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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;This story appears in the July 4\u201311 edition of&amp;nbsp;&lt;/i&gt;Sports Illustrated&lt;i&gt;.&amp;nbsp;Subscribe to the magazine&amp;nbsp;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;b&gt;&lt;i&gt;here&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/b&gt;&lt;i&gt;.&lt;/i&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He hides in the shadows, stage left, and stares into the light past the curtains. He breathes in slow, and then out fast. The four other members of the band have taken their places. The crowd waits for him. \u201CF\u2011\u2011\u2011\u2011\u2011\u2011 sold out,\u201D he says. \u201CNow I\u2019m nervous.\u201D This is unusual; he had always loved putting on shows. For 15 seasons he dazzled crowds at NHL rinks, a 5'\u20086\", point-per-game pit bull. And now, on a rainy Saturday in March, Theo Fleury walks onstage in an auditorium near the Sidney, B.C., airport to entertain a packed house of 310.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Many bought tickets for the simple novelty of seeing their favorite player belt out country tunes. A local junior-B team, in the midst of its postseason, came seeking inspiration from a legendary right&amp;nbsp;wing who won a Stanley Cup. Two fans splurged for the Silver Package, which cost $175 and included having their pictures taken in the dressing room with Fleury\u2019s 2002 Olympic gold medal draped around their necks. Dozens of others brought their T\u2011shirts, hats and pucks, hoping to get them signed. For weeks southbound drivers on Highway&amp;nbsp;17 had glanced out of their windows and seen the cover of Fleury\u2019s album splashed onto a billboard.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The lights fade. The sound of two \u00ADguitars pick up. \u201CLadies and gentlemen,\u201D the house manager says over the loud\u00ADspeakers, \u201Chere\u2019s proof that good things come in small packages.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fleury\u2019s voice is deep and hardened, inspired by the artists his grandfather loved, like Johnny Cash. He believes his grandfather found peace in music, stroking the fiddle during family singalongs in rural Manitoba. Hockey once served a similar purpose for Fleury. \u201CThe one constant thing that made sense,\u201D he says. But he does not skate much anymore, too competitive to play for fun, too out of shape to play competitively. None of his lyrics mention the sport\u2014or the 455 goals, 633 assists and 1,840 penalty minutes\u2014that made him famous, either. Instead, the 10-track album &lt;em&gt;I Am Who I Am&lt;/em&gt; has cuts like \u201CSick As Your Secrets\u201D and \u201CRoad To Misery.\u201D They trace the long climb up from rock bottom.\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;\"I was a lot more short, temper wise,\" Fleury says. \"Anger for me was protection.&lt;/em&gt; &lt;strong&gt;STAY OUT OF THIS GUY'S WAY.\"&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Much of the audience came for who \u00ADFleury is now, 48 years old and sober for the past 11, the superstar whose shame melted away like ice. They came to hear the voice that speaks for the estimated one in three Canadians who have been abused\u2014physically, emotionally, \u00ADverbally\u2014as children; for the 95% of youth sexual assaults that go unreported in Canada, according to a 2013 study in &lt;em&gt;Frontiers in Psychiatry&lt;/em&gt;; for the believed 70% of survivors who then seek drugs and alcohol to soothe their wounds.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;They came to feel empowered by the man \u00ADtapping his leather cowboy boots and raising his fist as he sings the chorus of the first song.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em &gt;I am who I am&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;em &gt;I stand for what I believe&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;em &gt;To win from within&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;em &gt;I am real/I am me/And I am free.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;em &gt;\u2014&lt;/em&gt;\u201CI Am Who I Am\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He walks through the lower bowl of Scotiabank Saddle\u00ADdome, the rink where he spent 11 straight years as a Flame, starting in 1988. Two days before the concert, \u00ADFleury has driven from his home outside of Calgary to watch the team\u2019s morning skate. Here they remember him with joy. In the rafters hangs the banner honoring the Stanley Cup champions from 1989, when Fleury was a rookie. Downstairs, painted onto the wall outside the home dressing room, is the celebratory scene moments after Calgary clinched in Montreal. Fleury can be found in the front row, close to the grail. His whole body looks exhausted, except for one pointer finger extending in triumph.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Two decades later Fleury left Calgary with a similar image. Out of the league for six years while indefinitely suspended for violating the league\u2019s substance-abuse policy, he attempted a comeback with the Flames before the 2009\u201310 season. He shed weight and returned to playing shape. He convinced commissioner Gary Bett\u00ADman of his sobriety and had the suspension lifted. At an exhibition game against the Islanders, the home crowd chanted \u201CTheo! Theo!\u201D when he took the ice\u2014and again when he deked and scored the eventual winner in a shootout. Eleven days later the preseason ended, and he retired. \u201CWhen that went in the net,\u201D he says, \u201CI was good.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;While Fleury still wonders if his body could have even handled an 82-game schedule, he knows that returning for a 16th season would have challenged his mind even more. Two weeks after Calgary\u2019s season opener, Fleury\u2019s autobiography, &lt;em &gt;Playing With Fire&lt;/em&gt;, was released. He conceived of the book as a way to showcase his on-ice legacy: seven All-Star Game appearances; the Olympic gold in Salt Lake City; the indelible image of him after scoring the OT winner against Edmonton during the \u201991 playoffs, sliding on both knees and spinning like a top.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But the project took him into far darker territory. He detailed the booze and cocaine habits he developed as a teenager. The benders through strip clubs and casinos that lasted until dawn, at which point, he wrote, \u201CI could pass out and not have to relive one moment of my miserable f------ existence.\u201D The crystal meth overdose and his first divorce. The decision to leave Chicago in 2003, when another failed drug test left him with two options: receive treatment for at least two years or retire. \u201CI didn\u2019t want help,\u201D he says. The memory of sitting on his couch in Santa&amp;nbsp;Fe shortly thereafter, swigging vodka and holding a pistol. \u201CHow did it taste?\u201D he wrote. \u201CIt tasted lonely. Cold, lonely and black.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In the book Fleury publicly disclosed for the first time the sexual abuse he endured at the hands of his junior hockey coach Graham James. The assaults, Fleury wrote, began when he was 15 and occurred \u201Conce or twice a week for the next two years.\u201D He felt imprisoned, terrified of revealing his secret and becoming \u201Cstigmatized forever as the kid who was molested by his coach. The Victim...\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CI was tied up, maybe not with rope, but it was the same thing,\u201D he wrote. \u201CHe was my coach. He was helping me. He knew so much about hockey. He controlled my f------ destiny.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fleury wondered how the world would react to &lt;em&gt;Playing With Fire&lt;/em&gt;. Generally the public lauded his courage and respected his honesty. For hockey fans the revelations helped explain Fleury\u2019s intense, often enraged style on the ice. But the real answer\u2014and one he didn\u2019t know he needed\u2014came at his first book signing that October. He tells this story often. The audience in Sidney will hear it too. It goes like this:&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Among a crowd of 400 at a Toronto bookstore Fleury spots a man clutching the book against his chest and looking at the floor. \u201CHe was in survival mode,\u201D Fleury says. For the next hour and a half, Fleury tracks the man as he shuffles through the long line, closer and closer to the table where Fleury sits. Finally, when the man\u2019s turn arrives, he leans close and whispers, \u201CMe too.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em &gt;That is what is at the core of our healing: finding our purpose.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;em &gt;\u2014Conversations With a&amp;nbsp;&lt;/em&gt;&lt;em &gt;Rattlesnake, 2014&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He stands alone at the microphone. This happens at every gig for Theo Fleury and the Death Valley Rebels. The idea came from Paddy McCallion, the band\u2019s manager and lead guitarist. Midway through the show, Fleury leaves so the Rebels can play a short set. And after, he returns to an empty stage to tell his story. \u201CIt\u2019s not about being top of the charts,\u201D says McCallion, who met Fleury during his one season with the Blackhawks. \u201CIt\u2019s not about anything like that. It\u2019s a whole different message we\u2019re bringing to the table.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Fleury\u2019s path to recovery had only just begun with the man at the bookstore. During each signing and every interview for &lt;em&gt;Playing With Fire&lt;/em&gt;, Fleury was retraumatized by reliving the details of the abuse. Without having the tools to handle the pain, he clung to hate\u2014at the Canadian justice system, which had previously pardoned James for another sex crime after he had served 3-1\u20442 years in prison; at James, who ultimately pleaded guilty in December 2011 to abusing Fleury and another former player; at himself, for the shame he carried. \u201CI was a lot more short, temper-wise,\u201D he says. \u201CAnger for me was protection. Stay out of this guy\u2019s way.\u201D\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"When the guys in the band see [his connections with fans], they are like, I get it,\" bandmate McCallion says. \"Now &lt;strong&gt;I KNOW WHY WE'RE DOING THIS.\"&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Just as at the bookstore, though, one chance encounter moved \u00ADFleury forward. In May 2012, at a conference in Winnipeg, Fleury met an occupational therapist from Victoria, B.C., named Kim Barthel. A specialist in relational trauma, with field experience in Kosovo, Gaza and post-Katrina New Orleans, Barthel helped Fleury dig deeper than James\u2019s abuse. She explained how Fleury\u2019s chaotic childhood left him predisposed to addictive behavior; how James preyed on young Theo\u2019s need for approval from an attachment figure. Says Barthel, \u201CHe\u2019s come to that place of seeing how it was all that early-childhood stuff that made him sexually vulnerable to a predator.\u201D&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CThat\u2019s when I realized, there wasn\u2019t anything I could\u2019ve done differently,\u201D Fleury says. \u201CShe talked about trauma like nobody I\u2019d ever run into at any point. I thought it was my fault. All that guilt, all that anger was still pretty prevalent in my life until I met her.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;In 2014, Fleury and Barthel turned their talks into his second book, &lt;em&gt;Conversations with a Rattlesnake&lt;/em&gt;. It is written as a dialogue between the two authors, about healing from trauma. Fleury likes the rattlesnake metaphor. \u201CIt\u2019s not a predator,\u201D he says. \u201CIt sheds its skin and reinvents itself.\u201D&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pretty soon the pair was hitting the road together, hosting forums around Canada. Once, in Calgary, a 12-year-old described his abuse to a room of 250, mostly adults. Three years ago, in Nanaimo, B.C., a man revealed himself to a room full of survivors as both a victim and a violent offender. \u201CAnd nobody was antagonistic,\u201D Barthel says. \u201CEveryone oriented in his direction [because he] identified with the whole cycle of trauma.\u201D&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This is what gives Fleury his rush today\u2014not fifths or eight-balls or hat tricks but helping others, as he puts it, \u201Csit with their s---.\u201D As he tells the audience before the music begins again, \u201CSomething that we think is uncommon is actually the most common thing that happens in the world, and that\u2019s trauma. And so it\u2019s really been an absolutely incredible journey.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em &gt;Gettin\u2019 rid of all our shame/Let\u2019s lift our&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;em &gt;heads and never bow them again/&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;em &gt;Courage through and through.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/em&gt;\r\n&lt;em &gt;\u2014&lt;/em&gt;\u201CWalk With Thousands\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;He sits in the backseat, passenger\u2019s side, riding to Barthel\u2019s house. It was past midnight when Fleury finally left the theater, after speaking to the junior hockey players and showing them his gold medal. Before that he spent about an hour behind the merchandise table\u2014signing jerseys, smiling for pictures and hearing the two-word whisper he always does.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CHow many &lt;em&gt;me too&lt;/em&gt;\u2019s did you count?\u201D Barthel asks Fleury in the car.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201COh, at least 30,\u201D he replies.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;At first, music was a bucket-list venture, another way to reconnect with the spirituality of his indigenous M\u00E9tis roots\u2014the fiddles, the firesides, the singalongs. So he produced his first song with a friend in Winnipeg, then wrote more with \u00ADMcCallion, who then formed a backup band. \u201CDeath Valley Rebels,\u201D Fleury says, \u201Care those who refuse to die.\u201D He took voice lessons, released the album last October and started touring in early March, hitting Calgary and Medicine Hat, Alberta, before Sidney. Quickly he found that performing on stage was no different from holding forums in bookstores or prisons or hotel conference rooms.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;\u2022 SI VAULT: Sober Fleury returns to the ice in Belfast (12/12/05)&lt;/strong&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tonight there was the elderly woman who told him, \u201CSafe journey. Don\u2019t give up. You\u2019re a brave man. Prime minister one day.\u201D The woman with a Flames puck: \u201CMe too, a fellow hockey player.\u201D The aspiring radio broadcaster in a Flames T-shirt whose family disowned him for reporting abuse. And a woman who approached Fleury during the show, passing him a folded piece of paper, onto which she had typed, i too am a survivor.\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CWhen the guys in the band see it firsthand, they are like, S---, I get it,\u201D McCallion says. \u201CNow I know why we\u2019re doing this.\u201D\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u200BFleury feels the voices increasing in volume, advancing the conversation. Look at the other athletes who have revealed their own traumas, he says: boxer Sugar Ray Leonard, pitcher R.A. Dickey, judoka Kayla \u00ADHarrison and most recently former NHL center Patrick O\u2019Sullivan. The week before the concert in Sidney, Lady Gaga had performed at the Oscars, flanked by sexual-assault survivors as she sang \u201CTil It Happens To You,\u201D from &lt;em&gt;The Hunting Ground&lt;/em&gt;, a documentary about campus rape. Fleury watched with his fianc\u00E9e, Elle Presley, a fellow survivor of childhood abuse. Together they wept.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u201CPeople are becoming more comfortable,\u201D he says. But the work never stops. The next week he and Barthel will hold their 33rd \u00AD&lt;em&gt;Conversations&lt;/em&gt; forum in an aboriginal section of Ontario. In late April he will spend five days giving 12 speeches across the Northern Territories; in one community Fleury will hear allegations of an active sexual assaulter living there but will find no one willing to file a report. \u201CThat\u2019s the power of abuse, right there,\u201D he says. \u201CWhat we\u2019re trying to do is take the shame out of it and speak about it openly.\u201D&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;This month Fleury will conduct the third Victor Walk, an event he created to raise awareness for childhood trauma. It goes from his Manitoba hometown of Russell, to Winnipeg, a journey of 279 miles. On the fifth and final day 11 other walks\u2014from Halifax to Calgary to New York City\u2014will simultaneously start across North America.&amp;nbsp;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\u2022&amp;nbsp;SI\u2019s Where Are They Now issue: This year\u2019s stories, all in one place\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The first Victor Walk happened in 2013, starting at a child abuse monument in Toronto and ending on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. Beforehand Fleury and a friend wrote \u201CWalk With Thousands\u201D as an anthem. The lyrics are uplifting, projecting an image of a powerful force moving forward together: &lt;em&gt;We are no longer just a face in the crowd/We found our voice and now we\u2019ll sing it loud.&lt;/em&gt;\r\n\r\n&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;As 1 a.m. nears, the song is playing on the car stereo. Fleury rests his hand on his fianc\u00E9e\u2019s shoulder and looks out the window. The billboard fades in the rearview mirror, Theo Fleury watching over the road.\r\n&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/nhl/2016/07/05/theo-fleury-nhl-player-country-music-singer-addiction-abuse-where-are-they-now>