Speaker 1: Charges. That's created by Portalais and Control Media. It's produced
Speaker 1: by dB Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: time a former Sons player who you might remember as
Speaker 1: t Rex. More video in just a moment, But this
Speaker 1: is Rex Chapman's mug shot and we are learning a
Speaker 1: lot more about the charge up the charge. Okay, so
Speaker 1: when did it swiss for you? From pills to heroin?
Speaker 1: I end up sluting and I said I'll never shoot it,
Speaker 1: and within a week I had a needle on my prawl.
Speaker 1: You don't know what a prawling. You have been stabbed,
Speaker 1: you have been a hit over the head with a
Speaker 1: baseball bat. I don't think so. I grew up in
Speaker 1: that culture too. You know you work on play on
Speaker 1: work ond you deserve a poll one. I remember looking
Speaker 1: at myself in the mirror and saying, I don't fucking
Speaker 1: like you. Welcome to Charges. I'm your host, Rex Chapman.
Speaker 1: Today We're proud to hit the ice for the very
Speaker 1: first time. Hockey players makeup, especially in the NHL, on
Speaker 1: and off the rink, requires a toughness seldom seen in
Speaker 1: other professional sports. On the ice, you can actually throw
Speaker 1: down your gloves and throw fist Mono Imano. Yes, there
Speaker 1: was even a time in NHL when this was celebrated
Speaker 1: and encouraged. Our guest today is Chris Knuckles Nyland, a
Speaker 1: fifteen year veteran and a Stanley Cup champion with the
Speaker 1: Montreal Canadians. Chris and I share the experience of battling addiction,
Speaker 1: specifically opioids, and again we want to remind any of
Speaker 1: our listeners if you're struggling with addiction or know someone
Speaker 1: who is, there is help out there and you can
Speaker 1: and will beat this struggle. I'd like to welcome the
Speaker 1: Pride of West Roxbury, Massachusetts, Chris Knuckles nine. Chris, thanks
Speaker 1: for coming on, buddy. Yeah, thanks for having me. X
Speaker 1: quite the introduction. We do have something in common and
Speaker 1: obviously the opioids, and I'm glad that I have that
Speaker 1: part of my life in order right now. So life
Speaker 1: is good. You and me both, but you and me both, uh,
Speaker 1: And I gotta be up front. I know very little
Speaker 1: about hockey. I enjoy watching it. My first experience with
Speaker 1: hockey really, you know, growing up in Kentucky, we didn't
Speaker 1: have it, you know. I remember seeing it on ESPN
Speaker 1: and thinking it was a brand new sport and I
Speaker 1: was like twelve years old. But my first experience with it,
Speaker 1: I was playing for the Phoenix Suns and we had
Speaker 1: a young rookie on the team and I was walking
Speaker 1: into practice one day, young rookie named Steve Nash, and
Speaker 1: he was out on the ice in his basketball uniform,
Speaker 1: flying up and down the ice with the coyotes, and
Speaker 1: I was just amazed. I thought, oh my god. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, you guys are so fast. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to be able to skate, but to
Speaker 1: be able to do it like that. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: playing basketball on skates. It's just beyond me. So kudos
Speaker 1: for all the work it took to get to that level. Man. Well,
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, when you think of hockey, you
Speaker 1: think it's Canadiana, right. And when you look at hockey
Speaker 1: in the States, you know it's a regional sport. The Northeast,
Speaker 1: you know, New England, you look at Minnesota, the state
Speaker 1: of Minnesota, big hockey town, the Midwest somewhat. And now
Speaker 1: with the expansion in the NHL. Uh, when Gretzky got
Speaker 1: traded from Medminton went to l A. More So in California,
Speaker 1: we're seeing guys getting drafted kids out of California, I
Speaker 1: mean Austin Matthews with Toronto maple Leafs from Phoenix, Arizona.
Speaker 1: The league has expanded somewhat, and um, you know, the
Speaker 1: grassroots level, it's gotten a lot better in the States.
Speaker 1: But boy, you need money to play that sport. It's
Speaker 1: not like grabbing a pair of sneakers in a pair
Speaker 1: of shorts. Go play some hoop now in the school yard.
Speaker 1: Tell me about growing up in West Roxbury, mass And
Speaker 1: how hockey and that type of neighborhood all come together. Well,
Speaker 1: what's Roxbury is a neighborhood borrow in the city of Boston,
Speaker 1: predominantly Irish neighborhood and growing up back in the sixties there, Um,
Speaker 1: Bobby Or came to the Boston Bruins and man, that
Speaker 1: city just went nuts for him. He took the city
Speaker 1: by storm and everybody loved him. Every kid wanted to
Speaker 1: be like him. And he had such an impact on
Speaker 1: the area that the city of Boston, the mayor at
Speaker 1: a time when he came was looking at ways to
Speaker 1: keep kids off the street, keeping from the street corner,
Speaker 1: hanging around doing nothing. And yeah, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of basketball courts around the city in all the parks,
Speaker 1: but there were no hockey rinks. It was one really
Speaker 1: a couple of rinks Boston Skating Club in the Brighton section,
Speaker 1: but they weren't a lot of rinks. So the governor
Speaker 1: along with the mayor got together and they started building
Speaker 1: these rinks that were called m d C Rinks Metropolitan
Speaker 1: District Commission, and they built a lot of these ranks
Speaker 1: in different neighborhoods South Boston, West Roxbury, Charlestown, dort Chester,
Speaker 1: all the inner city. And it gave kids an opportunity
Speaker 1: to get off the street corner. It gave families an
Speaker 1: opportunity to do public skating, going around and just skating
Speaker 1: to music. And then they started coming up with little leagues,
Speaker 1: um like Little League Baseball, like uh they started Boston
Speaker 1: Neighborhood Hockey League, which was a big thing for me,
Speaker 1: but you know, that's what we did back in those days.
Speaker 1: They had those leagues just to keep kids off the
Speaker 1: street and give them, uh you know, something to do
Speaker 1: and sports to play. So it was awesome. It was
Speaker 1: it sort a big impact on my my young hockey life,
Speaker 1: my young life in general. It's so beautiful uh. You know,
Speaker 1: in my research, what came up again and again was
Speaker 1: that you were never really expected to go pro. You
Speaker 1: played college hockey at Northeastern, great hockey school, but still
Speaker 1: the NHL wasn't necessarily on the radar, right, No, it wasn't.
Speaker 1: I played for um coach who happened to be a judge.
Speaker 1: His name was Paul King, and Judge King was in
Speaker 1: charge of one of the busiest courts, were the most
Speaker 1: violent offenders in the state of Massachusetts. And he was
Speaker 1: an authortic. He was hunched over and his brother was
Speaker 1: the governor of the state, Ed King at a time.
Speaker 1: And the judge saw something in me that nobody else did.
Speaker 1: I don't know what to this day because he's passed
Speaker 1: on now, but he always had this faith in me,
Speaker 1: always had something for me. He used to take me
Speaker 1: off with PiZZ A Lott. He had eight kids of
Speaker 1: his own, eight and he had one son who was
Speaker 1: don syndrome. And he'd sit on the bench all day.
Speaker 1: You know, he get up in the morning and go
Speaker 1: down kiro prack the co stit on the bench all day,
Speaker 1: come down, get on the ice for hockey practice, all
Speaker 1: hunched over in a cold hockey rank. Then he go
Speaker 1: home do the family thing. But this guy was a huge,
Speaker 1: huge influence on my life and he really helped me,
Speaker 1: you know, get to the next level. And I say
Speaker 1: that he helped me get into prep school. I played
Speaker 1: Catholic memory, I played high school hockey. I was a
Speaker 1: young senior. I didn't do that that great in school,
Speaker 1: but um, the option came up to go to prep
Speaker 1: school for year up and Lake Plastad, New York. He
Speaker 1: wrote me a letter of recommendation. I went to prep school.
Speaker 1: He told me, you go up there, you do three things. Once,
Speaker 1: stay out of trouble. Two do good in school. Three
Speaker 1: play hockey. Do your best in hockey. So I did
Speaker 1: those three things. At the end of the year, I
Speaker 1: was the most improved player in hockey. I was the
Speaker 1: most improved student. And I did well in hockey. And
Speaker 1: I stayed out of too kind but kind of not
Speaker 1: the kind of trouble I get in. Back in Boston
Speaker 1: as a kid, and he was friends with a former player,
Speaker 1: Fernie Flamman, who coached. He was a former Bruins play
Speaker 1: at Legend. He coached at Northeastern. Fernie came to see
Speaker 1: me play one game at Northwood School and ended up
Speaker 1: offering me a full scholarship to Northeastern. So it was
Speaker 1: through the Judge, this coach, friend mentor of mine, that
Speaker 1: I was able to go off to college, the first
Speaker 1: child in my family to have that opportunity. Isn't that amazing?
Speaker 1: I mean pretty much a stranger just saw. He must
Speaker 1: have known something about hockey, right, I mean he had
Speaker 1: to have been hockey to see something. Yeah, he knew hockey,
Speaker 1: but I think he knew people better. And when I
Speaker 1: say that, um, you know. I went to Northeastern a
Speaker 1: couple of years. I ended up getting drafted by the
Speaker 1: Montreal Canadians after my second year in seventy eight. I
Speaker 1: come to find out after my career is said and
Speaker 1: done from a former Montroal Canadians player who is a
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer in a legend, Dickie Moore and Doug Harvey.
Speaker 1: There's two of them. Well, they were friends with Judge King.
Speaker 1: So Judge Kane, when I was at Northeastern, approach Boltiman said,
Speaker 1: here's a deal, do me a favor. Just have the
Speaker 1: Canadians draft Chris Nilan and he'll do the rest. This
Speaker 1: is what Judge said to these two Hall of Fame
Speaker 1: hockey players. So Dicky said, listen, he has a deal.
Speaker 1: We'll send a look at him, but we'll draft him.
Speaker 1: We'll just pick him with our lots picking the don't worry,
Speaker 1: we'll draft him. Sure enough, night comes around, I get
Speaker 1: drafted by the Canadians. Now I'm thinking, well, someone scouted
Speaker 1: being whooped? He do? I've found out and me I
Speaker 1: was very naive, like I didn't know the difference between
Speaker 1: the first round pick or a seventeen round pick. It
Speaker 1: didn't make a difference. And I find out after the
Speaker 1: judge passed away, after my career is over, and Dickie
Speaker 1: Moore comes to the funeral um. We went out after
Speaker 1: the funeral for lunch and we sat down. He said,
Speaker 1: you know how you get drafted by the Canadians in
Speaker 1: the seventeenth round. They said, yeah, yeah, it was a
Speaker 1: late pick, but obviously doesn't mean much now the way
Speaker 1: I turned that thing inside out, He said, well, the
Speaker 1: judge never wanted me to let you know this, but
Speaker 1: he's responsible for you getting drafted by the Canadians. He
Speaker 1: called me and asked to do him a favor. So
Speaker 1: that's how I get drafted and for him to say
Speaker 1: to me, Chris, the judge said, just draft him. He'll
Speaker 1: do the rest. Like man, Yeah, you don't know how
Speaker 1: emotional I got when I first heard that. I was
Speaker 1: shaken and I was in tears when I heard it
Speaker 1: because this man who was and turned out to be
Speaker 1: a great mentor of mine. And maybe at the time
Speaker 1: I didn't know it so much, but I always had
Speaker 1: the time for him. We went to lunch, we did
Speaker 1: a lot of things. As he got older and his
Speaker 1: health was sotting to fail, we got together quite a
Speaker 1: bit and he never let it out of the bag,
Speaker 1: the bastard. But I absolutely loved the man. It's just beautiful.
Speaker 1: Oh now he just turned through his inside out and
Speaker 1: went to the back head and watch it. He had
Speaker 1: a beat all the way. Chris, tell me about your
Speaker 1: career in the NHL. What it means to be the
Speaker 1: enforcer or what would you even call that position? How
Speaker 1: did you choose that role and or did the role
Speaker 1: choose you? I didn't. I wanted to be Bobby or
Speaker 1: remember I grew up in Boston. I wanted to be Bobbio.
Speaker 1: Now I could play hockey. I came into my first
Speaker 1: training camp with Montreal they just won four Stanley Cups
Speaker 1: in a row, and I'm coming to training camp with
Speaker 1: all these future Hall of Famous I get sent to
Speaker 1: the American Hockey League, which is a stepdown, and I
Speaker 1: remember being um in an exhibition game and they all
Speaker 1: these Canadian kids play junior hockey. In your fight in
Speaker 1: junior hockey, I'm thinking, like, how difficult can it be
Speaker 1: if I get in a fight. I fought on the
Speaker 1: street all my life, and so what I've seen the
Speaker 1: Bruins do it, you know, my whole young life growing up.
Speaker 1: I'll be all right. I can handle myself. So my
Speaker 1: first exhibition game, there's a big defenseman out of Ontario,
Speaker 1: Davy Read Allison, and we had a tough coach, Bert Templeton.
Speaker 1: He loved tough players. They didn't know I'm from college.
Speaker 1: There no reputation of being tough out of college. So
Speaker 1: I end up hitting one of these defensemen. His name
Speaker 1: Bam Bam Belonge. So I run Bam Bam into the boys.
Speaker 1: He turned around, chopped at me. I pushed him. The
Speaker 1: revs get in break it up. We get back to
Speaker 1: the bench and Allison looks down the bench he goes, hey,
Speaker 1: fucking college kid. Who the fuck do you think you are?
Speaker 1: You know you have been in a brawl before, you
Speaker 1: know what a brawl is. I said, hey, fuck you
Speaker 1: a brawl. You don't know what a brawl is. You
Speaker 1: have been stabbed, you have been a hit over the
Speaker 1: head with a baseball bat. I don't think so brawl.
Speaker 1: The next shift, I go out in the ice and
Speaker 1: I kicked the ship out of Bam bam, Belong J.
Speaker 1: He comes right after me, Belon J right, and I
Speaker 1: give it to him. Now. I get back to the bench.
Speaker 1: Red Zi took his socks off and stuck him in
Speaker 1: his mouth. He didn't say one word to me. He
Speaker 1: didn't know what to say. He didn't know whether the
Speaker 1: ship or go blind. And I so I don't talk
Speaker 1: to him the rest of the training camp. I don't
Speaker 1: say a word, ignore him. I get a five game
Speaker 1: tryout for two hundred dollars a game. I get a tryout.
Speaker 1: I didn't have a contract two dollars a game. Nineteen.
Speaker 1: I'm in Halifax. They play the first three games at home.
Speaker 1: I don't play. We go on the road. We play
Speaker 1: our first game in Maine, which was the Philadelphia Flyers
Speaker 1: the broad Street Bullies. They have farm team. The first shift,
Speaker 1: I go out a body check. I hit this guy Cochrane,
Speaker 1: big defense and tough kids six four or five, like
Speaker 1: two thirty five. Big kid on the ice, long arms,
Speaker 1: down with his knees and anyway I run him. He
Speaker 1: give me a shot. Boom, we dropped the gloves. I
Speaker 1: cut him open with a right I come across. I
Speaker 1: cut him bad. Boom. We get kicked out of the game.
Speaker 1: The next day, the coach called me down the room.
Speaker 1: He said, hey, knuckles, it's the coach. Hey, what's up.
Speaker 1: He goes, Uh, do you have an agent? I said, no,
Speaker 1: I don't have an agent. I was a in seventeenth
Speaker 1: round pick. Why would I have no who wants to
Speaker 1: represent me and ain't making no money with me? Anyway?
Speaker 1: He said, you better get one. He said, Montreal wants
Speaker 1: to sign your contract. That's how it happened that one fight.
Speaker 1: I signed that contract a week later, and then everybody
Speaker 1: in the league, the American League, all the tough guys,
Speaker 1: they wanted to fight me because I beat Glenn Cochrane.
Speaker 1: He was one of the heavyweights in the league. So
Speaker 1: that's how it began. That's how I became a fighter.
Speaker 1: But I became more than a fighter. When I was
Speaker 1: down there, I played games. I had fifteen goals in Tennessee.
Speaker 1: I had twenty five points in forty nine games, so
Speaker 1: I had a point every two games. And christ I
Speaker 1: was fighting every night. Crazy to go back, you said,
Speaker 1: I've been in a brawl. We all growing up kids,
Speaker 1: you get in skirmishes and fights and stuff. I know,
Speaker 1: if we got in a fight where I grew up,
Speaker 1: you get kicked out of school. What were you fighting
Speaker 1: for as a kid? And how early did you start
Speaker 1: just scrapping in the streets? Wow, jeez, you know, hanging
Speaker 1: around the street corner growing up in the city, everybody's
Speaker 1: trying to get over on you. Everybody's trying to do
Speaker 1: it a thing. Everybody's trying to be the big guy
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood. There was a lot of that, just
Speaker 1: stupid stuff that kids do growing up our street corner.
Speaker 1: The kids I hung with went tougher than you guys.
Speaker 1: Or we'd be out in a bos somewhere and it's
Speaker 1: the you looked at me wrong. See you later? Uh
Speaker 1: fighting all of the girls, you know. Um. I ended
Speaker 1: up in a situation one night and bought some of
Speaker 1: a couple of friends who we end up in a
Speaker 1: really bad fight. We're out numbered, there were weapons involved.
Speaker 1: One of the kids, uh that we fought, got hurt,
Speaker 1: really bad crushes, skullar lost and I, um, there was
Speaker 1: some bad things and um, you know a lot of it,
Speaker 1: quite frankly, was around alcohol, you know, yea honestly you know,
Speaker 1: growing up as a kid hanging the street corner with
Speaker 1: your friends, guys are doing drug, Guys are smoking weed,
Speaker 1: drinking and honestly, hockey the hockey rink, my hockey team,
Speaker 1: who I was always accountable to, came before a lot
Speaker 1: of that. It saved me in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: I can see that two bustin boys I used to
Speaker 1: do this everything turns it used to They had as
Speaker 1: being proud too. These are two puss rusts you wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to be. They didn't know either one of these.
Speaker 1: Not often you can get two Boston boys playing on
Speaker 1: two different teams fighting both benches. This is always a
Speaker 1: funny thing. The Montreal offenses cheering they say now on one,
Speaker 1: and the bus benches cheering they see now. You know,
Speaker 1: hockey is a notoriously tough guy sport. As a guy
Speaker 1: who once earned forty two penalty minutes, which for the
Speaker 1: listeners who don't know, there's only sixty minutes in a
Speaker 1: in a damn game. Uh So, as that guy, what
Speaker 1: is that life like? Not only on the on the ice,
Speaker 1: but you know, everywhere you fucking go. Man, you know
Speaker 1: restaurants are people challenging you. You know, what is that
Speaker 1: life like? No, you know, I'll be honest for the
Speaker 1: most part, those guys who do that job, especially in
Speaker 1: the city you're playing, people love you. They hate you.
Speaker 1: In the other cities it's like, you know, Bill Mbia,
Speaker 1: everywhere he went they hate right, but they love them.
Speaker 1: In Detroit, you're treated with a lot of reverence. In
Speaker 1: your own hometown, you get the odd asshole who you're
Speaker 1: if you're hot to buy drinking, he might say something,
Speaker 1: but it's like, forget about it. Listen. I love doing
Speaker 1: that job. I always loved. My father is a Green Beret.
Speaker 1: In Green Beret, the motto is free those that are oppressed.
Speaker 1: My father always taught me to stick up for weaker
Speaker 1: kids or kids that got picked on. You always told me,
Speaker 1: I ever get a call from that school and you're
Speaker 1: picking on something, I'll kick your rats. You'll have a problem.
Speaker 1: If anything, they call me and say you beat some
Speaker 1: kid up because he was picking on something, Well, I'll
Speaker 1: back you. I don't have a problem with it. So
Speaker 1: I always stuck up for my my friends, my teammates.
Speaker 1: So the job fit me really well and I thrived
Speaker 1: on't sure about the cord Center up. Well, what's all
Speaker 1: this whole thing? First the fasts? Will they get to
Speaker 1: the second round? I guess this whole thing? Calbry five games?
Speaker 1: What the so you won the Cup in u um
Speaker 1: with Montreal? Is everything like it looks like on TV?
Speaker 1: Do you think the legend of the Stanley Cups even
Speaker 1: greater you know now than was back then? Or oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's incredible. Like when they say it's the hottest trophy
Speaker 1: to win, it is like, man, and listen, I get
Speaker 1: basketball and it's physical, but it's a different level hockey,
Speaker 1: speed of the game, the guys, the macho pot of
Speaker 1: it with man. If Joe hurt, there's no saying coach, listen,
Speaker 1: I can't play, it doesn't happen. I I respect all
Speaker 1: athletes that wait for what they go through, but when
Speaker 1: you look at what you have to go through to
Speaker 1: win that thing, man, I know at the end. I
Speaker 1: started the playoffs, I was probably two oh two, that's
Speaker 1: what I played at I was a hundred ninety two pounds.
Speaker 1: At the end, I was all sucked up. I tore
Speaker 1: a ligament to my ankle in the game before we wanted,
Speaker 1: so I missed the final game. I had a black eye.
Speaker 1: I was a mess at the end. But it felt good.
Speaker 1: I bet it did. Yeah. What's the culture of drinking
Speaker 1: and partying like in the NHL, especially when you're you know,
Speaker 1: living and playing in Canada. Well, here's the deal. Back
Speaker 1: when I played, it was a little different, right, It
Speaker 1: was big culture. Every day we finished practice, we went
Speaker 1: across the street a little tavern and we'd have lunch
Speaker 1: now lunch, lunch, lunch and have a few bit, you know,
Speaker 1: he has how it was. They were the older guys
Speaker 1: who have been around for a while would have a
Speaker 1: couple go home to their families. The guys in the
Speaker 1: middle there stay around a little longer, the young guys.
Speaker 1: We had one guy in the team that didn't drink,
Speaker 1: but he came every day and he was a born
Speaker 1: again Christian. His name was Ryan Walton and as sweethet
Speaker 1: of a man, and he will come every day, sit
Speaker 1: there with the boys, big smile, have a tomato juice,
Speaker 1: good on him. Yeah, the team, but the culture was big,
Speaker 1: and I grew up in that culture too. You know,
Speaker 1: you work odd, play odd, work odd, you deserve a
Speaker 1: cold one. The neighborhood like that, my household like that,
Speaker 1: And certainly in hockey and hockey it was big. You know,
Speaker 1: after game, cold beer, do your thing, And it was
Speaker 1: huge in the NHL back then we played hot. We
Speaker 1: I can only imagine a beer on the plane all
Speaker 1: the time, you know, driving home from the airport after
Speaker 1: getting off the plane. And I'm not proud of it today.
Speaker 1: I did it. Thank God. I never killed anybody, hurt anybody.
Speaker 1: I didn't, And um I never got a drunk driving
Speaker 1: but I shouldn't. Chris Nyland, also known as Knuckles, had
Speaker 1: an incredible fifteen year NHL career. He spent ten seasons
Speaker 1: as a Montreal Canadian, then three as a New York Ranger.
Speaker 1: His career ended in the city where he first picked
Speaker 1: up a stick and a pair of skates as a
Speaker 1: Boston Brewing for two seasons, six hundred and sixty eight games,
Speaker 1: a hundred and ten goals, most penalty minutes by any
Speaker 1: American born player, a record that still stands today. The
Speaker 1: game gave him so much, but like many pro athletes
Speaker 1: before and after him, it took its toll physically. That's
Speaker 1: when the pain began to ring. So after you're done playing,
Speaker 1: how hard was it to adjust? I know you you
Speaker 1: coached and did some things, but just as a pro,
Speaker 1: when you hung it up, what what was that like? Yeah?
Speaker 1: It was difficult. You know, my identity of being a
Speaker 1: professional hockey player and doing the job I did. Like
Speaker 1: I said, you can say all the money you want,
Speaker 1: you can do well financially, but you think you prepare,
Speaker 1: but you'll never prepare emotionally for what you're about to
Speaker 1: what's about to happen to you mentally emotionally, you just won't.
Speaker 1: And I didn't. I thought I had it all going on.
Speaker 1: I had had it all in control. That first year
Speaker 1: out of the game. You know, I had a hot
Speaker 1: time watching it because I I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I should still be there. You know, I was lying
Speaker 1: to myself, how old were you? I was thirty four
Speaker 1: when I retired. Geez, I was thirty two, so yeah,
Speaker 1: right there the same just young man, And you think
Speaker 1: you're ready for whatever, and much the same. I was complete.
Speaker 1: My identity was basketball. I had no idea who I was.
Speaker 1: Please please continue. Well I struggle with that. You know.
Speaker 1: I was married, had three children, and you know, I
Speaker 1: got back to Boston. I did some work. Uh the
Speaker 1: first year. I didn't work right away, and I started
Speaker 1: to get into a job at John Hancock in Boston
Speaker 1: in community relations in Olympic projects. They had an Olympic sponsorship.
Speaker 1: I had a big office in that high rise in
Speaker 1: Boston and Hancock Tower at fifty second floor, got this
Speaker 1: big office. I'm looking out great view, nothing to do.
Speaker 1: What am I doing? And I we did do something,
Speaker 1: but you know what, it was so freaking born. So
Speaker 1: I had a friend in there who said, let's you know,
Speaker 1: why don't we get in the insurance business. You know,
Speaker 1: we can get a payroll deduction with the City of
Speaker 1: Boston through the maya. I'm a friend with the mayor.
Speaker 1: We'll get that, will enlist cops, fireman boom, It'll be
Speaker 1: like an annuity will be got. So I'm a good idea,
Speaker 1: you know. So we went and took the personality test
Speaker 1: to be um to do sell insurance. So John and
Speaker 1: I both took it. They hugged him, loved him, and
Speaker 1: the guy told me this ain't for you, and they
Speaker 1: have who are you to tell me it is ain't
Speaker 1: for you. I did it for like a month. I'm like,
Speaker 1: fucking see you later. We'll never find something that will
Speaker 1: fulfill us as athletes, like our careers. We just never will.
Speaker 1: And I tried to find it somewhere else. I tried
Speaker 1: to find it outside my marriage. I tried to find
Speaker 1: it with alcohol. I tried to fill that hole and
Speaker 1: eventually I tried to fill that hole with drugs, and man,
Speaker 1: it did not. It filled the hole, but the hole
Speaker 1: kept getting empty and deeper and deeper and deeper. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hear so much of what you're saying and feel it,
Speaker 1: you know. I think one of the things Steve Nash
Speaker 1: and I were talking about this UM. This was shortly
Speaker 1: after he retired, UM because I been retired for a
Speaker 1: while now, And he said, you know, the one thing
Speaker 1: I knew. I knew that I was gonna miss being
Speaker 1: around the guys. I knew that, you know, the adjustment
Speaker 1: was gonna be hard, he said, I didn't realize that.
Speaker 1: You know, since we were eight or ten, you know,
Speaker 1: we've been playing this game where we're out there and
Speaker 1: we're running into one another, and we're taking out some
Speaker 1: aggression and some frustration every single day, not only in games,
Speaker 1: but in the practices. You know, you miss going down.
Speaker 1: If you had a bad night at home, you go
Speaker 1: down and take out some aggression, running into guys, sweating
Speaker 1: and take just kind of getting it out of yourself.
Speaker 1: And when you don't have that release anymore, well you're
Speaker 1: gonna try to fill it some way. And I think
Speaker 1: you did. I did as well. When you know we
Speaker 1: both share a history in connection with opioids, when was
Speaker 1: the moment you realized you were hooked? Wow, it was
Speaker 1: certainly in retirement. Here's a deal. I'll go back. I
Speaker 1: broke my leg when I was in the first grade.
Speaker 1: I was five years old, and it was a compound fracture.
Speaker 1: I did it skiing and I had to stay over
Speaker 1: in the hospital overnight, and I remember because they couldn't
Speaker 1: set my leg that night, I had to wait for
Speaker 1: the doctor to come in the morning. They put me
Speaker 1: on morphine as a five year old, and I remember
Speaker 1: being in that room and I remember how it felt. Now. Okay,
Speaker 1: fast forward, high school major surgery on my knee, had
Speaker 1: all my college removed, and I was on demarall at
Speaker 1: the same hospital, and man, I'm like, I don't like that.
Speaker 1: I couldn't wait. I was asking for the next shot,
Speaker 1: and sure enough, then in college, I ended up in
Speaker 1: a fight in the street. I almost cut my finger
Speaker 1: bit off. I had an infection. I ended up in
Speaker 1: the hospital for like ten days, twelve days, and I
Speaker 1: was on opioids again, and it's weird. I got out.
Speaker 1: I took the pills, the couple percoset for a while,
Speaker 1: and I got rid of him my boom. I was
Speaker 1: back playing hockey. Everything was great during my career. I
Speaker 1: never took pain killers during my career until I broke
Speaker 1: my arm. When I played in New York. I broke
Speaker 1: my on the bone. I snapped in half and I
Speaker 1: had to fly back to New York from Montreal when
Speaker 1: I broke it, and they gave me percoset, and I
Speaker 1: remember I took it. I stayed up all night because
Speaker 1: my arm was really killing me, and I took it
Speaker 1: and I got on the plane and I as soon
Speaker 1: as I get off the plane, I got in the
Speaker 1: car to go to the hospital and I threw up.
Speaker 1: They didn't sit with me. I'm like, oh. And then
Speaker 1: in retirement, surgery after surgery. You know, I've had over
Speaker 1: thirty three surgery on my body, on my knee. I
Speaker 1: just had my knee replaced a couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: which is awesome. But anyway, I get into all that.
Speaker 1: But I got going on the opiates, and they agreed
Speaker 1: with me. I was first of was percoset. Then it
Speaker 1: was the one to drug oxy cotton eighty milli Graham tablets.
Speaker 1: Went from taking them to taking the coding off to
Speaker 1: snorting him, you know, snorting ten ten eighties a day
Speaker 1: like crazy. And then um, you know, I I had
Speaker 1: doctors everywhere, doctor Montreal, doctor in Boston, two doctors in Montreal,
Speaker 1: doctor in Ontario. I I get on a plane and
Speaker 1: fly to Toronto just to get pilled like crazy and
Speaker 1: then fly right back. So like right around two thousand,
Speaker 1: I kind of knew, I mean what am I doing here?
Speaker 1: I try to stop. I couldn't. I would get sick,
Speaker 1: you know the pain you go through, and um, it
Speaker 1: was just crazy. And I ended up eventually, um getting
Speaker 1: some help through the league and going to treatment back
Speaker 1: in two thousand. Um, that was the first time I
Speaker 1: had Chris Herron on and I know you're familiar with Chris,
Speaker 1: but he was younger than I was, but had a
Speaker 1: terrible addiction problem and derailed his career. But all three
Speaker 1: of us say the same thing, and it's this thing
Speaker 1: really came to a head in and two thousand and
Speaker 1: that's when OxyContin really started booming, right, And so it's
Speaker 1: not a coincidence. You said, it agreed with me. It
Speaker 1: agreed with me as well. And Chris said the same thing.
Speaker 1: I'm just one of those unfortunate people that for whatever
Speaker 1: reason that you know, really satisfies me for a minute. Okay,
Speaker 1: So when did it switch for you from pills to heroin?
Speaker 1: And you know how did that happen? Well after I
Speaker 1: think they caught onto what the Sacla family was doing.
Speaker 1: The bastards, Yes, sir, you know they started to crack down,
Speaker 1: you know, and all these doctors of pill factories, you know,
Speaker 1: down the Florida all around, and um, then they switched
Speaker 1: all the way. You couldn't peel the coating off them
Speaker 1: anymore and snort them. They made him snort proof, and
Speaker 1: um then it was really difficult to get them. So
Speaker 1: I said, I gotta try and kick this stuff on
Speaker 1: my own. This is a sect. I went to treatment
Speaker 1: of two thousand. I got out. It was good for
Speaker 1: a while, did my meetings at all. You know, I
Speaker 1: faked it. I took a literal fake it to you
Speaker 1: make it. I kept faking it. I never made it.
Speaker 1: I started drinking again, went back and right around oh eight,
Speaker 1: you know, I was still on the pills, doing the thing,
Speaker 1: and I said, I gotta kick this. So I said,
Speaker 1: I can go to meeting, but I gotta, you know,
Speaker 1: get off the pills, and I gotta sweat it out
Speaker 1: tough as out. And I remember being on the couch
Speaker 1: like just suffering and suffering. I would try and drink
Speaker 1: my way through it, and um, about the third day,
Speaker 1: I just couldn't take anymore, you know, and I got
Speaker 1: on the phone, made a phone call and I ended
Speaker 1: up calling on the drug dealer who I knew, and
Speaker 1: he ended up getting me some heroin, and um, I'm
Speaker 1: that big deal, you know heroin. I'll I'll snort it.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna shoot it. It's uh, it's the same
Speaker 1: stuff basically, but heroin, and it's the same thing. And yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't know how much is in certain doses. I
Speaker 1: get all that, but that's heroin in pilform. I end
Speaker 1: up snotting it and I said I'll never shoot it.
Speaker 1: And within a week I had a needle on my
Speaker 1: youn wow, and it was sickening like And I went
Speaker 1: like that for close to a year, just about about
Speaker 1: eight months, and man, I was a mess, and I
Speaker 1: ended up over dose in a few times. Just craziness. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember I woke up in the hotel and in
Speaker 1: the bathroom. I woke up and I think I injected
Speaker 1: the hen and probably around around twelve o'clock at night,
Speaker 1: and I woke up it was like four in the morning.
Speaker 1: I was sitting there on the toilet, the needle in
Speaker 1: my arm, just bleeding. I got up to walk away
Speaker 1: in a panic. I fell forward, my legs one numb
Speaker 1: on me. I got up by in a panic. I
Speaker 1: hit my head on the wall and knocked myself out
Speaker 1: and I laid there and that rex is when I
Speaker 1: woke up. I was like a little baby, crying like
Speaker 1: a baby. I knew who to call, I just I
Speaker 1: wasn't calling him. And that morning I ended up picking
Speaker 1: up the phone and calling Dan cronin the guy who
Speaker 1: helped me the first time, and I said, dan, Um,
Speaker 1: I need you to help the most difficult thing I
Speaker 1: have had to do. But I did it, and I said,
Speaker 1: I really need to help. He said, who is this?
Speaker 1: I said, it's not cause. He said, oh, he said,
Speaker 1: I've been waiting for your phone call. You know, like
Speaker 1: I thought, I'm sneaking around. No one knows I'm still sold.
Speaker 1: But from back, yeah, that'll be the day. Yeah. He
Speaker 1: had me on a plane the next day, God bless him. Addiction,
Speaker 1: more oftentimes than not, stems from necessity. When the curtains
Speaker 1: closed on Knuckles Nyland's career, his body had been put
Speaker 1: through over thirty surgeries, more than anyone should endure. The
Speaker 1: mind is willing, but the body can no longer go.
Speaker 1: I unfortunately, can relate. We as athletes, have been trained
Speaker 1: to win at all costs and condition to trust that
Speaker 1: medical professionals know what our bodies need, especially when it
Speaker 1: comes to prescriptions, while we heal. Oftentimes this can be
Speaker 1: a recipe for disaster to the ultra competitive. Sadly, it's
Speaker 1: not just the individual that suffers, but oftentimes the surrounding
Speaker 1: loved ones who often cannot cope or understand the internal struggle. Afoot.
Speaker 1: This is kind of a long winded question, but you know,
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer personally. But you got the
Speaker 1: drugs at the start from a doctor, same as me.
Speaker 1: And these things, you know, for the pain, they work.
Speaker 1: But you know, Chris, we're professional athletes with access and
Speaker 1: connections to help and everything. Uh, can you imagine dealing
Speaker 1: with this thing as a quote regular person? And I
Speaker 1: asked because I read at one point, you know, you
Speaker 1: said when people get sick with cancer, they get sympathy,
Speaker 1: but when people are alcoholics or drug addicts, oh, it's
Speaker 1: self inflicts. It just stop. And man, when I read that,
Speaker 1: it really hit me, you know, because I think that messaging,
Speaker 1: that is a message people need to hear, and maybe
Speaker 1: they don't really hear it when it's coming from their
Speaker 1: cousin or friend or parent or whoever else. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: I guess my real question isn't even a question, but
Speaker 1: more just can we talk about that a little bit? Yeah? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a lot of people think it's a
Speaker 1: model issue. You know, it's like, you know, wake up, son,
Speaker 1: I can smarting up. Just stop. They don't Those people
Speaker 1: don't have a clue, and it's like, listen, I remember
Speaker 1: when I first got my first dog and I was
Speaker 1: trying to walk the dog on a leash and it
Speaker 1: was way ahead of me and it wouldn't walk next
Speaker 1: to me. I'd be pulling on there, come on, ConA,
Speaker 1: come on, walk next to me. I'm like, well, you
Speaker 1: fucking idiot. Like I was ignorant until I finally realized
Speaker 1: and I researched how to walk a dog on a leash.
Speaker 1: And if people are ignorant who maybe don't have that problem,
Speaker 1: those whole called normal people who do not struggle with
Speaker 1: addiction or alcoholism. Maybe they've never been in contact with
Speaker 1: someone who has struggled with addictions, so they look at
Speaker 1: it like, hey, just stop. And it is so difficult
Speaker 1: when you're in that to do and you know, um,
Speaker 1: when you're physically addicted, that mental obsession that comes along
Speaker 1: with that propensity to keep doing the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over, the insanity of it, and your body needs
Speaker 1: that you're so physically addicted. And I don't think people
Speaker 1: really understand that. You look at a heroin attic and
Speaker 1: when I look back at myself and see myself in
Speaker 1: pitches when I was messed up. Now, how couldn't you realize?
Speaker 1: How couldn't you just well, you realize that. I remember
Speaker 1: looking at myself in the mirror and saying, I don't
Speaker 1: fucking like you. I don't and I felt so far
Speaker 1: and you know that's life. Uh. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: put my finger and blame it on anybody. I don't
Speaker 1: blame it on mommy and daddy. You know, I don't
Speaker 1: blame it on hockey and my fighting and all that stuff. Listen,
Speaker 1: I was physically addicted. I took the pills. If I
Speaker 1: am alcoholism, if that came through my genes, okay, if
Speaker 1: it's in the family gene, that's in the family gene.
Speaker 1: I still say, knowing me the way I was as
Speaker 1: a my personality coupled with uh, the addiction, Man, it
Speaker 1: was easy for me to get where I got. Easy
Speaker 1: A recipe for a disaster in many ways, and for success.
Speaker 1: You were wired to succeed, and you know a lot
Speaker 1: of times our greatest strengths can be our greatest weaknesses.
Speaker 1: And as athletes, it's just a it's a hard role.
Speaker 1: I know. The nhl p A helped out. What was
Speaker 1: your process of getting clean or getting sober well, I
Speaker 1: went to treatment. I went out to Oregon for three months.
Speaker 1: UH ended up living there for a while. I met
Speaker 1: my girlfriend Jamie out there. She's from Hawaii. She's a
Speaker 1: sober woman. We relapsed together. You know all the things
Speaker 1: they tell you not to do it, Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: Well she finally cut and ran went back to Hawaii.
Speaker 1: Se later left me. I still struggled and um. She
Speaker 1: ended up putting me in touch with they addictionologists, a
Speaker 1: guy from Hawaii, and I flew to Hawaii. I met
Speaker 1: with him. He got me on suboxon for the short
Speaker 1: term to get through the withdrawals, and I started going
Speaker 1: to meetings again every day. When I was in Hawaii,
Speaker 1: I got back on the horse, did my thing. I
Speaker 1: stayed there for about two months, went back to Boston.
Speaker 1: Jamie stayed in Hawaii for another three months. She ended
Speaker 1: up moving back this way once I was cleaned up
Speaker 1: and had everything under control, and we started our life
Speaker 1: new again in Montreal, back in and we've survived. We've
Speaker 1: been together eleven years now and and we're both solva
Speaker 1: and life has never been better. Life out of the
Speaker 1: spotlight comes with an endless array of challenges. Chris accepts
Speaker 1: responsibility for his actions, which oftentimes is not the case
Speaker 1: amongst those who become drug dependent. To his credit, he
Speaker 1: pulled himself up from the abyss and found his zest
Speaker 1: for love and life again. Ironically, it wasn't until he
Speaker 1: was sober that Knuckles had to run in with the
Speaker 1: law doing what is and always has been ingrained in
Speaker 1: him standing up for a friend in peril. You know,
Speaker 1: this show's charges called charges, as you know, and in
Speaker 1: your case, though thankfully outside the time you spent the
Speaker 1: penalty box for fighting, you didn't have many charges with
Speaker 1: the law except one. Can we talk about the bathing
Speaker 1: suit incident? Sure? So? So you steal a bathing suit
Speaker 1: and I read where the cops come and you're kicking
Speaker 1: The security guards asked, was that real? There? I was
Speaker 1: with a buddy of mine. I just did a promotion.
Speaker 1: I had a thousand dollars catt cash in my pocket.
Speaker 1: I just did the promotion. We went to the mall
Speaker 1: to get something. I stopped there. I was going on
Speaker 1: the beach with my daughter. I didn't have a bathing
Speaker 1: suit because I just got back from I was clean
Speaker 1: and sober at the time. I wasn't messed up and
Speaker 1: I was trying the bathing suit on. I have my
Speaker 1: shorts hanging on the thing, and I heard some guy
Speaker 1: given Jimmy the business outside the door. So I opened
Speaker 1: the door and I looked and I had the bathing
Speaker 1: suit on, and guys, hey, he was trying to grab
Speaker 1: his bag. Jimmy bought something he's choose him of stealing.
Speaker 1: So I walk out the thing. I said, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? Leave him alone. Jimmy walked away, kept walking away.
Speaker 1: The guys there come back here, try to grab him.
Speaker 1: He pulled away, went out the door. So I falled
Speaker 1: him out the door. I have the bathing suit on,
Speaker 1: my shorts to my hand with the money, so bom.
Speaker 1: The guy grabbed Jimmy rips the bag out of his hand.
Speaker 1: What he had in the bag was paid for. So meanwhile,
Speaker 1: this guy is six ft three security guard and they
Speaker 1: were from um Cape Verdie. I think anyway, we get
Speaker 1: out the door. I said, hey, you leave him alone,
Speaker 1: leave him alone, and that do you mind your business
Speaker 1: and my my business? So he pushed me. I come back,
Speaker 1: I said, don't push me back. I hit him with
Speaker 1: a fucking shot, broke his nose, put him right down.
Speaker 1: Then his partner came out and hit me over the
Speaker 1: head with the wakee talkie, and I turned around and
Speaker 1: hit him with a shot, knocked him on his ass,
Speaker 1: and then I grabbed Jimmy. I said, let's go, so boom,
Speaker 1: we uh are gonna run to the car. And before
Speaker 1: we know it, we get run up on by both
Speaker 1: those guys and another guy. So I square up here.
Speaker 1: I am squaring up with him and I have flip
Speaker 1: flops on. I'm fighting, yeah, So I square up and
Speaker 1: I gotta stay on my feet. I don't want to
Speaker 1: go down. All of a sudden, boom, I get jumped
Speaker 1: on from behind. And the guy who dumped me from
Speaker 1: behind was one of their friends. Don't know who he was,
Speaker 1: and I just fell forward with him because I wanted
Speaker 1: to get him off me. I fell forward and flipped
Speaker 1: them and I went down on my knees. I don't
Speaker 1: know that fat basket. I don't how much you wait.
Speaker 1: But he went down right on his face right and
Speaker 1: ripped the skin right down his face. So boom. Then
Speaker 1: they stopped laying the boots to me, and I'm trying
Speaker 1: to get back to my feet, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I hear the sirens, the cops come, and you know, anyway,
Speaker 1: I get up and there's the cops. He's hearing out
Speaker 1: fucking paper towels. The three on the one he got
Speaker 1: sucking on his nose, the other one on his lip,
Speaker 1: and the other one's fucking face is all funked up.
Speaker 1: And I'm sitting in the back of the cruise a
Speaker 1: handcuff like I want to get out and beat them again. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they accused mes steal in the beating suit. Okay, I
Speaker 1: told the cop the story, and the cops say, wow,
Speaker 1: there's security. God the sob of uh. Anyway, I go
Speaker 1: to court and they end up wanting to press charges
Speaker 1: against me. Now well, I get a lawyer. We find
Speaker 1: out two of them are here illegally, so we file
Speaker 1: felony charges. Saw better at dangerous weapon. And then they
Speaker 1: dropped the whole thing. As far as they wanted to
Speaker 1: as sue me and UH as far as the other
Speaker 1: things the on the beading suit, the case got dropped
Speaker 1: out of court. I had to pay a cold cause
Speaker 1: a hund a bucks because I wasted that time fast
Speaker 1: A great story, it was not. The Bureau may have
Speaker 1: an even bigger problem trying to explain it's twenty five
Speaker 1: year relationship with the notorious boss of the Irish Mob
Speaker 1: in Boston, James Whitey Bulger. The FBI recruited as secret
Speaker 1: informant to get information about Bulger's arch rivals in the
Speaker 1: Italian mafia. In exchange for that information, the FBI in
Speaker 1: effect gave Bulger carte blanche, which allowed him to get
Speaker 1: away with robbery, drug dealing, extortion, and, according to a
Speaker 1: federal indictment, the murders of at least nineteen people. What's more,
Speaker 1: one FBI agent has been charged with tipping off Boulger
Speaker 1: six years ago that he was about to be arrested
Speaker 1: and that let him get away. You spoke recently and
Speaker 1: depressed about how you had a relationship with reputed gangster
Speaker 1: Whitey Bulger in the early part of your career. Looking back,
Speaker 1: how that hell did that connection change you as a
Speaker 1: person and how did it come about? It didn't change
Speaker 1: me at all as a person. Listen, I've there's one
Speaker 1: thing I've always done, and I know I got a
Speaker 1: little lost when I was on the drugs and alcohol, right,
Speaker 1: but I always stay true to myself, my family and
Speaker 1: my friends. Now, if I had some issues. I've screwed
Speaker 1: up here and THEMN fine and I have, but I've
Speaker 1: always really tried to say true to myself. As far
Speaker 1: as miss Sobolgia goes, I married his stepdaughter, okay, and yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so we became Listen, I knew you of him. I
Speaker 1: knew you know, he spent time in Alcatraz. I knew
Speaker 1: he was a bank robber. I knew he did that,
Speaker 1: not all that stuff. But yeah, like people say, oh,
Speaker 1: how good you like a guy like that, Oh, listen
Speaker 1: until you're in them fucking true. You want to judge me,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't hang around with him per se.
Speaker 1: It's not like I was a yank. He was. It
Speaker 1: was my wife's mother. It was her boyfriend. And he
Speaker 1: was very good to me. Over he is. He was
Speaker 1: very bad to some other people. He remember the first
Speaker 1: time he I went to pick Cameron, I'm you know, no,
Speaker 1: she told me, listen, be careful what you say around him.
Speaker 1: And he's blah blah him now all right, And I've
Speaker 1: been a big wasn't gonna shoot me, so you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take you on a date. He's gonna kill
Speaker 1: me before the first day. I'm gonna yeah. So I
Speaker 1: go in to pick her up and find hey, how
Speaker 1: you doing, and you know, good, Hey, how are you Chris? Huh.
Speaker 1: So we're walking out the door and taking Karen down
Speaker 1: the COI opened the door and then he picks his
Speaker 1: head out the door. He said, hey, Chris, come in.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you for a second. I'm like, okay.
Speaker 1: Karen's like scared at that. So I go back in
Speaker 1: and we sit down on the couch and he had
Speaker 1: a pistol. He had a gun, and he goes, hey, listen,
Speaker 1: here's a deal. I know Karen loves you, you love
Speaker 1: her or whatever. Yeah, I'm just gonna lay it out
Speaker 1: for you. Don't ever lay a hand on her, treat
Speaker 1: her like a lady, opened the door, blah blah blah,
Speaker 1: you know, typical father talk. And if she ever wants
Speaker 1: to break up with you, just let her go, don't
Speaker 1: fucking chase around and try and hang on. So I'm okay,
Speaker 1: and I said, you know, I got you. And I said, honestly,
Speaker 1: you didn't have to pull a gun out to tell me,
Speaker 1: because he just told me. He said, well that's the
Speaker 1: way I do business. And I'm like and Honestly, I
Speaker 1: think he respected it because I didn't sit. I wasn't
Speaker 1: like shipping my pants, you know, I just okay. Was
Speaker 1: Whitey Bulger a hockey fan. Oh he became one, Yeah,
Speaker 1: big time. But I went out the door agatting the
Speaker 1: cowed Karen and we're ready to leave. He goes hey,
Speaker 1: opened the door again. He said, hey, Chris, come in,
Speaker 1: I come in. He peeled off, like ten hundred dollar bill. Yeah,
Speaker 1: enjoy the evening. It was awesome. And I was a
Speaker 1: college kid or a window to throw it out right.
Speaker 1: I remember I gotten a problem at the Boston Garden.
Speaker 1: I had hit one of their better players, Rick Middleton.
Speaker 1: I knocked a couple of teeth and he was home
Speaker 1: watching on TV with someone else. And they're going, fucking
Speaker 1: n Island's gonna have a hard time. He'll never get
Speaker 1: out of the Boston gotten alive that everybody. So all
Speaker 1: my family is there anyway, and all the security guys
Speaker 1: are walking me out, and I'm they, Hey, I don't
Speaker 1: fucking need you guys to protect me. I'm walking on
Speaker 1: this bill. I don't need to be well, we have
Speaker 1: to do it while you're on our property. Blah blah, blah.
Speaker 1: I said, honestly, I don't need you fucking guys. I'll
Speaker 1: take care of myself. And so I walked down. We
Speaker 1: get to the door and I go out, and my
Speaker 1: family's there and my friends, and ain't nobody gonna funk
Speaker 1: with me with them there? And the bus team buses there.
Speaker 1: All of a sudden, I hear from all the behind
Speaker 1: the bus down the sidewalk and I, we're gonna fucking
Speaker 1: kill you, blah blah blah. And I looked down and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, two guys in baseball at Crack
Speaker 1: Donny went. They laid the fucking boots to him. While
Speaker 1: it was it was Whitey and Kevin his partner, and
Speaker 1: they kicked the living ship out of that kid. And
Speaker 1: I get on the bus. We left. But he used
Speaker 1: to come up um, and he came up actually uh
Speaker 1: during the playoffs because no one really knew him up here,
Speaker 1: and he could sit in the crowd. It was pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I remember story. He came up to game with my
Speaker 1: mother in law. My mother in law at the time
Speaker 1: tersa god rest his soul. Um was a gorgeous woman.
Speaker 1: And you know, she come up the game with him
Speaker 1: and they game tickets in the red And I'm at
Speaker 1: Costco about a year ago, and this guy comes up
Speaker 1: to me and he tells me this story that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell you. He wanted to thank me and never
Speaker 1: seen me since he wasn't a wealthy guy, didn't have
Speaker 1: a lot of money. They happened to get tickets in
Speaker 1: the red seats that night, and he was sitting next
Speaker 1: to my father with his son. And I remember like
Speaker 1: it was yesterday. White. He came to me and he said, listen.
Speaker 1: After the game, he said, I gotta tell you, there
Speaker 1: was a little kid sitting next to me with his dad.
Speaker 1: Only they didn't look like they didn't have much money,
Speaker 1: you know, the clothes with tadded blah blah blah. And
Speaker 1: he said, um, I asked a kid. I said, who
Speaker 1: your favorite player? He said knuckles knuckles, I on my
Speaker 1: favorite player, blah blah blah. So between periods he asked
Speaker 1: the father. He said, hey, can I take his son
Speaker 1: down to the pro shop, you know, the souvenir shop.
Speaker 1: He said sure, go ahead. You know, because he told
Speaker 1: the guy was Chris is following blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So he takes the kid down. The kid come back.
Speaker 1: He had two fucking bags. He had hats, he had
Speaker 1: a Nyland Jersey, had fucking Canadians, every fucking thing, and
Speaker 1: he comes back with these two bags full things. So
Speaker 1: this guy doesn't know who my following law is. So
Speaker 1: a year ago I see him at Costco. He comes
Speaker 1: up and say, Chris Island, Hey, how are you buddy?
Speaker 1: How's it going? He's big fan of yours. But I
Speaker 1: gotta tell you back when you would plan, I went
Speaker 1: to a game and I sat next to your father
Speaker 1: and he told me the story. The guy wasn't fucking tears,
Speaker 1: he wasn't beautiful. It was unbelievable story. And I said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I know what you're telling me because
Speaker 1: the after the game he told me what he did.
Speaker 1: And I never forgot that. It was so cool. God,
Speaker 1: that's just beautiful. Amazing. People are endlessly complicated and fascinating.
Speaker 1: All right, So you got yourself together, you got sober clean,
Speaker 1: and you've decided to do what with this new lease
Speaker 1: on life? Knuckles? Well, I had an opportunity back here
Speaker 1: in Montreal in the radio to move back, uh a
Speaker 1: friend again. When you're in our boat, not everybody got
Speaker 1: their hand out and say, hey, I'll help you. And
Speaker 1: I do believe me. I totally understand that. I don't
Speaker 1: have a problem with it. I get it. Um. But
Speaker 1: Mitch Melnick, a guy who was here when I played,
Speaker 1: he did the radio for years. We always had this
Speaker 1: relationship and I had done a few things with him
Speaker 1: when I was messed up. You know, I call and
Speaker 1: do a show, watch a game, you know, to analyze
Speaker 1: the game, blah blah blah. And he said, listen, you'd
Speaker 1: be good at this. What do you think? He said,
Speaker 1: would you move back here? I said, yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: move back So I flew in. I got an interview
Speaker 1: with his boss, Wayne Beaues, sat down with both of them.
Speaker 1: I left, and Wayne said, the Mitch, he ain't fucking
Speaker 1: moving back. He's American. He's living to say, why do
Speaker 1: you want to move to Canada? Mitchell, We'll see. Look.
Speaker 1: I moved back to like a month and a half later.
Speaker 1: I was there. All of a sudden, I show up.
Speaker 1: Now Wayne's like, oh ship, he's back. And he followed
Speaker 1: through and I was here probably about eight months. I
Speaker 1: moved back here. I had a borrowed Cadillac from my
Speaker 1: friend Brian McLoughlin. His mother passed away. Cole was sitting
Speaker 1: in the garage. He said, I'll let you use that.
Speaker 1: Actually get back in their feet. My dentist up here
Speaker 1: not wanting these seat in my head of mine. Yea,
Speaker 1: we stopped taking care of ourselves right completely. I had
Speaker 1: a good stot, but uh my dentist let me live
Speaker 1: in his condo. Um, and I chipped away. I moved
Speaker 1: back here with Jamie. I have five hundred dollars in
Speaker 1: my pocket, borrow vehicle. We each had a bag of clothes.
Speaker 1: We started our life all over. Um. We rented for
Speaker 1: a while the radio show I've been doing for uh
Speaker 1: nine years now. We just bought a house three years ago.
Speaker 1: I we chipped away, chipped away. I go and do
Speaker 1: my thing. I go to my meetings. Uh, I do
Speaker 1: the zoom stuff now I love it. Uh. Since COVID,
Speaker 1: we both had COVID H and survived it. Thank God.
Speaker 1: The good I had the world. I had the flu worse,
Speaker 1: you know, then I had COVID, And yeah, life is
Speaker 1: awesome again, honestly. Yeah. I have three children back in Boston.
Speaker 1: I got four grandchildren. My parents are still alive. My
Speaker 1: mom's not well. You know, my dad was so proud
Speaker 1: of my career and all that. But I my dad,
Speaker 1: I know today and I've helped a few people along
Speaker 1: the way, like I'm sure you have, and he has
Speaker 1: seen that, and he's more proud of me what I've
Speaker 1: done in my my life now than Evan. And I
Speaker 1: could see it in his eyes when I talked to
Speaker 1: him every time, every time, And God love him what
Speaker 1: he's doing. He's taking care of my mom. She's got dementia.
Speaker 1: It's terrible things. But I'm really sorry. I'm glad. I'm
Speaker 1: so going to be there for him today, you know,
Speaker 1: like a instead of being that you know, fucking blank
Speaker 1: numb dope walking around and being a sick man, I
Speaker 1: was a sick man. My folks are the same, and
Speaker 1: I think they're prouder of me now than they ever were. Right,
Speaker 1: that's awesome. You talked about it's not how any times
Speaker 1: you fall down, but how many times you get up?
Speaker 1: What or who or why is the reason that you
Speaker 1: keep getting up? Knuckles. I have a passion for life.
Speaker 1: I want to live life like you know, I survived
Speaker 1: in my addiction. I was just surviving. I wasn't living
Speaker 1: my life and boy, you know I'm not. I don't
Speaker 1: live my life and feel like I'm scared to do this.
Speaker 1: I'm scared to do that. You know, people are scared
Speaker 1: to change. And I always hear that I fucking deal
Speaker 1: with it when I was coming. I'm dealing with like,
Speaker 1: I don't care what it is like as long as
Speaker 1: I don't do something wrong, to hurt another person, to
Speaker 1: steal from someone, uh, hurt somebody in a way like
Speaker 1: the cops ain't coming to get me. You know, I
Speaker 1: might be late in my fucking taxes. Well you gotta
Speaker 1: deal with you gotta deal with is me like, But
Speaker 1: as long as I don't hurt anybody, Um, I remain teachable. Um,
Speaker 1: I enjoy my life. That's all I want. Enjoy my family. No, No,
Speaker 1: life is good again. What's next for you? Where can
Speaker 1: people find you? And what do you want to leave
Speaker 1: people with now that they've gotten to know you? Well,
Speaker 1: I guess what's next for me? Um, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: do the radio show. Yeah, as long uh as they'll
Speaker 1: have me, and then hopefully one day I can get
Speaker 1: down to Boston and spend some time with family, more
Speaker 1: time with family, and hopefully one day Jamie and I
Speaker 1: will be able to maybe spend four months of the
Speaker 1: year in Hawaii with her family because she's from KNA.
Speaker 1: And then yeah, just you know, at some point here
Speaker 1: in the next few years, I'm too young to retire,
Speaker 1: but you know, just do this for as long as
Speaker 1: I can and and enjoy the rest of my life
Speaker 1: and as far as I guess leaving people with something
Speaker 1: I think honestly, listen, I'll always take of my lumps.
Speaker 1: One of one thing my that didn't want, not want
Speaker 1: me to do, is lie. And there's one thing you
Speaker 1: can never call me as a fucking liar, the honesty.
Speaker 1: You know, people was struggling maybe with addiction. It's hard
Speaker 1: to get honest, right, It's like, yeah, it's hard to say, Okay,
Speaker 1: I got a problem, I need help. But man, you're
Speaker 1: honest with yourself and you really look deep down on
Speaker 1: the side and realize that and you become open minded,
Speaker 1: and then you become willing. You can change your life. Um,
Speaker 1: you can change it around. There's no question about it. Honestly,
Speaker 1: open mindedness and willingness and you can get your life back.
Speaker 1: I know it helped me for sure. It's like, uh,
Speaker 1: my father always says you know, be coachable. Be coachable, right,
Speaker 1: Chris Knuckles. I want to thank you for being so
Speaker 1: open and honest with me today. There's so many of
Speaker 1: us around the world who revere you, and I can
Speaker 1: see why. If there's anything I can ever do for you,
Speaker 1: my door has always opened, my friend. Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for coming on Charge just today. Hey Rex, I was awesome.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me um you know following basketball for
Speaker 1: who he has been a big Celts fan. When I
Speaker 1: found out I was coming on and I always follow
Speaker 1: you on Twitter, you became oh that. I just love
Speaker 1: the stuff you put out there. I know you had
Speaker 1: a good career, you had some issues, uh like myself.
Speaker 1: Just awesome. A lot of respect for you that you
Speaker 1: change your life around and you live in life again,
Speaker 1: like Knuckles is awesome. Yeah, thank you and I since
Speaker 1: you're a Celtics fan, My people are at the Celtics.
Speaker 1: So one of these days let's meet up in Boston
Speaker 1: and go catch the Celtics. I love buddy, Thank you
Speaker 1: all about Thanks for having me. Charges seven No Runnians
Speaker 1: with the Law, Charges Lee, send the tennis and balls
Speaker 1: and Charges the celebrity gank forms Charge. We came along
Speaker 1: with from living Law. There's a charge seven No run
Speaker 1: Nians with the law, charges Lee send the tennis and
Speaker 1: balls and charges the celebrity gank forms and charge we
Speaker 1: came along. Quit from Living Law. That's just Charges is
Speaker 1: created by Portalai and Control Media. Is produced by DV
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