On Theo Fleury’s drug- and alcohol-addled memories, and the Bob Probert she knew
By Jonathon Gatehouse - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - 0 Comments
In conversation with author Kirstie McLellan Day
Photo by Chris Bolin for Macleans Magazine
Her name comes second on the book covers, but there’s little question who leads Canada’s hockey writers. Since 2009, Kirstie McLellan Day has piloted the “autobiographies” of Theo Fleury, the late Bob Probert, and now Hockey Night in Canada’s Ron MacLean, to the heights of bestseller lists. She is our unlikely Ice Queen.
Q: You’re now the country’s most successful hockey writer, but as a mother of five with a background in entertainment TV, you don’t exactly fit the profile. Is that part of the secret to your success?
A: I do write about players and those around the game, but they are people stories too. And I sure hope they appeal to a broader audience.
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Theo Fleury was abused: "An absolute nightmare, every day of my life"
By Charlie Gillis - Friday, October 9, 2009 at 11:28 AM - 110 Comments
MACLEAN’S EXCLUSIVE: Harrowing details from his new book and interview with the retired NHL star
Retired hockey star Theoren Fleury has at long last confirmed that he was sexually abused by his junior coach, Graham James, a trauma he says drove him to alcohol, drugs and promiscuity throughout his otherwise impressive 16-year NHL career. “The direct result of my being abused was that I became a f—ing raging, alcoholic lunatic,” he writes in Playing with Fire, an autobiography to be released this week, and provided in advance to Maclean’s. “[James] destroyed my belief system. The most influential adult in my life at the time was telling me that what I thought was wrong was right.“I no longer had faith in myself or my own judgment. And when you come down to it, that’s all a person has. Once it’s gone, how do you get it back?” Continue…
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The Princess and the President, Cohen's collapse, and Senator McMahon?
By Ken MacQueen - Friday, September 25, 2009 at 8:00 AM - 0 Comments
Newsmakers of the week
The Zalm returns
Neither age nor scandal has slowed the ebullient former B.C. premier Bill Vander Zalm. The Zalm, looking a decade younger than his 75 years, has emerged from obscurity as a potent political force in the fight against B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell’s decision to implement a harmonized sales tax, or HST. Combining provincial and federal sales taxes is good for business, but it adds to the cost of everything from restaurant meals to new homes, which were exempt from provincial tax. Vander Zalm, who resigned in 1991 after mixing public and private business in the sale of his Fantasy Gardens theme park, pounced on the HST issue well before NDP Opposition Leader Carole James. He upstaged her again last Saturday as they both spoke at an anti-HST rally in Vancouver. He called it a “cruel tax” that piles extra costs on consumers, “particularly those who are packing the lunch bucket.” With his typical “Faaantasstic” grasp of facts, he estimated the crowd at 4,000 to 5,000 people. More dispassionate estimates put the number at 1,000 to 2,000, still enough to worry Campbell’s Liberals.Bush league
It was tails and tales aplenty last week for new Dallas resident and former president George W. Bush. On Sunday, accompanied by his wife, Laura, Bush gave the coin toss (tails) for the Dallas Cowboys at the home opener in the team’s new $1.2-billion stadium. Its problematic giant video scoreboard, barely 27 m above the playing surface, has already inspired a new NFL rule: a replay of the down if punted balls hit the board. If presidents had do-overs, would Bush still have hired Matt Latimer as a speech writer? Latimer’s new book, Speech-Less: Tales of a White House Survivor, dishes on Bush’s catty assessment of Washington power players. Of Joe Biden, now vice-president: “If bulls–t was currency, Joe Biden would be a billionaire.” On then-Alaska governor Sarah Palin’s run for the vice-presidency: “This woman is being put into a position she is not even remotely prepared for.” Of then-presidential candidate Barack Obama: “This is a dangerous world, that cat isn’t remotely qualified to handle it.” Of his own abilities, lest there be any doubt: “I was qualified.” Continue… -
Small Balls: Wednesday July 9, 2008
By Charlie Gillis - Wednesday, July 9, 2008 at 4:48 PM - 0 Comments
La première étoile:… The Continental Hockey League, or the Russian Super League, or whatever
Curling: feel the excitement!
La première étoile: The Continental Hockey League, or the Russian Super League, or whatever it’s called. Who cares. It’s performing a vital public service by taking on every thug, reject and washed-up problem child the NHL casts off and paying him way too much tax-free money to lace up—with all due apologies to Yammy Jagr. The latest are Ray Emery and Chris Simon. Does anyone know the whereabouts of Theo Fleury?
Two minutes for … tardiness. To the state of Kentucky. Having stopped it’s ears and closed its eyes for years to the misuse of steroids on racehorses, the state has just now formed a commission with the power to ban the stuff. Sorry, to vote on banning the stuff. No rush or anything.
Who’s got tickets? Continue…
