John
Kordic
http://www.nytimes.com/1992/08/17/sports/hockey-he-skated-on-the-ice-then-fell-through-it.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
Sports
HOCKEY; He Skated on the Ice, Then Fell Through It
By JOE LAPOINTE
Published: August 17, 1992
At the funeral mass for John Kordic in Edmonton last Friday, the
program passed out to mourners showed a black-and-white picture
of the young hockey player when he played for the Montreal
Canadiens in 1986. He was smiling dreamily and holding the
Stanley Cup with another man.
Inside the
program, a prayer of St. Francis of Assisi said, in part: "When
there is hatred, let me sow love. . . . Where there is despair,
hope. . . . Where there is sadness, joy."
The snapshot
captured the high point in the life of a marginally talented and
greatly troubled athlete, a life that ended eight days ago in
Quebec when Kordic, after a struggle with nine police officers,
died of heart and lung failure shortly after being taken in an
ambulance from a motel room to a hospital. In the motel room,
police said, there were unused syringes and bottles of anabolic
steroids.
Since then,
details have come rushing forth about Kordic's tormented life
and sordid death. They tell of Kordic's bouts with alcohol; of
his use of drugs, including cocaine, and the steroids he took to
make him a stronger fighter, and of his conflicted relationships
with his coaches and family, especially his father, who strongly
disapproved when his son had to become a brawler to sustain his
career in hockey.
These details shed light on the pressures that molded Kordic
through his 27 years, and illuminated the story of a decade-long
journey that began in Edmonton and included stops in Portland,
Seattle, Sherbrooke, Montreal, Toronto, Newmarket, Washington,
Quebec and Cape Breton. When his coffin was carried out of a
red-brick Croatian Catholic church and transported to the
cemetery, John Kordic was at the end of that troubled journey,
back home in Edmonton, at last at rest. But behind him, he left
the anger and frustration of those who knew him and cared for
him, lingering questions about his final hours and profound
doubts among dedicated hockey people about the National Hockey
League's drug policy and about the subculture of the sport that
glorifies those who fight. A Ring, a Rose And Paranoia
Kordic's life
ended on Saturday, Aug. 8, shortly after he checked into the
Motel Maxim in Ancienne Lorette outside the city of Quebec. He
had moved back to Quebec after finishing the season with Cape
Breton, a farm team of the Edmonton Oilers in Nova Scotia, and
had expressed hope that he could turn his life around if he
could catch on with the Oilers and play in his hometown.
He was engaged
to marry a former exotic dancer named Nancy Masse, who used to
work at a Quebec club called Le Folichon, less than a mile from
where he died.
His final summer
was a mix of contradictions. In early June, he proposed marriage
by giving Masse a diamond ring and a red rose, and taking her on
a ride in a horse-drawn carriage. Kordic told her that he wanted
to have a son and to name him Ivan, after his father. She said
he didn't want his boy to play hockey.
But in an
interview here today, Masse also described sessions of cocaine
use and increasing bouts of paranoia during which Kordic would
say people were plotting against him.
"I said, 'John,
you are killing yourself,' but I didn't know it would be that
true so soon," she said. "He used to say, 'I hate myself for
hurting people.' John was like a little bird who fell from the
nest."
Masse said
Kordic's favorite television show was a soap opera called "The
Young and the Restless," and that, while watching it, he would
taunt a character who was alcoholic.
"Go ahead and
drink it," she said Kordic would shout.
Masse is a
slender, 23-year-old Quebec native with dark skin and blue eyes.
During the interview, she occasionally choked on her words. She
recalled their first kiss, and how she slept "with my head on
his bicep, like a pillow." She recalled how they used to lift
weights together, and how he taught her the correct way to throw
a punch.
At the funeral
home last week in Edmonton, she said, she put his red rose,
dried out now, in the coffin. Bruises on His Face, Cuts on His
Hands
Marlene
Bouchard, who helps run the Motel Maxim for her parents, said
Kordic came to the front desk on the night he died with bruises
on his face and cuts on both hands. She said he had stayed there
"about nine times" in the previous year, but had never appeared
in this condition.
"He had a hard
time breathing; I never saw anyone breathe so hard," she said in
an interview Saturday in the breakfast room of the motel. "He
was leaning forward against the counter to support himself."
Bouchard said
she suggested that Kordic check into a hospital, but that Kordic
said he only wanted to sleep. "He kept hitting his chest," she
said, mimicking the motion by softly hitting her chest with her
fist.
Because of the
cuts on his hands, Kordic was unable to sign the registration
card. She did it for him. "He said, 'You know who I am,' "
Bouchard said. "It was like he was proud to be known."
She said Kordic
paid in advance, in cash, with a $100 bill pulled from a
crumpled wad in his pocket. She said a taxi driver had to help
Kordic up the stairs, with his luggage, to Room 205 at the back
of the motel. Soon, Kordic began making hostile calls to the
front desk, between 9 P.M. and 10 P.M.
"He was talking
to people with hard words," said Camille Gagnon, the affairs
information agent for Surete du Quebec, the provincial police
force. When motel staffers went to Kordic's room, they found
that Kordic had ripped a picture from the wall and damaged some
of the furniture.
Kordic cursed
the employees and accused them of putting drugs in his luggage
and traces of drugs on his money.
Local police
were called and two officers arrived and tried to quiet him. But
when Kordic remained loud and agitated, police reinforcements
from the city of Quebec were called at 10:40 P.M. According to
Gagnon, nine officers in all entered the room, taking off their
guns and leaving them on a chair outside the door.
"It was very
hard to control Kordic; this is a strong guy," Gagnon said.
After wrestling him to the floor, they shackled him to a
stretcher, needing two pair of handcuffs because the arms and
torso of the 6-foot-2-inch, 238-pound Kordic were so large. They
tied his feet with rope.
Because of his
condition and his behavior, police called an ambulance to take
Kordic to the hospital at Laval University. "The ambulance
started for the hospital at 11:04," Gagnon said. "Kordic was
O.K. at this time. A few minutes later, he started to get major
trouble with his heart."
According to the
police, Kordic was given heart massage en route to the hospital,
but was pronounced dead 30 minutes after arrival. In his hotel
room, Gagnon said, police found about 40 unused syringes and
"seven or eight" bottles of steroids.
The autopsy
tests showed that Kordic died of heart and lung failure.
Toxicology tests on blood and tissue won't be finished for at
least a month, Gagnon said, but police say they are sure that
drugs were a major factor in Kordic's death.
"If we take care
about what the witnesses just told about the way he was acting
and if we consider what the police officers think, Kordic was on
the drugs," Gagnon said. "It's a fact, yeah. We think it might
be a lot of things. Steroids. Drugs. Alcohol. The fact that he
was wrestling pretty hard with police officers, he got tired.
All those resulted in his death."
At the time of
his death, Kordic weighed nearly 30 pounds more than his listed
playing weight.
A full inquest
into the death has been ordered by Dr. Jean Grenier, the chief
coroner for the province of Quebec. It will be conducted this
autumn.
Masse said
Kordic was claustrophobic, and she thinks paranoia in the
ambulance led to a heart attack. In his last weeks, she said,
she could hear his heart beating faster than normal when they
were in bed together. She said Kordic was also perspiring
abnormally.
She said she
didn't believe police reports that Kordic had needle marks on
his arms. Kordic would inject the steroids only in the left
buttock, she said, sometimes shaking so much from nervousness
that he would break the needles. He used steroids, she said,
because he was under pressure to fight in hockey. A Father
Unhappy With Son's Image
The other man
pictured on the funeral program was Ivan Kordic, John's father,
who died in 1989. Although Ivan Kordic supported his son's
hockey ambitions, he strongly disapproved of Kordic's role as a
designated fighter. Many who knew Kordic said his father's
negative opinion troubled him and that the expectations of
others caused him to take muscle-building steroids.
Among those who
fault hockey for limiting players like Kordic to the role of a
"goon" is Don Cherry, a former N.H.L. coach, a friend of
Kordic's and a television commentator for "Hockey Night in
Canada."
In Canada,
Cherry is considered an advocate of rough, aggressive play. But
even Cherry is against the specialist whose only role is to
fight. "It is demeaning for a human being to sit on a bench for
most of a game and be thrown out there only to fight like a mad
dog," said Cherry.
Of Kordic, he
said: "He always wanted to play the game of hockey, but
everywhere he went he was considered just a goon."
It was the
ability to fight, not scoring skills, that brought Kordic into
the N.H.L. as a big, chubby-cheeked, 20-year-old rookie with the
Canadiens in 1985. "He did an excellent job," said Jean Perron,
who coached the team to its most recent Stanley Cup championship
the following spring. "He beat the best fighters in the league."
It is a role
accepted in hockey, but one that Kordic apparently felt
uncomfortable with. Perron recalled seeing Kordic crying in the
locker room while talking on the telephone.
"I told him,
'John, why are you crying? We won the game! You should be
happy,' " recalled Perron, now a radio broadcaster. "John would
say, 'Ah, my dad is giving me grief. He doesn't want me to
fight.' His dad never accepted his fighting."
Kordic's tears
were the first signs of trouble. A few months later, when Kordic
reported to training camp for the 1986-87 season, Perron was
disturbed at what he saw. "I couldn't believe it," Perron said.
"How could you bulk yourself up the way he did? He looked like
Mr. Universe. I got phone calls that he was on steroids and
people were asking me to look after him."
Although the
N.H.L. has suspended players for cocaine use, it does not ban
the use of steroids if they are acquired legally. But league
officials have voiced support this week for reformed drug
policies. "We don't have a policy against steroids; it's not an
illegal drug," said Gary Meagher, the league spokesman. "But, if
steroids created the Kordic tragedy, then the league has an
obligation to take a look at the issue."
For a While, The
Best of Times
Despite the
steroids and his father's dislike of all his on-ice fighting,
Kordic's early years in Montreal were the best of his career. He
shared living quarters with Michel Labonte, a boxing coach and
brewery worker who taught Kordic how to throw better punches.
"For a while, he
was one of my best friends," Labonte said in a telephone
interview. "Beautiful guy to have fun with. He loved laughing."
But Labonte
noticed behavioral changes, about the time Kordic's father
became ill with the liver cancer that was to end his life in
1989. Kordic was drinking heavily and staying out late at night,
Labonte said.
When his father
became ill, Kordic told The Toronto Globe and Mail, "all of a
sudden you're mad at yourself that you weren't closer than you
were. I spent so much of my time doing things against his will.
. . . I took his death really hard." A dozen people interviewed
for this article all said that Kordic's rapid decline coincided
with the death of his father.
The Canadiens
tired of his unpredictable behavior and became disenchanted when
Kordic expressed a desire to change his game from fighting to
scoring. Hockey coaches have an old slogan for players who try
to make this transition: "From crusher to rusher to usher."
Pat Burns, who
became the Montreal coach in 1988, and now coaches the Maple
Leafs, said Kordic "was not the most skilled guy."
"It's difficult
to keep up the tough-guy image," Burns said, "and, if you don't,
people don't want you around anymore."
When Montreal
traded him to Toronto in November of 1988, things did not
improve. In Toronto, he had fights in the locker room with
teammates, including one in which he slapped Allan Bester, a 5-7
goalie. In the 1989-90 season, Kordic had nine goals, the most
he ever scored in an N.H.L. season, in 55 games. He also had 252
penalty minutes.
Bob Stellick, an
executive with the Maple Leafs, said the team arranged for
Kordic to stay in detoxification centers -- he would not specify
for what -- and even brought his mother to Toronto for several
weeks to live with him.
"I would have to
baby-sit John on the road," Stellick said. "He was a funny guy
with a great sense of humor, but he would just wear you out. . .
. He had chronic money problems and his life style was
self-destructive. You felt used by him."
After the Leafs
cut him in 1990, Kordic's agent, Howard Gourwitz, enticed the
Washington Capitals to give him another chance. David Poile, the
general manager of the Capitals, was asked last week what value
he saw in Kordic at the time.
"He was what you
call a legitimate tough guy," Poile said. "He was your loaded
gun. He had limited talent, but he was a tough guy. And,
whether, maybe that's, uh, maybe that's another reason why we
should look at things . . . as . . . anyway, we'll see."
Kordic played
only seven games with the Capitals in the 1990-91 season, with
no goals and no assists and 101 penalty minutes. After what
Poile called two "relapses," -- he, too, would not elaborate --
Kordic was cut from the team, but Poile said he resented
criticism that the Capitals and other teams simply abandoned
him. The Capitals paid for another stay in rehabilitation, Poile
said, although they were under no obligation to do so. The Last
Stop: The Nordiques
Last autumn,
Kordic caught on with the Nordiques, the worst team in hockey
for the previous three seasons. He roomed with Bryan Fogarty, a
young defenseman also battling alcoholism.
"Me and John
were straight and sober," Fogarty said in a telephone interview.
"We were being tested almost every other day for drugs and
alcohol. There was no lying. He was straight. Then he had a
little slip in January. That's when the team found out about it
and they split us up."
Fogarty said he
had no doubt that Kordic was using steroids. "It was pretty easy
to know when his weight was fluctuating 10 or 15 pounds weekly,"
Fogarty said. "He got in his mind that he has one good year
using steroids to beef up and to be tougher than everybody else
and now that he did it the one year it's almost like he can't do
it without it."
When the
Nordiques cut Kordic in January, he had played 19 games with no
goals and no assists while compiling 115 penalty minutes.
Kordic finished
out the season with Cape Breton, the Edmonton farm team, and
earned praise for his work ethic and team spirit. This summer,
he talked with the Oilers about a tryout in training camp. They
promised nothing, but said they would continue the discussions.
Kordic moved
back to Quebec City, where he spent time with Masse. Le Folichon,
the club where she worked, is located on a road near the Quebec
airport that is filled with many small motels, fast-food
restaurants and small businesses. The bartender, who identified
herself only as Francine, said: "John would come in here and sit
very quietly at the bar; he looked like a loner type."
On July 16,
neighbors near Masse's home called police about a disturbance.
Kordic was taken to court in handcuffs and charged with
misdemeanor assault against Masse. Masse told police it was the
third such incident in recent weeks, but later withdrew the
charges.
Kordic told the
court he would see a psychiatrist, but it is unclear if he did.
Masse said
Kordic often cried, especially when something reminded him of
his father. Two weeks before his death, she said, he spoke of
death and told her, "I will love you until I am in my grave."
Angry Words In the Sermon
Masse attended
his funeral in Edmonton, and was identified in the program as
"very close friend, Nancy of Quebec." She and others listened as
the Rev. John Cunningham, in his sermon, spoke of what he called
the hypocrisy of the news media and of the sports world, which,
he said, used men like Kordic, misled them and discarded them.
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," he said.
There were no
comments from family members, including Kordic's one brother,
Dan, who plays for the Philadelphia Flyers. Lillian Kordic, one
of two sisters, issued a written statement that said, in part:
"When my brother
was alive, he frequently was the object of media exposure, both
good and bad. The difference was, at times, he was allowed to
speak for himself. That is no more. As a family we feel that now
he is gone, he should finally be left in peace."
