WENDAKE, Quebec — The road reaches throughout the foyer to the glass door entrance quarter-hour earlier than warmups for a hockey sport in a low-level professional league simply north of Quebec Metropolis. We pay $12 a ticket at a desk subsequent to the Wendake Sports activities Complicated professional store, the place a game-worn Black Jack No. 87 jersey carries the identify of the league’s most well-known participant: BRASHEAR.
He performed in 1,025 NHL video games and amassed 2,635 penalty minutes throughout his 17-year profession. He earned greater than $16 million as one of many league’s most feared enforcers for the Montreal Canadiens, Vancouver Canucks, Washington Capitals, Philadelphia Flyers and New York Rangers.
He’s now nearly 52 years outdated and we’re right here to see the well-known fighter go one other spherical.
Donald Brashear is the marquee attraction. He’s the Wendake Black Jack captain. He seems in a lot of the crew’s on-line promotions. Brashear is the one participant who doesn’t put on a helmet throughout warmups. His bald head shimmers beneath the rafter lights. From the stands, he appears to be like nearly precisely as he did when he retired from the NHL 13 years in the past. A salt-and-pepper beard and slight strains round his eyes are all that betray his age. He’s 6-feet-3 however appears not less than a foot taller than another participant. He’s a lot broader by means of the shoulders, however trim by means of his body — with out the average-joe paunch that a number of of his counterparts carry as they weave by means of a pregame routine.
Brashear skates in swift strides, casually gliding then accelerating, dangling a puck together with his stick, and flicking a light-weight shot on the Black Jack goaltender. He smiles and laughs with teammates. He faucets their shin pads together with his stick. Brashear appears to be like joyful — like a person, blessed with outstanding athleticism who’s lucky to nonetheless play the sport he discovered security and luxury in as a boy, escaping the turmoil of his childhood.
It’s the happiness Brashear described to me two years in the past, when he informed me that he’d began skating in a professional league for just a few hundred bucks a sport, proper earlier than the pandemic shut it down. Gliding on ice, all the troubles that plagued him after his NHL profession light away: the substance abuse, the damaged relationships, the anxiousness assaults, the chapter, the arrest. Within the sport, he was only a boy doing what he liked.
Brashear and I spoke for greater than 10 hours over a number of weeks whereas I used to be engaged on a narrative concerning the trauma he endured as a boy, the errors he made and challenges he confronted as an grownup, and the peace he lastly felt near discovering. He described his anxiousness as an enforcer within the NHL, realizing that he was anticipated to battle the hardest gamers within the league if he needed to maintain his job. As a proficient prospect with the Montreal Canadiens, he needed to be recognized for his talent, but it surely was overshadowed when hockey discovered a greater use for him.
Brashear hated to battle. It made him nervous. He despised what it made individuals consider him and what it made him consider himself. However what else was he to do? The crowds cheered his identify, anticipating to see males fall. Groups needed to know that nobody would mess with their stars. It was love for violence, cash for blood.
Donald Brashear, in 2008 with the Capitals, squares off with San Jose’s Jody Shelley in entrance of an appreciative crowd. (Don Smith / NHLI by way of Getty Photos)
5 rows of packed seats stretch throughout one size of the Wendake area for the Saturday night time sport. Followers stand in no matter gaps could be discovered within the space above the highest row. It’s a full home with just a few hundred individuals. A line stretches to a folding desk the place patrons purchase cans of Budweiser, vodka coolers, and combined drinks in crimson Solo cups. A person at a mixing board subsequent to 2 giant audio system pumps out a dance remix of “Cotton Eye Joe.”
Black Jack performs Montagnards de Beaupré, a crew from a village of 4,000 individuals about an hour east alongside the St. Lawrence River. They’re rivals within the four-team Senior AA league that is only one of a number of professional loops throughout the province of Quebec.
Brashear performs on the highest line. He nonetheless has flashes of talent, placing up factors in most video games he performs. He lays a tough examine on a participant, picks up the puck and fires a move that results in a Black Jack objective. He yells triumphantly and embraces his teammates. Early within the second, he throws a examine within the offensive zone and a row of fellows leaning over a railing, holding crimson cups and beer cans, howl and holler.
Final winter, Charles Duchesne — a member of the Saint-Ambroise Flaming Chalets — punched Brashear with out warning. Brashear later hunted him down and punched him again, leaving Duchesne bloodied. Brashear then punched one other participant because the referees tried to intervene and followers tossed trash on the ice. He was suspended for 3 video games for the incident.
This fall he joined a second crew, two hours away in Saguenay — the Jonquière Marquis, within the Ligue Nord-Américaine de Hockey (LNAH), one other professional league that’s recognized largely for the regularity of its brawls. In Saguenay, a bell sounds when gamers sq. off to battle, as if they had been in a boxing match.
In October, in his first sport with Jonquière Marquis, Brashear fought 40-year-old Derek Parker — a participant who as soon as tallied 508 penalty minutes in his rookie season within the LNAH again in 2005. Parker inched towards Brashear together with his fists up whereas Brashear waved his arms loosely in entrance of him ready for Parker to make a transfer. When he did, Brashear struck him together with his proper hand. Parker bear hugged Brashear, holding him as tightly as attainable whereas the linesman watched. Lastly, Brashear broke his proper fist free and punched Parker within the head, sending him to the ice. Parker lined his head together with his fingers and Brashear skated away as the house followers cheered and the linesman gave him a faucet on the bum.
Brashear additionally fought in his first sport of the season for Wendake. In November, he was suspended for 2 video games with Jonquière Marquis after chasing a member of the Laval Petroliers and pummeling him whereas two linesmen tried in useless to tug him away.
On this Saturday night time in December, Brashear lays a examine on a Montagnards de Beaupré participant that shakes the boards and thunders throughout the sector. An excited roar rises from the stands. Brashear finishes a number of extra checks with the identical pressure within the second interval, anticipation for violence rising with every hit.
Close to the top of the interval, Brashear journeys and falls exhausting to his knees after a whistle. He jumps to his toes shortly and glares on the Montagnards de Beaupré gamers. A few of these gamers are members of the Canadian navy who play to make some further money. A number of others work building. One is a window salesman. They vary in age from their early 20s to their early 40s. All of them have a historical past within the sport, taking part in a point of aggressive hockey — junior, school, or minor professional — earlier than getting day jobs and taking part in the sport for rent, typically on a number of groups.
All of them again away.
“No person desires to have beef with that man,” says Mathris, an 18-year-old who involves the Black Jack video games repeatedly together with his mates.
Even the Donald Brashear glare is trigger for concern. (Picture courtesy Yannick David)
Throughout the second intermission, the group of youngsters talk about the likelihood of a battle taking place earlier than the top of the sport.
“Within the third interval it would occur,” says Felix, additionally 18. “I’m positive.”
I spoke with Brashear often after the story I wrote about him was revealed in February 2021. He didn’t have considerations about how his experiences had been portrayed. I checked in each few months to see how he was doing. He at all times appeared effectively. He’d averted medicine and alcohol. He was working at a golf course. He was excited about different methods to earn money, earlier than gathering his NHL pension.
Then, final 12 months, Brashear stopped responding. He was recognized to be reclusive at occasions. So I ended reaching out.
When clips of his current fights emerged on-line, I messaged him once more to see how he was doing. He learn my texts, however didn’t reply. After I left a voicemail and despatched a textual content saying that I used to be coming to Quebec Metropolis to look at him play, he didn’t reply. Hours earlier than the sport, my final message was not acknowledged.
Because the third interval begins, the vitality within the area builds. A gaggle of younger males, holding Solo cups in a roped off “VIP” part subsequent to the speaker, jeers the opposing crew and shouts with each exhausting examine and retaliatory slash. The rating is one thing like 6-3 for the Black Jack, however I’m not expecting the objectives.
Followers crowd across the glass on the ice stage, beneath the stands. An ejected Black Jack participant, sporting his Sherwood shoulder pads with no jersey, stands and cheers subsequent to the followers, sipping a Bud Gentle.
With lower than 5 minutes to go, blood drips from a large gash above the attention of a Black Jack participant. He took a tough proper as he tried to seize maintain of the Beaupré participant pummeling him and fell to the ice. The followers cheer wildly, standing to try to enhance their view of the motion beneath.
Brashear rises from the bench because the groups jaw at one another. Cedric Verreault, a 41-year-old who performed 14 seasons within the LNAH, stands beside him. He hasn’t performed a minute all sport. Goons, because the gamers consult with them, are employed by every crew to be round for exactly this type of factor. When rigidity escalates, these gamers step on the ice to settle any variations and provides what lots of the followers pay to see. Prior to now, Beaupré has employed guys for about $100 strictly to battle Brashear, I’m informed. One sat by means of a whole sport with out tape on his stick. However on this night time, not one of the Montagnards are prepared to endure that form of beating.
The sport ends. The rating is 7-3 for Wendake. The audio system blast “Candy Caroline” and everybody belts out their finest karaoke rendition.
Down a hallway subsequent to the foyer, loud music streams out of the locker room as gamers stroll out and in in half their gear, sipping beers and chatting excitedly.
Some distant dream lives once more.
“I like it. It’s not for the cash,” says Michael Novosad, a 40-year-old Black Jack. He’s a enterprise improvement supervisor who’s in command of gross sales for a hydraulics firm. He performed junior and Division I school hockey — after which 18 years within the LNAH.
“I simply can’t stop.”
There may be real ardour for what exists right here. Dozens of followers linger within the foyer, greeting family and friends members who performed. Some youngsters search autographs. These are group groups, with the gate cash paying for the gamers they cheer. Throughout the province, the rink is the place individuals come collectively to be entertained and to look at common males star within the heart ring of a touring street present.
“It retains the followers completely happy,” says Mikael Vallerand, the 26-year-old Beaupré participant who fought within the remaining couple of minutes of the third. “That’s why they arrive.”
It’s why I got here.
I felt the anticipation rising all sport — questioning which exhausting examine may result in Brashear unleashing on whichever poor man had the outsized confidence to problem him.
I got here for violence. I got here for my piece of the 51-year-old fighter who can’t stop. I got here to ask him why.
Is that this the childhood pleasure? Or one other extra time shift plying a commerce he hates?
Brashear showers shortly and attire in denims and a puffy winter jacket. He slips a black toque over his bald head. He carries his gear in an outdated Philadelphia Flyers hockey bag and strikes swiftly by means of the foyer, the place his girlfriend greets him. He hugs her. They stroll out the glass doorways.
I name from behind: “Donald.”
Brashear stops and turns as I catch as much as him. He smiles and shakes my hand.
“Might I ask you just a few questions,” I say.
Brashear shakes his head.
“No questions,” he says calmly.
He turns and walks away within the cold winter night time.
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic. Picture: Courtesy Yannick David)