Former NHL defenceman Ian White has been granted a three-month conditional sentence and placed on 12 months supervised probation after pleading guilty last week to three firearm offences.

The 32-year-old Steinbach native and father of two pleaded guilty to careless storage of a firearm, unauthorized possession of a firearm and possession of a firearm at an unauthorized place.

Members of the RCMP National Weapons Enforcement Support Team (NWEST) arrested White last November after executing a search warrant at his Winnipeg home. Court heard police seized a loaded Beretta handgun from a duffel bag at the top of a stairwell and a Browning handgun from the basement.

“While they are doing the search, Mr. White, on his own, tells police there are firearms that are registered to him that aren't at his residence in Winnipeg, (but) out at his Kenora cottage,” Crown attorney Sean Sass told Judge Wanda Garreck.

Police secured a search warrant for the cottage and seized several firearms, all of which, according to their licences, were required to be stored at White's Winnipeg home.

White was drafted by the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2002 and had stints in Calgary, Carolina, and San Jose before playing his last NHL season with the Detroit Red Wings in 2013.

White was brought into Winnipeg Jets training camp on a pro tryout offer in 2013 but failed to make the team.

White was suffering from an opiate addiction at the time of his arrest and has since completed a residential treatment program, defence lawyer Steven Keesic told court. Now clean for six months, he has an eye on resuming his NHL career.

“We're not too sure where that is going to be at this time, but I can tell you at his age, from all the working out and activities that he's been doing, he's at a fresh start right now,” Keesic said.

Keesic argued White's legal problems stemmed, in part, from confusion over differences in U.S. and Canadian gun laws. Garreck wasn't convinced and said White should have known better.

“Being from Canada, I don't think you have to look too far to realize that gun laws are quite restrictive here,” Garreck said. “I can only assume from the submissions that you were in a different space at that particular time and otherwise was someone who did take steps to maintain these guns in a lawful fashion.”

Garreck ordered White be bound by a nightly curfew and prohibited him from possessing weapons for 10 years.

dpritchard@postmedia.com

Twitter: @deanatwpgsun