Editor’s Note: This story was included in The Athletic’s Best of 2019. See the full list.



Standing on the edge, Ray Emery measured out the space between where he was and where he planned to be.



A full-moon night had become dawn and soft light fell across the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club on Hamilton Harbour, a bay off the western end of Lake Ontario. The surface was still, but the water beneath was murky, tinged by the nearby steel mills.



Emery had stripped off his clothes – a leather-trimmed, zip-up sweatshirt and a palm-tree print tank-top – down to his boxers. His frame revealed tattoos across his body. “PSAN,” the first initials of his four family members down the side of his torso. “Anger is a gift,” a personal mantra, on one arm. And, on both sides of his chest, images of phoenixes rising.



He slipped off his Stanley Cup ring, engraved with the Chicago Blackhawks logo, and placed it next to...