Theoren Fleury spent more than two decades running from his past.
He's finished hiding.
After years of drug and alcohol abuse to mask the pain of allegedly being sexually abused by his junior hockey coach Graham James, the former NHL star has dedicated the rest of his life to ensuring what happened to him never happens again.
"I’m in this for the long haul. This is what the rest of my life looks like. The system obviously is broken and needs to be fixed, and hopefully I can be a person that gets laws changed and gets some proper stuff in place so that young kids out there are safe," said Fleury, in town on Wednesday for the annual Lakehead Sports Celebrity Dinner and another speaking engagement with solvent abuse survivors on Thursday morning.
The numbers, said Fleury, are staggering.
One-in-three girls and one-in-six boys are molested by the time they hit 16 he said, still not believing the figures himself.
"When you throw that number out there, it’s astonishing. Sexual abuse is the biggest epidemic we have on the planet. And nobody wants to talk about it. Not only that, I learned that there are 750,000 pedophiles online every single day looking at the most horrible, obscene stuff that you’ve ever seen in your life," said Fleury, who spent 15 years in the NHL with Calgary, Colorado, the New York Rangers and Chicago, amassing 455 goals and 1,088 points in 1,084 games.
Born in Oxbow, Sask., the diminutive Fleury overcame a serious arm injury and began attracting the attention of the hockey world at a young age. Unfortunately when he was still a young teen he crossed paths with James, then a scout with the Winnipeg Warriors.
James later recruited Fleury to play for the relocated Moose Jaw Warriors, a team he was then coaching.
Fleury has alleged James – who has yet to be charged in the case – began sexually assaulting him once he joined the Western Hockey League team. He also assaulted future NHLer Sheldon Kennedy, who a decade or so later dropped the abuse bombshell that eventually sent James to prison.
Fleury, because of his size – he stands just 5-foot-6 – was considered a longshot to make the NHL, but despite the deep, dark secret he was carrying, he battled his way to stardom with the Calgary Flames.
He won a Stanley Cup in his rookie year, and by his third season he was a 50-goal, 100-point scorer and a perennial all-star.
Kicked out of the NHL for violating the league’s substance abuse policy in 2002, he was reinstated, but in January 2003 was involved in a drunken brawl, which ultimately led to his release in March 2003 and his departure from the league.
He was suspended in April of that year, a move that effectively ended his NHL career. Fleury bounced around Ireland for a season, and played senior hockey for the Horse Lake Thunder in 2005, where his team was eliminated at the Allen Cup by the eventual champion Thunder Bay Bombers.
It wasn’t until Fleury, who attempted a comeback with the Flames last fall, only to be released when the team made its final cuts, released his autobiography, Playing With Fire in October 2009, that James’s alleged abuse was brought into to the open – though it had long been whispered about privately.
Fleury hasn’t stopped talking since.
"(Kids) need to be aware and know that this happens every second of every minute of every hour of every single day. It’s sad to think that there are so many innocent kids that have to go through what I went through for a period of time in my life, and what it causes and the trickle-down effect it has on society and taxpayers dollars. It would blow your mind."
Fleury, whose life will be subject of a Alberta Theatre Projects play, Don’t Quit Before the Miracle, said he’s confident James, living free in Mexico, will get what’s coming to him, especially in light of further allegations of sexual abuse leveled on the former junior coach by other players.
What the 41-year-old won’t do is get upset at something he can’t control.
"I find anger does nothing, other than complicate matters. Somehow, some way we obviously have to trust the system. I’ve been in close contact with the Winnipeg police. I think they’ve done an outstanding job doing their due diligence and following up on every lead they’ve got. I hope that something happens sooner rather than later, but we’ll see what happens."
