Oct. 26--When Theo Fleury says he has "seen it all and done it all" during his 47 years, there is no point in disputing it.
He has soared to the greatest heights his sport has to offer and sunk to life's deepest depths of despair.
Fleury's saga, which has included winning a Stanley Cup championship and an Olympic gold medal -- all while battling life-threatening drug and alcohol addictions after sexual abuse by a junior coach -- would make for a good country song. That is something Fleury is counting on as he embarks on the next chapter in his life: country music singer. In fact, the first single from the "I Am Who I Am" album that was released Friday is entitled "My Life's Been a Country Song."
It is not a gimmick, this undertaking by a man who said he reached "the rock bottom of rock bottoms" in life while a member of the Blackhawks during the 2002-03 season. As a child growing up in a small town in western Manitoba, Fleury would sit and listen to his grandfather play the fiddle, and it wasn't long before he began singing along with his family, a hobby that lasted throughout his 15-season NHL career.
"I've always loved country music," Fleury said. "I grew up listening to guys like Buck Owens, Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson those sort of hard-living guys. When I was done playing hockey it was always something that was in the back of my mind that I would like to at least give it a try. I found some friends that were in the music business that helped me write the lyrics and put all the media together and we came up with this album."
Fleury is as passionate about his music career as he was a hockey career that saw him hoist the Cup with the Flames in 1989, win a gold medal for Canada in 2002 and appear in seven NHL All-Star Games.
"Music for all of us means different things," he said. "When a song comes on the radio that we sort of gravitate toward, we can remember where we were in our life or how it has inspired us, whether it was a word or a lyric or a lick of a song that really meant something to us. Music is sort of that universal language. It feels kind of cool that I've been able to find that inside of myself and bring that out.
"I try to tell people that if you always wanted to do something but were maybe a little afraid of trying it you never know unless you try. That's been the thing with the music stuff. It's about paying tribute to my family who instilled this music inside of me and finding the right people to sort of tap into that talent that I never really realized I had. And it's using those team-building experiences that I had my entire life and building this team of people around me that has helped me reach deep inside of myself to find this newfound experience of music."
This new career is also cathartic for Fleury, who recently surpassed 10 years of sobriety, or as he put it, "3,650 days -- I don't talk about it in years, I talk about it in days because it's 24 hours at a time."
He is able to reflect on the experiences that made him who he is today, including those he chronicled in a best-selling book, "Playing With Fire," which was released 2009. In it, Fleury detailed the alleged abuse he suffered as a teenager over the course of two years from junior coach Graham James. That sent him spiraling into a life of drugs and reckless behavior that continued through his playing days with the Flames, Avalanche, Rangers and finally the Hawks.
"I often reflect on those days when I was in Chicago and how completely lost I was and how much pain I was living in at the time," Fleury said. "I did have some regrets about my time in Chicago because it's such an incredible city and to put on that Blackhawks jersey was truly an honor, and my time there was difficult. I wish I could have had my (stuff) together and played the way I played throughout my career."
How bad did it get during his stint with the Hawks?
"I was hanging out in the projects," Fleury said. "I was completely lost and was looking for that medicine that was trying to numb me out from the fact of my reality and the emotional pain and scars that were left behind from early childhood. It wasn't too long after that I tried to commit suicide and wasn't able to do that. From there it was really a point where I started down this path of recovery.
"I look at everything that happened in my life today as gifts because they were the gifts that got me to where I'm at today and having the opportunity to help so many people on a daily basis is what I really think life is all about."
That opportunity to help began with "Playing With Fire," a book Fleury wrote merely to get his experiences "on paper and take one last look at it and put it in its rightful place, which is the past."
It became much more.
"I went to Toronto to do the first book signing and didn't have any expectations and 400 people show up to this book signing and I'm going, 'This is kind of strange,' " Fleury said. "And so I started signing books and I spotted a guy in the corner of my eye and he's got my book clutched against his chest and his face is buried in the floor and he's walking really slow. So I followed him all the way in the line and he gets to the front of the line and he sets the book on the table, looks me in the eye and says, 'Me too.'
"That's when I realized the purpose of writing the book and the purpose of my life was to go through all of these struggles and try to figure it out, and little did I know that something I thought was uncommon is actually the most common thing that happens in the world and by telling my own story it inspired a whole bunch of other people to also find their own voice and move past the trauma."
Fleury hopes to keep inspiring with a successful music career that is likely to include a tour.
"All the success that I had in hockey gave me the voice that I have today," Fleury said. "What we all need to figure out in our lifetime is what the bigger purpose is for us being on the planet. It really boils down to sharing your story, sharing your experience so other people can relate so that they don't feel so alone with their own personal struggles, and that's sort of been my experience.
"I've learned more from other people's stories than I have actually of my own. That's your gift of going through struggles. We're human beings and we're going to make mistakes and bad choices. As long as we learn from those mistakes and come out on the other side and really try to make a difference in other people's lives, (that's) what it's really all about."
ckuc@tribpub.com
