Former Detroit Red Wing Bob Probert is passed out on a couch, wrapped in a blanket, a man struggling with addiction, as his children come down the stairs.

“Good morning!” Dani Probert, his wife, says sweetly to the children. “Merry Christmas!”

The kids bounce around the Christmas tree and look at the presents. As the children approach their father, once named the greatest enforcer in the NHL, Dani says in the background: “I wouldn’t get too close.”

It is painful to watch — a raw, honest look at a man with flaws and demons, who had bounced in and out of rehab centers. Probert rolls on his side and looks totally out of it, his eyes closed, as his kids celebrate Christmas.

The heart-breaking scene was captured in a home movie that is included in a new documentary, “Tough Guy: The Bob Probert Story,” which will premier in his hometown, Windsor, Ontario, on Dec.13 (it is sold out).

Later in the movie, Dani reads a note that Probert wrote to his disease, listing off things he missed while consumed by drugs and alcohol, and he mentions that Christmas morning.

“Dear disease,” Probert wrote on a yellow sheet of paper. “You have taken away valuable time from my wonderful wife Dani and my four kids. You have taken away my self-respect and dignity. You have turned me into someone that I am not. You have hurt me financially. You have controlled my thoughts and my feelings. You took me away from things I used to do to have fun… You took away my twins’ birthday, you took away from me Christmas, 2002. You took a lot from me, but that is about to stop, to change.”

This movie is bigger than hockey. It is a familiar, universal story for families who are struggling with drug addiction or alcoholism. It took courage to tell this story. To be so honest. And hopefully, others will draw strength from it and find lessons in it.

This movie is gripping, emotional and remarkable for its bare-knuckle honesty. Everything is exposed: the fights on the ice (he was penalized 3,300 minutes — fourth most in NHL history when he retired), the drugs (he was arrested in 1989 for cocaine possession while crossing the Detroit-Windsor border), the sex, the arrests, the motorcycle crashes and the constant struggle for sobriety. Probert, one of the first NHL players diagnosed with the degenerative brain disease, chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), died of heart failure in 2010 at the age of 45 while boating on Lake St. Clair.

But there is something else, a tender humanity that filters through the film. There are clips from his famous fights on the ice — “Probie! Probie! Probie!” the crowd would chant — and then you see him changing a diaper: “The straps go in the back, right?” he says.

You hear about his first date with Dani, an executive producer of the film. “The chemistry was just there,” she says in the film. “We went on our first date, we went to a Chinese restaurant that his dad just loved in downtown Windsor. We enjoyed that and we went out for frozen yogurt. It was his first time for frozen yogurt. I fell for the, ‘This doesn’t smell right. Smell it.’ And I got yogurt up my nose…. Everything about him, he was just adorable. He really was.”

You see a different side of Probert, as he plays with his children in moments of clarity. They climb all over him, like he is some invincible, happy giant. Pillows and cushions are scattered across the room. The kids bounce on the couch. And he is doing a goofy dance — this big, tough man, melting into a softy around his kids.

“There are a lot of things I miss about that guy,” Dani says in the film. “He didn’t care, no concept of time, that was Bob. Him walking down the hall, and I can picture in in our old house. He would start at Brogan’s room. They could be sound asleep or they could be reading a book. Didn’t matter. 'Good night, Brokita Kachita Banana.' Gave her a kiss. ‘I love you.’ Then he would go to T Rose (Tierney), or Tee Tee Lee, he had to announce the goofy little name that he would have for them. Same thing. 'I love you.' And a kiss goodnight. Then, into Declyn's room, with his famous duck call. And give her the 'I love you' and a kiss goodnight. The last one would always be, 'Jack my boy.' And the same, 'I love you and good night.' He would always come in, 'Dan Dan, baby, Dan Dan.' And I would get the same thing.”

As the movie progresses, from cradle to grave, you get a pit in your stomach. You feel like you are standing on the sidewalk, watching a car crash in slow motion. You know how this is going to end. Even when he gets his life back together, you know there is one sad twist to come.

You ache for his children and marvel at how they have seemingly grown up to be strong and caring. He would be proud of them, of who they have become.

“I was sad that he wasn’t there for me graduating college or for my prom,” Tierney , his daughter, says in the film. “I know, a wedding one day, if that happens, that’s going to be hard. Because there is no one there, to walk you down the aisle or to have that first father-daughter dance.”

You get frustrated and angry, watching him get his life back together only to let it fall apart again.

This movie doesn't make excuses.

But you come to understand Probert on a different level. And you see something that is usually kept in the shadows. You see what happens to athletes after the games end. How their bodies are broken. To deal with the pain, he got hooked on opioids.

Probert was posthumously diagnosed with CTE, the degenerative disease believed to be caused by repeated blows to the head.

What role did CTE play in his problems, late in life? His family believes it was a factor. “He had CTE,” Dani says in the movie. “You can’t sit there and speculate whether or not he would have dementia, early onset dementia, Alzheimer’s — the likelihood, was, yes.”

Probert was starting to slip and forget things, according to his daughter, Declyn. “I remember playing hide and seek with him one day, and I kid you not, I was probably the same space between me and you, and I was standing right in front of him,” Declyn says in the film. "And he couldn’t see me. It’s like I wasn't even there to him and I was talking to him. He was very confused.”

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You marvel at his wife’s strength, as she sits in a boat on Lake St. Clair and tells the story of what happened when he died. “He just collapsed, he was on his knees," she says in the movie. "That’s when I could see his face. His lips were black. His lips kept changing color and his tongue, and I could see that. They laid him down. My stepfather is a police officer. He started to perform CPR.”

But they couldn’t save him.

“His face was completely blue,” Tierney says. “That’s why I said, you know, ‘Dad, I love you.’

“I wanted to be able to remember what my last words were to him."

“Everyone was crying,” Brogan says in the film. “There was no way that happened. He was such a big, so full of life, such a big presence in our lives. To think, oh, he’s gone like that.”

“I wish I had him for advice on this,” Declyn says. “Or to have a hug. I wish I could hear him laugh again… some days, it’s just, wow, I wish I had him here to get me through this day.”

You walk away with a more complete picture of Probert, who was haunted by flaws and demons but was so much more than a fighter on skates.

He was a father, a husband.

And it makes his loss seem even worse.

“Having him absent is definitely difficult sometimes,” Brogan says. “Then, you look around and you know what? He would be proud of me regardless.’”

Probert’s story is relevant — on several levels — as the NHL tries to come to grips with CTE, and families across the country deal with the opioid crisis.

But his story is also incredibly personal.

“So yeah, I know, in the future, if I’m having babies, and he doesn’t get to meet them, they don’t get to understand how cool of a person my dad was,” Tierney says.

When the movie fades to black, your eyes fill with tears and you are left with a mix of complex emotions. Sadness. Frustration. Emptiness. And a horrible ache.

For his family.

Contact Jeff Seidel: jseidel@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @seideljeff. To read his recent columns, go to freep.com/sports/jeff-seidel/

The film will air on Dec. 14 on Super Channel Fuse, a Canadian cable channel. The filmakers are in discussions to get it released in the U.S.