In the 2000s, he was an NHL tough guy. But now B.C. native Stephen Peat is homeless and suffering from symptoms he says are related to repeated concussions

Photo by Douglas Quan, National Post

SURREY, B.C. — Connecting with ex-NHL tough guy Stephen Peat is an exercise in frustration. He’ll reply to some of your messages and completely ignore others. He says he will see you at Tim Hortons in 15 minutes but then show up one-and-a-half hours late.

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When he finally does show up though, frustration gives way to sympathy. How can it not? After slurping down an iced coffee and inhaling a chocolate-glazed donut, the broad-shouldered 37-year-old — once known for his explosive fights on the ice — hunches over the table and rests his head in the palms of his thick hands. His eyes flit left and right as he recounts his daily struggle to deal with headaches, memory loss and anxiety — symptoms he believes are related to repeated concussions.

Since spring, Peat has been homeless in the Surrey, B.C., area — rotating between motels, Airbnb rentals, his female companion’s parents’ home and the cab of his 2005 GMC pickup truck. He is mostly coherent, though he slurs his speech at times and is prone to losing his train of thought or speaking in loops.

Photo by Doug Pensinger/Getty Images

Over a three-hour conversation with the National Post, the Princeton, B.C., native is at his most lucid when reminiscing about his hockey glory days, which saw him play for the Washington Capitals off and on for several seasons. There’s no question Peat — whose name appears in online rankings of the NHL’s “greatest fights” — is still proud of his bareknuckle brawls.

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But when the conversation turns to what’s happened since he retired in 2007, his shoulders slouch.

“When the curtain goes down, no one sees that f—ing part. No one’s cheering me on right now, you know?” he says. “They don’t see the struggles.”

Peat, who’s had several run-ins with the law, says he feels abandoned by the league that employed him in the 2000s and lashes out at his father for giving a distorted picture to the media of his problems, insisting he is not a “f—ing drug addict fall-down.”

When the curtain goes down, no one sees that f---ing part. No one's cheering me on right now, you know?

But Peat’s buddy, Howie Zaron, who has known Peat — or “Peaty” as he likes to call him — since he was a teenager, confirms that much of the picture Walter Peat has painted is true.

”This is the worst he’s been,” Zaron told the Post this week. “We’ve seen Peaty and we are gravely concerned.”

Peat is among scores of former NHL players who have made headlines for their battles with depression, substance abuse and other problems that they or their families attribute to repeated head blows on the ice. Many of those players are now part of a class-action lawsuit in U.S. federal court alleging that the league did not protect players from the risks of brain trauma.

One of the most recent stories to come to light is the case of Matt Johnson. TSN reported earlier this month that Johnson, a former enforcer with the Los Angeles Kings and Minnesota Wild, went in and out of rehab after his hockey career ended in 2004.

Photo by Larry MacDougal/Calgary Herald

The Welland, Ont., native, has been estranged from his parents for a decade now and is believed to be living on the streets in Santa Monica, Calif.

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“It’s very difficult … you’ve kind of lost that person, but you can’t really grieve because they’re still alive,” his mother Brenda Johnson told the network.

Representatives for the NHL did not respond to a request for comment.

Peat was always a bit of a “bull” on the ice, according to Zaron. Even when he was 14, he’d take on players who were much older.

Peat’s profile climbed from 2001 to 2005 when he laced up for 130 games with the Washington Capitals and racked up 234 penalty minutes. Many of Peat’s on-ice scraps can be found in YouTube highlight reels.

In one particularly fierce fight with the Boston Bruins’ PJ Stock in January 2002, both men throw rapid-fire punches, alternating between left and right jabs. After the referees separate them, Peat, as he often did, flashes a grin.

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“Folks, this is one of the best hockey fights we have seen in a longtime,” a television announcer howled.

In December 2005, the Carolina Hurricanes announced they had acquired Peat for his “toughness.” But a series of injuries to his groin and hand relegated Peat to the minor leagues until he retired in 2007.

Still, hockey fans couldn’t stop recalling his fights and Peat didn’t hesitate to oblige when they asked him to reminisce. In a 2009 interview with the online forum hockey-fights.com , Peat praised the technical fighting prowess of Donald Brashear but dissed those enforcers who are “pretenders and you all know who they are.”

Such bravado is not immediately apparent these days.

Peat walked through the doors of a Tim Hortons on a recent Thursday night sporting the same stocky build from his enforcer days, but with a halting step. He seemed unaware that his jeans had slid well below his waist.

He was accompanied by a female friend, who called herself Peat’s protector — his “mama bear.” (“I saw a little boy that was hurt, you know, and kinda lost,” said the woman, who requested anonymity).

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At times during the interview, Peat’s eyes rolled to the back of his head as if he was about to doze off. At one point, he grimaced in pain — causing nearby customers to turn their heads — as his leg cramped up. For several minutes, he conducted the interview while bent over in his chair (“I don’t know what it does but it somehow gets more blood to my head, helps me a bit”).

But when the conversation turned to his NHL and AHL hockey career, it was as if he was a different person. He was amped. There was a sparkle in his eye.

“Not to toot my own horn, I was a pretty tough guy. … I knew how to make a presence on the ice and how to make guys scared,” he said.

“It’s the only place in this world that allows you to go ape shit like that.”

Peat said he started noticing problems toward the end of his hockey career. He remembers being sent to the penalty box and not being able to see clearly across the ice and suffering from sensory overload — sort of like being in a swimming pool with a bunch of screaming kids.

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“Deep down, I was a little f—ing scared. You’re out on the ice, people are whizzing by you, and you’re feeling off.”

After retirement, he wanted to become a realtor but wasn’t able to pass the required course, despite two attempts. He’s held down only brief jobs in construction and at a Harley Davidson repair shop. Constant headaches make it difficult to focus, he said.

“Some days I get up and I — it’s a struggle. I’m paying the price for it.”

The first public sign of Peat’s troubles came in March 2015 when he was charged with arson in connection with a fire at his father’s home in Langley, B.C.

Photo by Rafal Gerszak/The New York Times

Police said there had been a dispute between father and son prior to the fire, but Peat insists the fire started when he accidentally left a blowtorch on in the garage while working on his truck. He eventually pleaded guilty to arson by negligence and received one year of probation.

New York Times reporter John Branch caught up with Peat and his father as they were rebuilding the home. In a feature published in June 2016, Peat admitted self-medicating with painkillers, cocaine and alcohol.

He went through a rehab program supported by the league and the players’ union prior to the fire and did another stint after it, but both Peat and his father said it wasn’t getting at the source of his problems.

“They need to figure out the root cause of his pain, not just try to get him off of the pills,” Walter Peat said at the time.

Photo by Rafal Gerszak/The New York Times

Last month, Branch published a series of text messages he had received from Walter Peat in which he shared that he and his brothers had filed no-contact orders against his son because of threats he had allegedly uttered.

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“I will be honest, he scares the shit out of me, and for that matter, my brothers,” Walter Peat wrote.

The senior Peat said his son was “deteriorating fast,” had received “zero help” from the NHL and that he was “at a loss (for) what to do.”

In a recent CBC interview , Walter Peat continued to paint a grim picture, sharing that he had heard his son was seen “walking around, covered with blood, his hands down around his ankles” and that “either he’s going to get fixed or he’s going to die.”

He expressed the same urgency in text messages to the Post.

Photo by Rafal Gerszak/The New York Times

“I wish the whole hockey world could reach out and give him a hug, as it was players like him who were the protectors of the elite,” he wrote. “Now who protects him?”

Family and friends have tried reaching out to Stephen Peat on Facebook in recent weeks. Peat’s half sister wrote “how much it breaks my heart to think you might be in pain or possible danger. … I wish we would have been closer and I would have been a better sister to you to show you how much I really do care.”

Even strangers were compelled to send words of encouragement.

“Dude if you see this there’s help avail(able) I’m sure … praying for you,” one person wrote.

I will be honest, he scares the shit out of me, and for that matter, my brothers

Peat told the Post he was grateful for the support. But he also expressed anger at his father for violating his privacy and misleading the public about his condition.

Peat acknowledged relapsing after his last rehab stint at the Edgewood Treatment Centre in Nanaimo, B.C., but insisted he has been clean since October 2016. He said his treatment regimen now consists of Cipralex and Seroquel, which are designed to treat anxiety and depression, and Advil. He’s also taken a liking, he said, to naturopathic remedies. (His female friend said she’s tried hard to prevent him from using painkillers and street drugs but sometimes loses track of him and worries he’s “influenceable”).

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As for those reports of him walking down the street covered in blood? Must have been a mistake, he says, noting that he has a white shirt with red writing on it and a shoulder tattoo of dripping blood.

Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images

“There’s a logical explanation for every one of these bullshit stories.”

Asked where he got the gash on his chin, he says it was from moving furniture. (Before agreeing to have his photo taken, Peat applied some makeup to cover the wound).

Peat said the allegations he had verbally threatened his family were misconstrued — jokes that were not meant to be taken literally. However, Zaron said Peat has a lot of pent-up anger and is prone to mood swings. (Peat is due back in court in January to answer to charges of uttering threats and breaching terms of his probation).

Peat went on to accuse his father of “hoarding” money from the sale earlier this year of the home they had rebuilt after the fire, even though he had shared much of his hockey earnings with his father and late mother.

Photo by Dave Sandford/Getty Images/NHL

“I hate going back to my dad, but he’s the driving force behind why I’m struggling,” he said. “The person that was my best friend and my buddy — my father — has disappointed me so much.”

Walter Peat told the Post he knows his son is “furious” at him for going public with his recent struggles. But, “I personally have no idea what to do,” he wrote. “He is trying to fix his life himself, and in my opinion (it’s) a recipe for disaster.”

He declined to talk about the financial support he’s given Stephen, but in his messages to the New York Times, he said he was in a “financial crisis as Stephen has gone through $120,000 since rehab.”

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In a statement, the National Hockey League Players’ Association declined to discuss Peat’s case but said “the NHL and the NHLPA have a substance abuse and behavioural health program to assist players and their families with the appropriate treatment to address the issue(s) they are experiencing.”

Photo by Douglas Quan, National Post

While Peat was in the washroom, his female friend shared that he has received several thousand dollars from the league’s emergency fund in recent months but blown some of it on “silly” things, such as gadgets for his truck.

Asked if she was concerned whether Peat might harm himself, she replied, “not on purpose.”

Zaron says he worries Peat is still abusing drugs and alcohol and that he could wind up dead if intervention doesn’t come soon. He is convinced rehab is not the answer, however, and that the root of Peat’s problems lies in his head.

“Peaty needs to know that his friends – his real friends – are here to help him,” he said. “No one’s turning their back on him.”

Peat told the Post he is open to receiving help.

“I’ve always been self-reliant. For me to accept the help of others is new to me,” he said. “But I’m learning it.”

But minutes later he seemed to retreat from that, saying: “I don’t trust anyone right now.”