by Ken Dryden
“It wasn’t like he began to coach me or teach me. I was just following his lead. He was showing me how to live this new lifestyle and to leave that other stuff behind me. People don’t decide to make changes unless they’ve hit rock bottom. I wasn’t quite there yet, but I needed to be sober and here was this amazing guy.”
They lived about a kilometre from each other. “If I wasn’t at his place, we were at a restaurant for dinner, or he was at mine, listening to records, chilling out and talking.” They went to concerts together—The Lumineers, The Tragically Hip. (The Hip played “Bobcaygeon,” Carcillo recalls, about a little town near Peterborough.) Restaurants and clubs aren’t easy places for an alcoholic, but to Carcillo this wasn’t about hiding away in a basement to avoid temptation. This was about keeping himself so busy that he didn’t think about temptation. It was about exchanging one fixation for another. “When I first got sober,” he says, “I kept saying ‘Never again. Never again.’ But that meant alcohol and drugs were always on my mind, and I was giving them even more power over me. So staying at home just wasn’t good for me.”
Sometimes he and Steve went to AA meetings together. “When you first get sober, you do ninety meetings in ninety days,” Carcillo says. “I really liked going to the Mustard Seed, which was mostly an all African American meeting. It was really spiritual; almost like church.” On Tuesday nights, they sometimes went to a men’s meeting. “It was just a lot easier to relate to them,” Carcillo says, “and girls can sometimes be a distraction.” There might be two hundred people at some meetings; in others, only four or five. “We also went to meditation meetings where the first ten, fifteen minutes were just silence, where you’re just thinking, then reflecting on what you’re thinking.” Carcillo didn’t say much in these sessions. Not at the beginning. “I just wanted to listen,” he said. “But sometimes they picked you and you had to say something. I just said all the stuff I heard from Monty or in some other meeting.”
AA meetings are supposed to be anonymous, but this was Chicago, and every night people came up to him and Steve and wanted to talk about the Blackhawks. “That’s why I ultimately stopped going to meetings,” Carcillo says. Instead, he and Steve started to see their almost-nightly dinners as AA meetings of their own. There they didn’t need to tell their stories, they didn’t need to feel the reinforcement of the group, they didn’t need to commit and account to others, they didn’t need to share their hopes and dreams. “Monty and I were already on the same page with everything. We were working towards being happy without any drugs or alcohol; learning how to live normally.” Carcillo pauses as he remembers Steve.
“I think about the feelings that I had while I was with Monty. I felt just so safe. Growing up as a kid, I didn’t always feel safe. Monty was so different from everything I’d experienced up to that point. It was intoxicating. This was my new drug.”
Carcillo and Steve were a good match: one needed to find a new way; the other had found it. One needed help; the other needed to help in order to help himself.
—
Steve kept a journal. Before his first season with Chicago began, he wrote:
Season Goals
10 goals, 22 assists, +15, all 82 games, 20 minutes/night towards end goal of a Stanley Cup
Value me and I feel valued…
Character, consistent, strong physical presence
He also wrote about other goals he had for the year:
Travelling
Photography
Broadening my perspective
Courses—yoga, cooking, piano, guitar, book clubs, movies, AA, volunteer organizations
Under a separate heading, he wrote “Intimate Relationship”:
Baby Steps
Step 1—Having fun, people around, enjoy myself—“she’s fun”
Step 2—a buddy, first couple of steps; relationships develop
In his journal, he also asked himself, “Can I see myself playing hockey, married, and have kids??” He answered: “Up to now, NO.” Then he mentioned the names “Babcock, Gélinas, Valiquette,” three families that he liked and respected, and asked, “What would Steve married with kids look like?” He set out what he thought it would take for him to make marriage work:
Defining myself as a family man—good father (trying my best); good husband; caring, supportive.
He also wrote:
I know there is an incredible woman for me.
The right one is worth fighting for.
He wrote down the qualities he believed he brought to the Blackhawks—“gritty, hard working, puck moving, physical defenceman, money in the bank in my own zone, shots through on net, tough to play against, positive leader”—and called these collective qualities, and himself, “TIGER INC.”
A few days later, Steve’s mood had changed:
trapped—scared
Why am I doing this? I need to know why I’m doing something.
Some parts of me that feel I’m undeserving
A few days after that, he wrote:
I need to Decide
Decide to make Chicago MY CITY
Decide that I belong in this uniform, team, with these guys
I belong here, this is my home, this is my city…
I picked it, it picked me
ROOTS ROOTS ROOTS…
Something’s gonna happen to magically make me belong
Know it in my heart that I belong
If I’m gonna be here, BE HERE
The day before the Blackhawks opened the season against Dallas, he wrote:
Lace up tomorrow—own the fuckin’ ice—own the arena—own the United Center…
Skates, grounding to the core of the earth, powerful uniform, I am what I decided to be, this is my home—claiming it
Under these words, he signed “Steve.”
For Steve, it was a new city, new team, new teammates, new friends, new places to go and things to do, new habits, new life.
The year started well. He played the first thirty-eight games of the season, until January 2, when he missed the first of three games due to a back injury. The Blackhawks were 24–10–4 at the time. He was playing about fifteen minutes a game, normal for a 5–6 defenceman—on regular shifts, not on power plays or killing penalties. Duncan Keith, the previous year’s Norris Trophy winner as the NHL’s best defenceman, was playing around twenty-seven minutes a game; Brent Seabrook, his defence partner, about twenty-five; the team’s 3–4 pairing, Nick Leddy twenty-two, and Niklas Hjalmarsson twenty. Steve’s defence partner, Sean O’Donnell, was playing less than fourteen.
Steve was playing the way he had always played: competitive, determined, physical; more difficult to play against than he was punishing; more effective than he was dominant. He was hard-working on the ice and off: in practice, in games, in the gym; and in the community, making frequent fundraising, awareness-raising appearances for Chicago-area charities on behalf of the team. He was a good teammate. He still made the occasional gaffe.
He kept a record of almost every game in his journal. On the left-hand page, he visualized the contest ahead, what the team expected/hoped of him and what he expected/hoped of himself. He began his entry for each game the same way:
I am so happy and grateful now that:
I had 3 shots on net tonight and it made me feel EXCITED
I had 3 hard hits tonight and it made me feel POWERFUL
I blocked 3 shots tonight and it made me feel PRESENT
And I was +1 tonight and it made me feel HAPPY
I did all of these from an athletic stance.
A few games later he added another phrase that he would repeat for each game:
I had a goal and/or an assist tonight and it made me feel AWESOME.
Soon after he added another:
TRUE GRIT
This team is Mine, this shift is Mine, the puck is Mine
Defending—this zone is Mine
Attacking—this goal is Mine
I HAVE ARRIVED!!!
Als
o on the left-side of his journal page, beneath his expectations/hopes for the game, he wrote down some of the good things he had done that day. On October 13, 2011, before the third game of the season, at home against Winnipeg, he noted: “I prayed for my family today and I gave my brother 2 tickets.”
On subsequent game days, he noted other things that might seem too small to matter:
I bought food/drinks for a homeless guy yesterday.
I gave Car Bomb some chew.
I left tickets for Oscar the barber.
I held a door for a lady at the rink.
[And, on November 11]
I gave thanks to all veterans past and present and those who gave their lives in Canada’s and USA’s military. I also offered Car Bomb lunch today.
On the right-hand page, after the game, he wrote his observations about how he played that night. He would mention the good things he did and what he needed to do. He offered no self-criticism. For the game against Winnipeg, he noted:
I played well, I was simple with my positioning and the puck. I was physical. I can join the rush more, use my speed to aid in the attack. You’re a good player, know it.
BE IT.
OWN IT.
My town, my team.
The stats sheet that night showed he had one shot on net, two hits, two penalty minutes, was minus-1, and played fifteen minutes. The Blackhawks won, 4–3.
Steve scored his first goal for the Blackhawks in Columbus in mid-November, the sixteenth game of the season, also recording an assist and a fight—Steve’s first and only Gordie Howe hat trick, which gave him half as many as Howe himself had in his entire career. Three nights later, he scored two goals; three nights after that, another goal.
But things were going less well than they seemed.
A year before Steve signed with Chicago, Mike Kitchen had been hired as a Blackhawks assistant coach. A defenceman himself in his playing career, Kitchen was small and had limited offensive skills. He’d known that if he were to make the NHL, and stay there, he would have to work hard, train hard, be disciplined and smart, accept the role of the 5–6 defenceman, and play a simple, uncomplicated game. He played eight NHL seasons.
Kitchen had also been an assistant in Florida when Steve was there, and had worked with Steve to simplify his game. He would remind him when he was trying to do too much, and Steve would shake his head. He knew; and Kitchen knew that he knew. And the next time it happened, Steve would shake his head again, and know again, and Kitchen would keep working with him, and grow more frustrated. It was unimaginable to him that Steve couldn’t do what he so clearly needed to do. Know what you are and what you aren’t, for heaven’s sake. Do what you can do and don’t do what you can’t. What you can do is good enough! Both Kitchen and Steve were good guys. Both were team players. They should have been a good match.
In Chicago, Kitchen again worked with Steve to simplify his game. This is the Chicago Blackhawks, not the Florida Panthers. The team has Toews, Kane, Keith….When it needs a big play, let them make it. Don’t even try.
Steve had never played on a team like the Blackhawks before. The Flames in 2004 had come out of nowhere, giving the players and fans an unexpected gift, but that had created only hope, not lingering expectations. Chicago had won a Stanley Cup two seasons ago, and the team was getting better. They had the chance to win every year.
It had seemed that same way for Chicago once before, in 1961, when they had the great Glenn Hall in goal; the league’s best defenceman, Pierre Pilote; the scoring champion, Stan Mikita; and the game’s most charismatic player, big-shooting Bobby Hull. But after winning the Cup that season they didn’t win again, and by the mid-1970s, Chicago was beginning to slide. Their owner, Bill Wirtz, who had inherited the team from his father, Arthur Wirtz, didn’t like the reality of the WHA, so he ignored it. Later, he didn’t like the reality of free agency or of TV broadcasts of local games, so he ignored them. This was his team. Nobody was going to tell him what to do. And in winning every battle he fought, Wirtz turned a great hockey city into a sour, deeply disappointed one.
The team became competitive again in the early 1990s, with Chris Chelios, Jeremy Roenick, Steve Larmer, and Ed Belfour, then inconsequential for a decade until Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, and coach Joel Quenneville, arrived to join the rapidly improving Duncan Keith. Crucially, Rocky Wirtz, who believed in spending money to make money, took over ownership of the team from his late father. Joy returned to Chicago hockey, and with joy came fans, money, and success—and with them more fans, more money, more success, and fist-pumping pride. The Blackhawks had learned how to win, and had learned what winning feels like. They wanted nothing less, and would accept nothing less. They were hooked, and the fans were, too.
The loss to the Canucks in the first round of the 2011 playoffs had shocked all of them. For the Blackhawks, the next season couldn’t begin soon enough. It was as if ownership, management, coaches, and players were on a quest. Good guys on a good team are forgiven for bad moments. Good guys on a Cup-questing team are not.
At Steve’s first lapse, Kitchen’s memories of Florida flooded back. He didn’t trust Steve, and Steve knew it. “Value me and I feel valued,” Steve had written in his journal.
Steve’s journal entries got longer. He was in contact with Gisele more frequently. His lapses didn’t stop.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Steve was every girl’s dream, until he wasn’t. He was smart, funny, good-looking. He was strong and gentle; loud and quiet. He had a body that turned heads. He was cool, because he just was. He didn’t need to be with a crowd, at the centre of every moment, to be the most important person in the room. But often, it would turn out that way. He could be alone, reading, hour after hour on his laptop, at the cottage he had on a lake in the middle of nowhere. He liked to be alone. But he also liked to be with others. With his teammates and buddies, and with girls. With lots of girls—and at different times in his life, with one girl. With Casey, Helga, and Star, and others. If Steve saw you as special, you were special. From the very first moment.
He always jumped in with both feet. He couldn’t do enough. He stared into the eyes of that special girl, he took in everything that was in her. He wanted to know everything about her, what nobody else knew, what she had never told anyone, what she might not have even known about herself. And he listened, to every word she said.
He saw himself as spiritual. He believed in religion, but he thought there were so many other things to believe in, too. In every experience, in every person, there was something to learn, and in every next experience and in every next person. And in himself, too, and every tomorrow. He wasn’t a seeker, looking relentlessly, endlessly, for the meaning of life. He was an explorer. He wanted to go everywhere, do everything, meet everybody. He wanted to learn, and find meaning, but not the meaning. His quest wasn’t out of emptiness, but delight. Fascination.
And at some moment he realized he had the right life to do all this. He had money. He had time. He would have to pick his spots; he had games and practices and hours in the gym to attend to. But he had time in between, and between seasons, at Olympic and All-Star breaks. From a team’s last game to its first practice back, that might only give him three days, but that was seventy-two hours. He could charter a plane; he could go anywhere. After all, he didn’t need much sleep, not when there was something to do. And besides money and time, he had access to this life because of him. Not because he was an NHL player, because most people didn’t know his name or what he did, and he didn’t tell them. It was because he could talk to anyone, because anyone wanted to talk to him. Because he was nice, and friendly, and smart, and because he wanted to know about them, because he made them and what they were doing more important than himself.
But to be the special woman in Steve’s life wasn’t easy. High reward; high risk. If he was all in, she had to be all in. If he was to get so close to her, to know so much, to inhabit her, she needed to inhabit him. And for days, sometimes weeks
, or even months, that’s how it might be. His father had believed that you learn everything you can in a job within two years, and then it’s time to move on. Steve had a need to move on, too. But in his mind, he didn’t. He was a romantic. A believer. He wanted that special girl. He wanted a family; he loved kids. But then within a few days, or a few weeks, or a few months, he’d find something that wasn’t quite right.
Keats recalls this one girl, she was “perfect,” Steve told him. Steve was so excited. He couldn’t do enough for her. “Then he said to me, ‘But she’s got this toenail. I can’t deal with that. She’s got a bad toenail.’ And I say to him, ‘Monty, what’s wrong with her toenail?’ and we start talking about a toenail. ‘Is it her big toe, or her small toe?’” Big reasons or small reasons—for Steve, there were always reasons.
He might see one of his former girlfriends a few years later; he might even think about how he had really blown it with her. He never believed there wasn’t a special girl out there for him, or that he wouldn’t find her.
That season in Chicago, Missy Holas moved in with Steve. The two of them had met at a party in 2004 in Calgary during the Flames’ Cup run. At the time, Steve was a college-age kid living an adult life with adult responsibilities every night the Flames played; and living a college-kid life of parties, alcohol, and drugs every night in between. At least, years later, that’s how Missy remembered him, and she hadn’t been impressed. Missy was a chiropractor and was living in Atlanta. She had clients on several NHL teams that she would see when their teams were in the city to play the Thrashers. She was often in the dressing room area, and over the years, when Florida, Anaheim, or Buffalo were in town, she and Steve might walk by each other, smile, and say hi.
