Three NHL tough guys have died since spring, leaving behind more questions than answers about the toll being an enforcer extracts.
Wade Belak, who hanged himself according to a person familiar with the case, was found dead Wednesday at a downtown luxury hotel and condo building in Toronto. He was 35. Rick Rypien, who battled depression, was found dead at his home in Alberta earlier this month. He was 27. Derek Boogaard’s death in May was ruled an accidental overdose of an alcohol and the painkiller oxycodone. He was 28.
Their stories are as different as they are alike. But the damage each suffered from all those fights apparently lingered long after the bruises, stitches and busted teeth had healed.
“I could give you about 20 names of people that have demons still because of that job,” George Laraque, a former enforcer himself, told CBC News.
Scientists increasingly suspect that what Laraque calls “demons” could be a degenerative brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). While researchers caution that they are still exploring the link between concussions in sports such as football and hockey, let alone the role frequent fighting could play, autopsies on the brains of Bob Probert and Reg Fleming, two longtime
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