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- [00:00]
Dan Robson
Foreign.
- [00:07]
Mark Lazarus
Welcome to the Athletic Hockey Show. I'm Mark Lazarus. I'll be joined in a moment by Dan Robson. We have some sad news coming out of Florida today, where former NHL player Claude Lemieux died early Thursday morning. Lemieux was a larger than life figure in hockey, the central figure in the unrivaled rivalry between Colorado and Detroit in the late 90s. Four time Stanley cup champion with Montreal, New Jersey and Colorado, Conn Smythe Trophy winner for The Devils in 1995. One of the great clutch performers in playoff history. He's ninth all time with 80 career playoff goals, fifth all time with 234 career playoff games, and of course, third all time with 529 playoff penalty minutes. He was 60 years old. Just a few days removed from serving as a ceremonial torchbearer in Montreal at a Game three of the Eastern Conference final, Claude Lemieux leaves behind his wife, Deborah, and his four children, Claudia, Michael, Christopher and former NHL player Brendan. I want to say off the top here that parts of today's conversation will be difficult, possibly triggering for some people. So please use your discretion as we continue on. This is. I want to get this right. This is from the latest story from the Athletic reporting team. Quote when asked about Lemieux's death, the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office told the Athletic that deputies responded to a suicide attempt at a furniture showroom, which state records show is in Lake Park, Florida, and is owned by Lemieux and his wife, Deborah. The sheriff's office secured the business for investigation. The Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed Lemieux's death, but declined to release any records, citing a Florida statute exempting suicide cases from public records requirements. Now reactions are pouring in from around the hockey world, including, including from Darren McCarty, one of Lemieux's fiercest rivals, who went on Instagram and called it a sad day, saying, it's another brother gone, and also adding, if you're struggling out there, no matter what, just reach out for some help. Canadiens owner Jeff Molson called it a dark day for the Canadiens family and the entire hockey community, adding that Lemieux, quote, embodied the very essence of being a Montreal Canadiens player. Now, Dan Robson from our team at the Athletic joins me to take a look back at the career in the life of Claude Lemieux. Dan, how are you?
- [02:04]
Dan Robson
Good, Mark, how are you?
- [02:06]
Mark Lazarus
Good, Dan. 30 years ago this week, I think it was Claude Lemieux is a rookie with the Montreal Canadiens. He, he had 10 goals in 20 playoff games, helping the Canadians win the Stanley cup. And he just made a. He made a career out of just being one of the most clutch performers we've ever seen in the playoffs. What do you, what do you think of when you think of Claude Lemieux?
- [02:26]
Dan Robson
Well, that's interesting because I actually was just speaking with Mark. Mike Luit about. Mike Luit. Sorry about his EBA net. When Claude scored the game winning goal over him in the division series in game seven. And it was something that, you know, Claude always kind of ribbed him about over the years and know, thought, you know, thought sort of fondly back to thinking of his. His former competitor in that sense. And, you know, I think with, with Claude, it's two things. You think of that clutch performance. You think of a playoff, a guy who was always there in the playoffs, who always rose to the occasion, but you also sort of thought of the other side of him, the, the pest that got under people's skin, the person who went too far at times on the ice, and that kind of created a legacy that was balancing between, you know, a great performer, someone who always rose the occasion, but. But also kind of took it too far at times and, and that created a very colorful career.
- [03:12]
Mark Lazarus
Yeah, it's funny, you know, this, this happened in my, you know, I was a. I was a high schooler, I was a teenager during those great Avalanche Red Wings matchups. And I always thought of Lemieux as the pain in the ass, the instigator, the. The agitator. I never really thought about the fact that he was scoring all the time too. It's like his, his personality as an agitator almost overwhelmed his feats as a hockey player. And you know, you think of what was it, did the Chris Draper hit, or he. Or he'd be busted up his face with a, with. With a hit from behind. I think, I think it was Dino Cicciarelli who said, after a playoff series, I can't believe I shook that freaking guy's hand. Like Claude Lemieux had that kind of effect on people. He was maybe the greatest agitator we've ever seen in a sport just loaded with him.
- [03:52]
Dan Robson
I mean, and that was his skill. Like he was able to get under people's skin and to create an environment in which people were playing angry and people were playing upset. He was, he knew that game more than pretty much anybody else before him. He's sort of the most iconic when it comes to that. So, you know, he had 80 playoff goals in his career. He incredible performer. But for the Most part, people remember him for, for being that kind of villain, which I think is just the, the thing about him that, you know, I, you know, when I, when I think back to those years, you know, in the 90s and 2000s, when he was, you know, his name was everywhere, that's, that's what he was known for more than the, the top performer that, that we, you know, if you look at the stats, you realize that he was also having a Con Smythe winner, someone who was clutch.
- [04:35]
Mark Lazarus
Yeah, like I said, four time Stanley cup champion. And he was a major, major factor in all of those from 1986 to, I think it was 2000 when he won his last cup with the Devils. So over, over a long, long career. I think he played 21 seasons. A great player. Produced in the regular season too. But it's those postseason feats that, that, that will always remember. I always wonder if a guy like that could succeed in the modern day NHL where it's so heavily officiated and all those extracurriculars are. It's, you know, we see a game now, we're like, oh my God, look at that line Brawl. You go back and you watch those 1990s avalanche, Red Wings games, it's, it's like a different sport. The things they're getting away with, the things they're not getting away with. I mean, it was an absolute blood sport back then.
- [05:14]
Dan Robson
Yeah. As I've been putting together some, some stuff on Claude's career, I was looking back at some of the YouTube videos and you almost forget. I mean, I, I watched all that happen and you realize that it was, as you said, it was, it was a different world completely. The, the ferocity with which, you know, the Avalanche and the Red Wings battled. I mean, that was, that was iconic. It was something that's, you know, has become part of the lore of the game, you know, and really he's sort of the touchstone to that. Claude was, was kind of the, the impetus for that, that entire fury.
- [05:43]
Mark Lazarus
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely epitomize the guy you hate to play against and guy you love who's on your team. You know, we've seen guys like that with Essa Tikkonen and Daniel Carcillo over the years, but nobody really mastered it quite like, quite like Claude Mutiny. He reveled in it too. That was the best part is he would do it with a, with a mean smile on his face. Right. He was out there and he was reveling in how much everybody hated the guy.
- [06:05]
Dan Robson
What I always found interesting, though, was how somewhat elegant he seemed off the ice as well. I mean, I don't know if you ever saw his Battle of the Blades performance. I was watching that. And in that Battle of the Blades performance, he actually sings Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. And he recorded it before he ran the ice. And it was wonderful. I mean, it was this beautiful rendition played live for this performance when he's ice dancing in the CBC contest. And it just showed this other side. I mean, there's this sort of the person who could, you know, break Chris Draper's face, but also dance quite elegantly and sing a Chris or a sing Hallelujah and kind of captivate an audience that way.
- [06:45]
Mark Lazarus
I didn't know that he did that. I didn't know that he sang or danced. And now I really got. The second we're done with this conversation, I'm going to look that up because that's amazing. And, you know, it shows that these guys are much more multifaceted than I think we sometimes give them credit for. They become these kind of almost cartoon characters when they're on the ice. But obviously, I mean, with the way this has gone down, there are deeper emotions at play with being an athlete and then with being a former athlete. A lot of guys have struggled with that over the years. And you look back in recent hockey history, Chris Simon, Rick Rippon, Derek Bogard, Wade Belak, there's a history of NHL players taking their lives. There's a history of guys dealing with just real severe chronic mental health issues in the wake of their careers. And it's something that the league, the players, are trying to reckon with, but the league continues to kind of pretend doesn't happen. Gary Bettman still insists that there is no correlation between, you know, repeated head trauma on the ice and chronic traumatic encephalopathy.
- [07:45]
Dan Robson
Yeah. In this situation, we're still waiting to figure out, you know, more details about this. But if you look back, obviously, like you said, there's this very sad history. Anyone who's be close to this game has seen that there's been too many lives lost. It's something that obviously affects so many people. It's not just a hockey issue, but it is something that, you know, we're acutely aware of. We've seen in these, as you mentioned, very high profile tragedies. And it's something that, you know, we keep getting to a point where we're hopeful that, you know, there's enough awareness, there's enough conversations about safety on the ice and about care after the game. And how, how players begin to speak about these things. And we're in a society right now where we, we do tend to be more open about this and we talk about, you know, I. In those past incidents that you're talking about, I mean, this conversation has come up perpetually. And then, you know, it looks like we're on the verge of having another really difficult conversation and hopefully a conversation that can bring some light to an issue that, you know, so many people deal with. Yeah.
- [08:45]
Mark Lazarus
And I think, I mean, this is obviously not exclusively an NHL issue. The NFL has seen a lot of former players go through this professional wrestling. Any sport that's this physical, this violent, and includes this much head trauma, we're unfortunately seeing this. I think, I think you're right. I think it. When you see someone like Darren McCarty, who despised Claude Lemieux back in the day, you know, not only. Not only offering his condolences, but saying right away, hey, you know, if, if you're struggling, you know, reach out to someone, have help, it doesn't have to be this bad. I think it does matter. When you see these big tough guys later in their careers speaking out about mental health issues, it's so important. When we see it with current NHL players, guys taking leaves of absences to work on their mental health, I think that helps lessen the stigma somewhat. And having these old school guys, these guys that you think of as just the toughest bastards that there ever were, talk openly about mental health, I think that's only going to be in the long term, a benefit for the players that are still to come.
- [09:40]
Dan Robson
No, I've had a lot of conversations with veterans who were enforcers in their careers. I've read a lot of stories about that in the past, and I find so many that during their careers, at the time, would never have felt open to speak about these kinds of things, free to speak about it now. And unfortunately, they've gone through so much, but seeing their brothers, people that they might have been competitors with on the ice, but have a unique bond with, as so many NHL players do, even if you fought, even if you hated each other on the ice, you have some sort of connection later on. And I think that we're seeing more and more players be able to speak openly about these things, and particularly players who played the tough guy role, which I think is really interesting. I mean, these are really thoughtful guys who understand the unique situation that they were put in by the game that they played, the game that they loved, but also a game that took a lot from Them and a game that they're still kind of grappling with the outcome. And as they see people around them who they played against and die in these. In these ways or to deal with ongoing battles and substance abuse issues, I mean, I think there's a real push to say, no, we have to talk about this. We have to get out and make sure that the next generation knows they can talk about it and that our generation or the generations that went before us are able to get the help that they needed. Obviously, that's not always going to be successful, but the more we talk about it, as you said, the more this conversation happens, the better everyone will be for it.
- [11:16]
Mark Lazarus
I do think sports tends to lag behind society in these regards because sports still kind of clings to those masculine ideals of, you know, nothing can faze me, and I'm always tough and strong enough for this. We've seen in, over the last couple of decades in society how much more mental health is being prioritized. And we're starting to see it now in pro sports, and it's a little. It's behind the times, but I think it is good, and there is value in seeing these guys, you know, be open about it. Every. Every time someone speaks openly about it, it kind of moves the ball that much further down the field, and it's good to see. So before we wrap up here, I don't want to belabor the point, but do you have a moment, a Claude Lemieux moment in your head that stands out, that you'll remember him on the ice for or a particular battle, a particular jersey you always see him in?
- [12:00]
Dan Robson
I see it well, yeah, I see him in the. In the Avalanche jersey. For me, that's the era that I. In the 90s is kind of the era that I was really. I was a kid watching the game. I was. I was enthralled. I was, you know, Patrick wa. I remember those fights. I remember the Avalanche, Red Wings battles and, you know, the. I mean, just getting up and watching highlights or watching the game and just thinking, this is. This is bananas. This is absolutely crazy. So for me, I think that's. That's kind of the. The area in my. In my sort of nostalgic memory of hockey, where Lemieux lives. I mean, not. Not to say that that was sort of the best era of hockey, but that was an era that stood out to me and that he was sort of the. The fuel, you know, that kind of. Or the ignition of the. Of that fuel. And so, yeah, that's to me, that's where he, where he remains.
- [12:44]
Mark Lazarus
Yeah. If you're the central figure of a documentary 30 years later, you had a heck of a run as a playoff performer. And, and Claude Lemieux was he was the hero in the Villain all wrapped into one. And he was so much fun to watch. And you know, the 1990s wasn't the prettiest form of hockey the late 90s, but it might have been the most entertaining in a lot of ways. And it's because of characters like Claude Lemieux who, who really played a big role in that. Dan, thanks for your time. I know you got a whole bunch of stories to write here. We'll have more reactions and remembrances at the Athletic. If you or someone you know is suffering from mental health issues, you can call 1-800-662-HE-LP that's 1-800-662-4357 in the United States or call or text the number 988 in Canada. Thank you for listening.