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MONTREAL- APRIL 20: NHL Linesman Tony Sericolo #84 restrains Georges Laraque #17 of the Montreal Canadiens with play stopped during Game Three of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Boston Bruins at the Bell Centre on April 20, 2009 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The Bruins defeated the Canadiens 4-2. (Photo by Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Tony Sericolo;Georges Laraque
(April 20, 2009 – Photo by Richard Wolowicz/Getty Images North America)

(PhatzRadio / USA Today) – The role of an NHL enforcer is to protect his brethren and dole out punishment if liberties are taken with them.

“This is the guy who always has to be looking out for his teammates, watching the game and deciding, ‘OK, is that a wrong in a game that I have to right?’” former Calgary Flames general manager Craig Button says. “He’s always looking out for his teammates. My question is: Who looks out for the enforcer?”

That is the question of the moment in this summer of sadness for the NHL. Three tough guys — two current, one retired — are dead. The latest is Wade Belak, found Wednesday in a luxury hotel in Toronto.

STORY: AP reports Wade Belak’s death was suicide
PHOTOS: Wade Belak’s career
MORE: Researchers studying Boogaard’s brain

Georges Laraque, a retired NHL enforcer, knows what it’s like to live by your fists. He says the job comes with terrible, debilitating pressure. Laraque doesn’t know if that pressure played a part in any of these shocking deaths, but he thinks it is likely.

“People realize more and more how tough the job is, mentally,” he says. “It’s the demons. This job, you got to fight the demons constantly. What we’re talking about is the mental part of knowing that day in and day out you might have to fight. You think about it. You think about the next guy.

“You could be in a movie theater, but you’re not really watching the movie, because you’re thinking about the game tomorrow and how you might have to fight. After that game is over, the next game it’s the same. Some people, they can’t deal with that stuff.”

Belak, 35, retired from the Nashville Predators in March after being waived the month before. A person familiar with the investigation into his death told The Associated Press that Belak hanged himself; the person spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the investigation are confidential.

“I was in shock because Wade was such a positive guy,” Laraque says. “He was the last guy I would have thought of. Nobody understands.”

New York Rangers enforcer Derek Boogaard, 28, died May 13 of an accidental mixture of alcohol and oxycodone. Rick Rypien, 27, newly signed by the Winnipeg Jets, died on Aug. 15 at his home in Alberta; he had suffered from depression for years and police called his death “sudden and non-suspicious.”

Stu Grimson, a former NHL enforcer and an attorney in Nashville, spoke to USA TODAY before Belak’s death.

“As physically taxing as” the tough-guy role is, Grimson says, “it’s also emotionally taxing. It can weigh pretty heavy on you. I have heard people say it’s the toughest job in pro sports. But I will say this: I don’t know Derek or Rick well enough to know if that was a struggle for them, if the role weighed heavy on them.”

Boogaard suffered multiple concussions during his years in hockey. Post-concussion syndrome can lead to drug and alcohol abuse, though it is not clear if that could have been a factor in his case. His final game was Dec. 9 at Ottawa, when his season ended prematurely after he sustained a concussion and a shoulder injury in a fight with the Senators’ Matt Carkner.

Boogaard’s family donated his brain to Boston University, where researchers previously discovered two deceased NHL enforcers —Bob Probert and Reggie Fleming — showed signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease. Probert was 45 when he died last summer; Fleming was 73 when he died in 2009.

Former Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings player Bob Probert (C) drops the puck for the cermonial face off between Jonathan Toews #19 (R) of the Chicago Blackhawks and Chris Chelios #24 of the Detroit Red Wings during Game Four of the Western Conference Championship Round of the 2009 Stanley Cup Playoffs on May 24, 2009 at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Bob Probert;Chris Chelios;Jonathan Toews
(May 24, 2009 – Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images North America)

Stu Grimson, right, fights Bob Probert, who died last year at 45. Grimson says he wouldn’t be surprised if science finds “that a substantial or prolonged career in the role of enforcer has a high correlation to traumatic brain disease.”

Grimson says if it turns out that the science eventually shows “that a substantial or prolonged career in the role of enforcer has a high correlation to traumatic brain disease, that’s not going to come as a surprise to anybody.”

Still, Belak often told people that he had never had even one concussion, according to his colleague Pete Weber, TV voice of the Predators. Belak began to work for the Predators’ TV and radio broadcasts after his retirement; he was supposed to work the broadcasts on a regular basis this season.

Leaving the sport

Belak was facing his first season away from a dressing rooom in almost 20 years. He started his junior career in Saskatoon of the Western Hockey League in 1992-93. He made his NHL debut with Colorado in 1995-96.

Former NHL player Tom Laidlaw, now a player agent, recalls the sadness of leaving the game: “I remember I was kind of scared. One of the things you like about playing is being around the guys. You go away in the summer, but you know you are coming back in the fall. When you stop playing, you realize you aren’t going to be around the guys anymore.”

Like Belak, Laidlaw stepped immediately into a new career, but he still remembers feeling a bit lost because he wasn’t an NHL player anymore.

“People say Wade was a funny guy, and I didn’t know him,” Laidlaw says. “But I can tell you that tough guys wouldn’t say if they had any (problems). That’s part of the culture. They would rather make jokes than admit anything was wrong.”

Paul Henry, a Canadian-based sports psychologist who works with NHL players, points out Belak had a sudden end to his career last season.

“He takes the role of a color commentator, but it’s a different role,” he says. “Everyone that retires tells you they miss the dressing room the most. There is a dependency on the other players and there is a dependency on the energy that being a hockey player brings.”

Henry includes Probert’s death last summer when he says: “Is there anything more telling than four deaths of four special people in a year? Is there any louder message? … If fighting is a part of a reason why these players all passed. … I don’t know.”

Henry knew Belak and calls him “an engaging guy. But for every effect, there is a cause. If you wanted to look closely you could pinpoint the cause, but no one wants to look closely enough.”

Tough guys are fan favorites

The NHL has made rules against blindside hits to cut down on concussions; is it time to ban fighting for the same reason?

“The blindside hit, as the label implies, occurs to somebody who is vulnerable and unsuspecting,” Grimson says. “If you look across the aisle at two willing combatants who are engaged in a hockey fight, you’ve got two guys who understand the risks fully and accept those risks as they shake the gloves off and get into it. You don’t hear that part of the hockey community crying out and saying, ‘Hey, you’ve got to protect us.’ It would be a peculiar situation if you did.”

Belak was a fan favorite in Nashville, though he did not get much ice time, a pattern found in many hockey cities.

“It’s almost like the hockey tough guys, I’d say almost universally turn out to be the most likable guys on the club,” Weber says. “My best friends in hockey are Rob Ray, Brad May, Matt Barnaby and Larry Playfair. Wade didn’t play that much here, but his popularity was incredible.”

Weber says Belak often interviewed former teammates for a TV segment called Wade’s World. “There was a lot of Steve Allen in him, man in the street stuff in the dressing room, with some offbeat and oftentimes hilarious interviews with them, not knowing what was going to come out next,” Weber says. “He had really begun the transition process before he got to us with stuff on Leafs TV when he was in Toronto. He came here essentially as a guy who said, ‘OK, I’ll be your enforcer and then I’m ready to go into broadcasting.’”

Laraque says he hears some people say that perhaps fighting in hockey should be banned. He thinks that is exactly the wrong approach because that would only increase the pressure on enforcers as their jobs disappeared.

The NHL’s enforcers often know one another and over time many of them become friends. Henry, the psychologist, says that increases the pressure on them.

“Big time,” he says. “Who the hell wants to beat up their best friend?”

League looking into deaths

NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL Players Association executive director Don Fehr issued a joint statement Thursday expressing profound sadness.

“While the circumstances of each case are unique, these tragic events cannot be ignored,” the statement says. “We are committed to examining, in detail, the factors that may have contributed to these events, and to determining whether concrete steps can be taken to enhance player welfare and minimize the likelihood of such events taking place.

“Our organizations are committed to a thorough evaluation of our existing assistance programs and practices and will make immediate modifications and improvements to the extent they are deemed warranted.”

Button, who was GM in Calgary when Belak played there, says he doesn’t know what correlation there is among these three deaths, if there even is one.

“But we have to find out what the links are,” he says. “I’m talking more about the stresses, the pressure and the emotional part of it. You look at the NHL and NHLPA behavioral program. They have very high-end professionals. Those are the people who have to determine what the links are.”

Laraque isn’t sure high-end professionals are the answer. He suggests current enforcers and those recently retired should have the resource of being able to talk to long-retired tough guys who have lived through the tough times.

“There’s already a program in the NHLPA to help people with depression and all that stuff,” Laraque says. “But because professional sports is an ego job, they don’t want to go see a counselor or a doctor that has a PhD and all that stuff, because you don’t like to talk to people and admit that you have a problem. We’re invincible. We don’t like to show weakness. That’s the way it is. But even tough guys have weakness.

“The best way to solve that problem is to have committees of former players who have done that job before. It’s much easier to talk to a former player who’s done that job and been in that position than to talk to some shrink that did his PhD at some Harvard University and thinks that he knows it all when he’s never fought in his life.”

NHL tough guys face ‘emotionally taxing’ pressure is a post from: PhatzRadio.com

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