life lessons,” he said.
His favourite game to play was against the Edmonton Oilers and he said before every game in the dressing room it felt like going to war.
“We all have a story to tell and the message is that you have nothing to be ashamed about and little do you know, that someday your story is going to save somebody else's life,” he said. “I believe that's the purpose of why we're all here, is to help other people heal from things that have happened to them, because we all have skeletons in our closet. We've all done things we're not proud of or things that have happened to us out of our control, and you can always make it back and make a difference. I get to go to so many amazing communities in Canada, I feel very blessed and fortunate.”
