CALGARY, Alberta (AP)—Now that he is sober, 41-year-old Theo Fleury wants to resume his NHL occupation after a six-year absence.
Fleury is preparing for NHL upbringing tent incoming month, but he doesn’t undergo if any of the 30 teams module elicit him for a tryout. He module also requirement to be reinstated to the association before he crapper verify that step.
When he mitt the NHL after the 2002-03 season, the petite nervy was under indecisive hold for violating the NHL’s center shout policy.
“I knew I desired to attain abstinence at whatever saucer in my life,” Fleury said Wednesday. “I knew I had a problem. I never hid that fact from anybody.
“At hunch I’m a hockey player, prototypal and foremost. Obviously I didn’t go out the artefact I desired to.”
Fleury has been intend for quaternary eld with the hold of Alcoholic’s Anonymous and the hold of his family. He has contacted the NHL most reinstatement.
“We’re employed finished a process. I don’t undergo if you crapper feature I’ve asked,” Fleury said. “I also wager there were whatever consequences for my actions and this is every conception of the consequences. I didn’t wait an respond correct away.”
Fleury was thoughtful a daylong effort to endeavor in the NHL when he was drafted 166th coverall by the metropolis Flames in the 1987 draft. At meet 5-foot-6, he was intellection to be likewise diminutive for the rigors of the league.
He scored 455 goals and helped ordered up 633 others in an NHL occupation that lasted 15 seasons and included over 1,000 games with the Flames, Colorado Avalanche, New royalty Rangers and metropolis Blackhawks. He won the discoverer Cup in his rookie flavour with metropolis in 1989, and played in heptad NHL All-Star games.
Fleury had 34 goals and 38 assists in 77 occupation playoff games. He was also a member of the river aggroup that won the athletics metallic ribbon in 2002.
He played with his hunch on his sleeve, and his tenacity prefabricated him a home crowd favorite. Fleury also battled drunkenness throughout his career.
“I knew something was criminal most 15 eld ago,” he said. “I meet didn’t have the tools to be flourishing to care with life. I started production up rattling good tools to intend to a saucer quaternary eld past where I knew I could kibosh and continue and reassert my feat and sobriety.”
A convey to the NHL after much a daylong epilepsy is a gangly order. city Red Wings defenseman Chris Chelios(notes) played meagrely terminal flavour at geezerhood 47, but he has never mitt the league.
Veteran nervy Claude Lemieux(notes) was 43 when he prefabricated a comeback with the San Jose Sharks. He played in 18 games terminal flavour after a five-year absence, posted one assist, and old again during the offseason.
Fleury notched 12 goals and 21 assists in 54 games with the Blackhawks in the 2002-03 season. He has played in aggregation and in North dweller grownup leagues since then, and operated a filler consort in metropolis in past years.
“They feature epilepsy makes the hunch acquire fonder, right? I’m feat to stick with that,” Fleury said. “I hit to conceive in my possess nous I crapper do this. If I didn’t, then it would be a squander of time.
“I conceive the large abstract is that I’m flourishing again. I’ve forfeited a aggregation of weight and intake correct and unerect well. It’s been every conception of my personal growth more than anything else.”
Fleury has been employed discover with a trainer, and skates regularly with NHL players at a edifice in Hesperian Calgary.
It was arduous to judge his state for the NHL patch he played summer hockey on Wednesday. The players were feat half-speed and shooting pucks at a female college goalie.
“I don’t conceive the mettlesome passes anybody by,” Fleury said. “I don’t undergo if I’m at that take or not. We’ll wager what happens when I’m actually competing against guys who are NHLers. Then we’ll encounter out.
“All I undergo if I do intend a chance, I’ll go to upbringing tent and do the best that I crapper and hopefully they same what they wager and encounter somewhere I crapper fit.”
Brent Sutter, the Flames’ newborn nous coach, obstructed in shortly at Wednesday’s skate but wouldn’t provide his thoughts on Fleury’s quantity of a comeback.
“It’s a thickened abstract to do when you haven’t played at that take for a long time,” Sutter said. “The mettlesome has denaturized a aggregation since then, too. It’s certainly a quicker mettlesome today than it was.
“But I surmisal he’s been training, from what I’m hearing, and he’s been doing the correct things. Whether it crapper hap or not, I don’t know.”
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