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1:08

This episode contains some brief discussion

1:11

of suicide, so it may not

1:13

be suitable for all listeners.

1:25

For Jeremy Allingham, the revelation

1:28

came all at once. It really caught

1:30

me by surprise, and I remember this is quite some

1:32

time ago now, at least 15 years ago. But

1:34

I remember pretty standard

1:36

Canadian Friday night with the boys, starting

1:39

to get after with some beers and, hey, let's head

1:41

over to the hockey game, cheap tickets, let's go see what's

1:43

going on with the Giants.

1:52

That's the Vancouver Giants, a

1:54

major junior team in the Western Hockey

1:56

League. Go down to the Pacific Coliseum,

1:59

take our seats.

1:59

double-fisting, maybe a hot dog on the

2:02

side. And I think

2:04

most hockey fans know this moment.

2:07

And that's the moment when the gloves beat the puck

2:09

to the ice. Now both helmets come

2:12

off. And now they're full. And

2:14

that's what happened here. And the jersey comes over.

2:17

And the whole crowd rose up as one. And

2:20

they had that thunderous bloodlust. Both

2:22

pitches, they were up. All right,

2:25

here we go. This is what we came to see. That's

2:27

a good, honest tilt. Those are heavy

2:29

rows.

2:29

And that one was right on the money. Usually

2:32

I would have been right there with them or not really cared

2:34

or kind of shrugged it off. It's kind of like, this is just normal,

2:37

no big deal.

2:38

No idea why. Maybe I was maturing

2:40

in that moment or what. But I zoned in

2:42

on these two scrappers. And I'm looking at their

2:44

faces. And I'm going, wait a minute.

2:46

These are kids. Like, these guys are little.

2:49

And I grabbed a program from a guy

2:51

sitting a couple rows up from me. He passed

2:53

it down to me. And I went down the list of the roster.

2:56

And they were 16 and 17 years old. And

2:59

that was the moment that hit me. I

3:01

felt sick to my stomach. I

3:04

was having kind of just major

3:06

regret of having been a participant

3:08

in cheering on

3:11

two children, bare knuckle boxing, on

3:13

ice. And that was something that dawned on me was

3:16

we are adults who paid money to

3:18

come into this room to cheer on

3:20

two kids to beat the shit out of

3:22

each other's faces. And that just didn't sit right with me. Jeremy

3:26

Allingham would go on to write a book

3:28

called Major Misconduct, The Human

3:30

Cost of Fighting in Hockey.

3:33

No one else fights on a slick

3:35

surface with skateblades

3:37

beneath them. No one else who fights in

3:40

the combat sport world can slip

3:42

and smash their head off hard ice. But

3:45

bare knuckle boxing is what it is. And

3:47

bare knuckle boxing, as far as I know,

3:50

is only legal in like three states.

3:53

It's illegal in all of Canada outside

3:55

of the hockey rink.

3:57

Fighting is hockey's third rail.

4:00

If you question its place in the game, you

4:02

are sure to elicit an angry

4:04

response from fans. I've

4:07

seen arguments about

4:10

abortion or Israel-Palestine

4:12

that are more even-keeled and

4:15

reasonable than arguments about

4:17

fighting and hockey. It really, really

4:20

fucks people up. To its supporters,

4:23

fighting is a way to police the game and

4:25

a mechanism to discourage dirty play.

4:28

To its detractors, fighting

4:31

and the numerous blows to the head that players

4:33

have to endure have become a moral

4:36

crisis at the very heart of the

4:38

sport.

4:39

I'm Arshi Mann and this is

4:41

Commons and on this, our

4:43

final episode of our season on hockey,

4:46

we'll take you deep into the heart of this debate

4:48

through the story of a man who

4:50

made his living fighting on the ice

4:53

and who eventually lost his

4:55

life because of it.

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7:21

I'm Brent Burns with the Minnesota Wild, and we're

7:23

here with Derek, the boogie man, Bogart.

7:26

Growing up in a small town in Canada,

7:29

what was your favorite team and what was your favorite

7:31

player to watch? I started playing

7:33

hockey in the Toronto area, and

7:35

my dad was a big Leafs fan. Yeah, I didn't

7:38

know that. Doug Gilmore and the

7:40

Leafs were the team

7:42

to watch. The good old days. Yeah, exactly.

7:45

So there you go, fans. It's Derek Bogart.

7:49

I ran with him last year. He's an easy guy

7:51

to get

7:51

along with. I know he looks scary and he's

7:53

a big boy, but he's just a teddy bear. He's a

7:56

good guy. Fun guy to have around,

7:58

and that's why you guys like him.

10:00

the top teams. And by the time he was

10:02

a teenager, Derek was dreaming of

10:04

playing in the WHL and eventually

10:07

the NHL. And he got

10:09

his big break, but it didn't come

10:12

how he thought it would.

10:13

So the legendary story of Derek takes place

10:16

in the old little rink in Melford,

10:18

Saskatchewan. You know, it's got about three

10:20

bleachers on each side. And

10:22

the Melford Mustangs that Derek was a part of were

10:24

playing that night. And somebody

10:27

ran into a goalie and kids started pushing

10:29

each other around. And Derek, like

10:32

a bull, rushes over and

10:34

just starts knocking kids out and knocking them

10:36

over. And then goes into the bench and

10:39

goes after more kids and kids are scattering like

10:41

cats, right?

10:42

His dad is appalled.

10:44

His dad is like, what? I've never seen him do this. What

10:46

is he doing? He just lost his mind. And

10:49

so Derek gets kicked out of the game

10:51

and comes over and sits next to his dad. And his dad is furious.

10:54

And his dad, Lynn, is he's a cop. He's a Mountie.

10:56

He's a tough dude. But he was like, I

10:59

am not putting up with this. I don't know what that was all about, but

11:01

you are not doing that again. You're not representing

11:03

yourself that way. You're not representing your team that way.

11:05

Just gave him the silent treatment. And Derek sculpt,

11:08

what they didn't know was that

11:10

there were two guys from the Regina Pats who

11:12

were coming through town that night and were in the stands

11:15

and those bleachers. And they've rushed

11:18

out of that rink and went over to a local motel

11:20

and asked the guy that they could use a fax machine. And

11:23

they sent a fax back

11:25

in the days of fax to the Western

11:28

Hockey League office and made a claim on

11:30

Derek Bogart. And within

11:32

days they were in the house saying, we'd like to sign

11:34

Derek to the Regina Pats. They

11:37

loved what they saw.

11:38

They didn't want Derek Bogart because they

11:40

thought he could score goals, rack up

11:42

assists or defend. They

11:45

wanted him to be an enforcer.

11:47

Most teams want to protect their

11:50

star players from cheap

11:52

shots and things like elbows

11:54

and late hits. Try to keep your star

11:57

players from getting hurt by these thuggish uppers.

12:00

other players that don't have as much to lose.

12:03

And to do that, you basically plant

12:05

a nuclear bomb on your bench in

12:08

the form of an enforcer. And

12:10

then enforcer then is the guy that's gonna say, if you're gonna pick

12:12

on our star players, you're gonna have to go through me first,

12:15

or you're gonna have to go through me afterward. And

12:18

the scouts at night saw Derek as that kid.

12:21

The enforcer is a singular

12:23

figure in the hockey pantheon and

12:25

a relatively recent one. Here's

12:28

Jeremy Allenkamp again. Fighting

12:30

was not really adopted as

12:33

a known strategy

12:35

of intimidation until

12:37

the late 60s and the 1970s. And

12:40

people usually link that

12:42

to the Broad Street bullies, the Philadelphia

12:45

Flyers in the 1970s, who are like,

12:47

we're gonna get a bunch of big,

12:49

mean, scary dudes.

12:51

Maybe some of them can play, some of them can't. Bobby

12:53

Clark can skate, but some of the other

12:55

dudes can't. And we're

12:58

gonna just mash you into the boards.

13:00

We're gonna play dirty. And if you don't like it,

13:02

we're gonna put a little cherry on top by

13:04

bashing you with our fists. And so that

13:06

became kind of a go-to strategy

13:09

that then did stretch into

13:11

the 70s and 80s to the point

13:13

where you get the Dave Semenkos, the

13:15

Gino Ojics, the Donald

13:18

Brashears, Marty McSorley's, whoever it may be,

13:20

whose main

13:21

job then was to be

13:23

an enforcer

13:24

as far as the entire history of

13:27

the course of the game.

13:27

Relatively new is

13:30

that like player who fights

13:32

or strategy of fighting to

13:34

help try and win the game or influence the outcome

13:36

of the game.

13:37

Becoming an enforcer was Derek's

13:40

only path to making it pro.

13:42

He was so raw and still awkward, not a great

13:44

skater. He was one dimensional,

13:47

didn't score a lot of goals or anything else. So he really

13:49

had one role that he had never really done before, which

13:51

was to stick up for everybody else and fight. And

13:54

they often did. And it took him a while

13:57

to sort of find his footing with the Regina

13:59

Pats and then later. with the Prince George Cougars.

14:02

He got older, he started to kind of fill out

14:04

his body a little bit, he got more confident.

14:06

His dad thinking, well, this is what

14:09

he enjoys doing. Don't know what the other options

14:11

are for his life as he becomes an adult and

14:13

he seems to love it. Let's help him out here,

14:15

let's give him boxing lessons. And so dad

14:17

would take him to a boxing gym in

14:19

Regina to hone his skills. They've

14:22

realized, wow, people seem to want your

14:24

skills if you can hone them correctly and

14:27

give them something that's valuable to these

14:29

scouts or these coaches. And they

14:32

pursued it, because why not?

14:34

In his years in the WHO, Derek

14:36

got bigger and became a fearsome presence

14:39

on the ice.

14:40

He grew up into what he became.

14:42

He became six foot seven and 250 or 60 pounds and

14:46

was probably the biggest guy in the WHO. And

14:49

could at that point skate better because

14:51

he'd kind of grown into his body and can certainly fight

14:53

better

14:54

and was gaining confidence. And

14:56

now Bogart gets the hand loose and Redlich has

14:59

got some problems with Big Der. Bogart

15:01

is going lots of punches and now Redlich

15:04

tries to go to top and then Bogart lands a couple of big uppercuts

15:07

and Redlich lands one, but then Bogart is just

15:09

maneuvering Redlich around. Couple of big 18

15:12

year olds. It became pretty obvious in Prince George

15:14

that he would have a future in hockey

15:17

at least, the professional level, maybe

15:19

not to the NHL, but he could play for a few years

15:21

if he chose to. And he did.

15:23

In 2001, Derek was

15:26

drafted by the Minnesota Wild in

15:28

the seventh round. He was heading

15:30

to the NHL. This

15:34

all came moments after Kunis came out

15:36

of the box on the breakaway.

15:39

Now the fans are calling for Bogart.

15:43

Bogart saying, I can't wait to get on the ice

15:45

to knee somebody else. What

15:48

you're hearing are Minnesota Wild

15:50

fans in 2007 during

15:52

a game against the Anaheim Ducks.

15:55

They're chanting for Derek Bogart

15:57

to be sent out of the ice and bash

15:59

heads. Derek got sent out and

16:02

skated past the opposing team's bench. He

16:04

didn't fight that game, but the crowd, they

16:07

still loved him.

16:08

It took Derek years of work to get

16:10

to that point.

16:12

After he was drafted, Derek spent years

16:14

fighting his way through lower leagues. He

16:16

got the call up to the NHL in 2005,

16:19

and in

16:20

his first year, he had two goals

16:22

and six assists,

16:24

but he led the wild in penalty

16:26

minutes.

16:27

It was in his second year that he

16:30

had his breakout moment, and

16:32

it was against the Anaheim Ducks.

16:35

He gets in a fight with Todd Fedork, and

16:37

he and Todd Fedork were teammates with the Regina

16:39

Pats. Todd, I think, was 20 at the time,

16:42

and Derek came in as a 16-year-old. And

16:44

so he looked up at Todd Fedork back

16:46

then, the fridge, you know? And

16:48

by the time that Derek has seen a gel, Todd

16:51

Fedork is one of the top enforcers

16:53

in the league, but not as big as Derek, just

16:55

tough and scrappy and willing to do anything. And

16:58

so he and Todd Fedork have a fight one night. Here

17:01

he goes after him now, and we'll see if Boogard takes

17:04

him on it. There's

17:05

Boogard, works the left.

17:06

Oh, there it is. Oh, boy.

17:09

He drew an elbow, it looked like, at Boogard, and

17:11

Boogard dropped it. Boogard's done that to

17:13

so many players. Watch the left

17:16

hand of Boogard. He works it, and then he

17:18

finally throws the right. Boom. Oh,

17:21

man. That just flush to

17:23

the jaw. And here are these

17:25

two old Regina Pats going at it, and

17:28

Derek hits Todd in the face

17:31

and shatters

17:33

his cheekbone and his, I think,

17:35

the orbal bone of his eye. I mean,

17:37

just destroys one side

17:39

of Todd's face. Todd just goes down

17:42

in a heap, tells me later that, you

17:44

know, he reaches up to touch his face,

17:46

and there's just nothing there. It's like

17:48

eggshells you can feel inside the skin, right?

17:50

It's threatened to end Todd's career,

17:53

but it made Derek Boogard's. Right

17:56

then, everybody else who maybe

17:58

hadn't seen him on the ice yet or... who

18:00

hadn't had to fight him yet thought, oh

18:02

my God,

18:03

if Todd Fedorak is going down like that and having

18:06

that kind of damage to him at the

18:08

hands of Derek Bogard,

18:09

I don't think I want to mess with that guy.

18:11

Derek soon became a fan favorite, both

18:14

for his pugilism on the ice and

18:16

for his gentle demeanor off of it.

18:18

For all the things that sort

18:21

of seem to get him picked on as a kid, or

18:23

this big goofy quiet oversized

18:26

kid, all those traits are

18:29

endearing to fans. They see

18:31

him as a guy who comes out and scares

18:33

people, sort of scatters the opponents like insects,

18:35

pushes people around. They love that. But

18:37

then they get to know him, they hear him on the radio and they think,

18:40

oh my gosh, he's such a soft spoken guy. And

18:42

I think that just by accident,

18:45

that combination of being a superhero

18:47

on the ice, but being the Clark Kent

18:50

off of it

18:51

made

18:51

Derek as popular as anybody on the wild. For

18:54

a guy who didn't play as many minutes as most people

18:56

on the team, for a time there, he was as popular

18:58

as anybody because

18:59

people love that.

19:01

He's our guy who's going to protect our guys.

19:04

And off the ice, he's like the big brother

19:06

you wish you had. But

19:07

here's the thing about being an enforcer.

19:10

Few, if any, hockey players

19:12

grow up dreaming of fighting for a living.

19:15

I talked to a lot of enforcers for these stories

19:17

in the book about Derek. And I don't

19:20

think I came across anybody who said, I love this job.

19:22

I think it's a fallacy

19:25

to think that these tough guys, as

19:28

they are euphemistically called, enjoy

19:30

the work that they do. What they enjoy is the benefit

19:33

it gives them, which is to have a career in hockey.

19:35

But you will talk to people who

19:38

you might consider the toughest people in the league,

19:41

the guys that you would think must be fearless because

19:43

everybody's scared of them. And they

19:45

talk about how they don't sleep at night, the night before, or

19:48

maybe for a week before they play a certain team, because they know they're

19:50

going to be facing a certain guy and there's going to be an

19:52

expectation to fight. They are in chronic

19:55

pain. They wish

19:57

that they could score goals and... and

20:00

skate the way others do so they don't have to

20:02

go through this. But if they want

20:04

to live this kind of life, this is the price they have to

20:06

pay, and so they put up with it.

20:08

Being a hockey player can be brutal

20:10

on your body.

20:12

Being an enforcer can be far,

20:14

far worse. Derek had

20:17

shoulder problems, he had back problems.

20:20

His hands would be mangled from the

20:22

fights.

20:23

You know, as an enforcer, you just sort of put up

20:25

with it. But most of these teams also have

20:27

team doctors that are willing to give you the

20:29

pills if you need them.

20:31

The prescriptions were plentiful.

20:33

He was given Ambient. And then there was Toradol,

20:36

which can be dangerous for someone if they're experiencing

20:39

a brain bleed. But mostly, he

20:41

was prescribed Opiate after

20:43

Opiate. Vicodin, Percocet,

20:46

Oxycontin, the list goes on.

20:49

And Derek was able to get them in enormous

20:51

quantities. So what Derek realized,

20:55

just by accident, and I know other players in the league

20:57

realized, every team

20:59

has a team doctor, but they also have a team of

21:01

doctors. You have a dentist, you

21:03

have orthopedists that you're going to for your knees or

21:06

your shoulders. There may

21:08

be 10 different people somehow associated with an NHL

21:10

team that are doing medical practice on

21:12

the players. And Derek realized, hey,

21:14

when I go in and talk to somebody about my shoulder, and they

21:16

give me Percocet, and then I go talk

21:18

to the dentist about this tooth that got knocked loose,

21:21

they give me Percocet. And there never seemed

21:24

to be some sort of depository

21:27

of information, at least that nobody was checking. And

21:30

so you could go doctor hunting, even

21:32

within your own team, and get prescriptions.

21:34

And nobody was saying, wait a second, you got prescriptions from

21:36

seven different guys, seven different doctors? Nobody

21:40

was doing that. And Derek realized, once

21:42

he became addicted to these things, wow,

21:45

I can just shop for these among

21:47

our own doctors. And as an enforcer, I'm getting

21:49

hurt all the time. I have chronic pain. My

21:51

back hurts, my shoulder hurts. I've had surgeries now.

21:54

And these doctors aren't telling me no.

21:56

And so Derek senses this and realizes

21:58

this, and pretty soon, he's He's addicted to

22:00

pills and able to get pills as

22:02

many as he wants.

22:04

In one 16 day period, he

22:06

was prescribed 150 Oxycontin and 40 Vicodin

22:09

by team doctors.

22:14

What started out as a way to cope with the pain

22:16

caused by his job

22:18

had spiraled into an addiction

22:21

and Derek began to supplement the copious

22:23

amounts of drugs he was getting from the team

22:26

with even more pills that he scored

22:28

on the street. Soon, Derek

22:30

was constantly high and even

22:32

though he tried to hide the extent of his addiction,

22:35

it started to impact every part of his

22:37

life.

22:38

Hockey players, just like a lot of athletes,

22:41

are guys that will party sometimes.

22:44

Sometimes it gets conflated, right? You just think this

22:46

guy just likes to party too much or whatever. You

22:48

don't realize that he's going to the bathroom and taking

22:50

a bunch of pills. When he's slurring words

22:53

or seems to be a little bit off, you

22:55

think, oh, he's had a couple drinks tonight. We're all out at the

22:57

bars putting down some beers. There is

22:59

a night where Derek is found asleep in his car

23:02

outside of a Home Depot, is brought home.

23:05

Security guard or maybe a police officer basically

23:07

brings him home, as you can imagine, this

23:09

spiraled to the point that the wild recognized

23:12

it and maybe about his

23:14

fourth year or so sent him to rehab.

23:17

Derek was sent to a secret substance

23:19

abuse program jointly run by

23:21

the NHL and the NHL Players

23:23

Association.

23:25

He goes there and doesn't

23:27

spend a whole lot of time there. I believe it's in the hills

23:29

of Malibu and he goes for about three weeks

23:32

and it's basically a detox and comes

23:34

back and he's really not a changed man. Thought,

23:37

I'm not addicted to anything. This is ridiculous. Never

23:39

buys into it. And that was the program. Now

23:42

he's back on the roster.

23:44

The program required him to sign a contract

23:47

that prohibited him from taking drugs, going

23:49

to bars or strip clubs, and to

23:51

agree to a regular regime of

23:54

drug testing.

23:55

And if he failed to abide by it,

23:57

there were supposed to be consequences.

24:00

But Derek continued to live exactly

24:02

as he had before,

24:04

and he simply avoided drug tests

24:06

or befriended the testers.

24:08

There were no consequences. And so he quickly

24:11

sort of slips back into his old patterns. And

24:15

not surprisingly, those old patterns,

24:17

you know, end up rear in their head again pretty

24:19

quickly there in Minnesota.

24:21

It was right around then that Derek's

24:24

contract with the Minnesota wild was

24:26

coming to an end. And he received

24:28

two offers,

24:29

one from the Edmonton Oilers

24:31

and another from the New York Rangers.

24:33

His family begged

24:35

him to choose Edmonton. He would be

24:38

closer to home, closer to the people

24:40

he knew. Instead, he

24:42

went to New York.

24:44

And Derek just can't resist the impulse of,

24:47

you know, an original 16 Madison

24:49

Square Garden. I think all those people

24:51

who, when he was a kid,

24:54

picked on him and never believed in him and

24:56

all those scouts that overlooked him when all

24:59

he was trying to do was fit in. I think he wanted

25:01

to inside say, look at me now,

25:04

I'm playing in Madison Square Garden for the

25:06

New York Rangers. What's bigger than that?

25:09

And during all of this time,

25:11

Derek was breaking the rules he had

25:13

agreed to when he left the rehab

25:15

program over and over

25:17

again with no consequences.

25:20

But what was even more shocking was that

25:22

he was still able to get pills from

25:25

team doctors both in Minnesota

25:27

and in New York. I mean,

25:29

this is where the entire system breaks down. And

25:32

it's just an utter lack of communication and

25:34

an utter lack of prioritizing

25:36

the athlete. You know, Derek is

25:38

still living in the off season in Minnesota. So he's still friends

25:41

with the wild doctors. So he can call a couple

25:43

of them at least and say, hey, you know, I'm here

25:45

in town. Can you get me this? And

25:48

yes, we can. But then he goes in September

25:50

or whenever for training

25:52

camp to New York. And of course, they have their own doctors.

25:55

They have their own 10 or 12 doctors. And hey,

25:57

this guy's overweight. He's had some chronic

25:59

injuries. shoulder problems, hand problems,

26:01

hip problems. And so they

26:04

start trying to take care of them. Again, their motivation

26:06

is to get him on the ice. The general managers

26:08

and everybody else involved wants this kid on the

26:10

ice. And so their job is to figure out how to get

26:12

him on the ice. The lack of communication between

26:15

doctors is astounding.

26:17

Derek's life began to fall

26:19

apart.

26:24

He

26:24

was sleeping during the day. He was not waking

26:26

up very much. He just became this weird

26:29

zombie kind of character that nobody

26:31

could quite pinpoint exactly what was going on, but they certainly

26:33

knew the drugs were a big part of it. In December

26:35

of that first season, he's in New York, and

26:38

he had arrived over a wait.

26:41

The Rangers weren't loving him. He was not moving very well

26:43

on the ice. Even fighting, he just

26:45

didn't seem to have the same gumption that he had had before,

26:47

just didn't seem to be as into it. And so the Rangers

26:50

were a little taken aback. This is not the guy we

26:52

thought we got.

26:53

And in December, he just gets

26:55

waxed by Matt Cartner of

26:58

the Ottawa Senators. Oh,

27:00

oh, Bull Guard and Cartner, two big

27:02

men have dropped the gloves. It surprised everybody

27:05

because people were like, Derek didn't even really

27:07

have his hands up. It just wasn't the same

27:09

kid. What was he doing out there? And

27:12

Derek drops. And

27:16

was diagnosed with a concussion.

27:19

By then, Derek had been an enforcer

27:22

for well over a decade. He

27:24

had taken repeated blows to the head, but

27:27

this was only the second time he

27:29

had been officially diagnosed with

27:31

a concussion.

27:32

He sat out for a few weeks, and

27:35

those were dark, dark weeks as

27:37

he was away from the team. He no

27:39

longer had the structure of at least a schedule

27:41

to keep of doctors and trainers to

27:43

see to sort of keep him on some sort of

27:46

path. He was now alone in New

27:48

York in his high rise apartment,

27:51

blinds closed, all quiet,

27:54

trying to keep the concussion symptoms

27:57

down. Midtown Manhattan is not the greatest place

27:59

to live when you're trying to to keep things quiet and

28:01

dark.

28:02

Derek was acting increasingly erratically.

28:05

He was calling his friends multiple times

28:07

a day,

28:08

crying on the phone and talking

28:10

about how much his head hurt. He

28:12

sent over $10,000 worth of text messages in

28:16

a single month. He started

28:19

signing off messages with, I

28:21

love you.

28:22

He finally asked his father, Len, to

28:25

come and stay with him. And when

28:27

Len arrived, he could barely

28:29

recognize his son.

28:32

Derek has shut himself into this 57th Street,

28:36

high-rise apartment, so unlike him, to

28:38

be living in a place like this. He doesn't

28:40

really have a lot of friends. He's now broken up with a girlfriend.

28:43

He's very alone, has no real good friends on the Rangers,

28:45

because he had just gotten there. So he's just by

28:47

himself. So Len comes and finds his broken

28:50

son, basically, and says, look, you

28:52

know, pick yourself up. Look at all the things you overcome.

28:55

Nobody expected you to be here. I

28:57

didn't expect you to be here. I mean, you're

28:59

living the dream. You just need to keep yourself

29:01

together here, and really just tries to give

29:03

them the, you know, you got this kind

29:06

of speech, but also realizes that

29:08

Derek has been living a life that nobody

29:10

quite recognized.

29:12

Derek was eventually taken to a neurologist

29:15

to help him with his concussion recovery.

29:17

And the neurologist asked him, hey, concussions

29:20

are a little bit tricky to diagnose, but how

29:22

many times would you say you've been hit in the

29:24

head, either by a fist, or when you fell on the ice, or

29:26

something happened where your mind just

29:29

went black for a minute, sort of the cartoonist

29:31

like, boop, you sort of see stars, or you're just black,

29:34

just for a second. You know, would you say a few times, 10

29:36

times? And Derek's like,

29:38

oh my God, are you kidding me? Hundreds of

29:40

times. Derek, among

29:42

all other enforcers, among countless

29:45

athletes, still today, I'm sure, are

29:47

very loath to admit that there's something

29:49

wrong with my head. That was really the

29:51

first outward admission when he sees that neurologist

29:54

that,

29:54

oh, I've had hundreds of those incidences

29:57

that are probably now looking back, a lot of them were

29:59

concussions. By early 2011, the

30:02

middle of the season, Derek still

30:04

wasn't back on the ice. And

30:06

the New York Rangers finally realized

30:09

just how addicted he was to

30:11

drugs. They sent him back

30:13

to the rehab program, but

30:15

he would never play another game

30:18

of hockey again. At

30:20

the rehab, Derek's behavior barely

30:22

changed. He was allowed to leave frequently

30:25

and got his hands on pills. And

30:27

he was given leave to go see his sister's

30:29

graduation in Kansas. Afterwards,

30:33

he dropped by his apartment in Minneapolis

30:35

with his younger brother, Aaron.

30:41

They go out to dinner that night and

30:43

go and have a few drinks and see

30:46

some people. And they go back to Derek's

30:48

apartment and a few people are over there and

30:50

Derek's making pancakes and it's after

30:52

midnight, you know, bars of clothes. It's, you know, two

30:55

in the morning. And Derek goes

30:58

into the bedroom and then he starts kind of whining

31:00

that his head doesn't feel

31:03

right and the room is spinning. And

31:05

so Aaron goes back there to hang

31:07

out with him. And finally,

31:10

Derek falls asleep about three in the

31:12

morning or later. And Aaron says, good. He's

31:14

finally just passed out. And

31:17

Aaron leaves, everybody else leaves. And

31:20

Aaron and Ryan, Derek's two

31:22

brothers, then the next day,

31:24

obviously not that worried about him. Nothing

31:27

occurred to them that they should have to check on him. But

31:29

the next day, you know, they go and get sandwiches and

31:31

they come early afternoon to go

31:34

hang out with Derek some more. And

31:36

Derek is dead on his bed right where

31:38

they left him.

31:47

Some shocking and sad news

31:49

out of Minnesota tonight. NHL tough guy

31:51

Derek Bughard was found dead early

31:53

this morning in his Minneapolis apartment.

31:56

Now, little details are known at this time, but

31:58

Bughard, who was just 28.

31:59

was found by members of

32:02

his family. The official cause

32:04

of death was an accidental overdose

32:06

of painkillers and alcohol.

32:08

Derek was 28 years old, about a

32:11

month away from turning 29.

32:13

In the prime of his career, age-wise, theoretically,

32:15

he should have had many more years in the NHL.

32:18

Everything was looking up for him, at least

32:20

publicly. And so it was a shock, because

32:23

people didn't know what happened

32:25

to him.

32:26

The day after Derek died, his mother,

32:28

Joanne Bogard, got a call.

32:31

It was from something called the CTE

32:34

Center at Boston University.

32:36

The person at the other end of the line wanted

32:39

to study Derek's brain. Now

32:42

CTE is short for chronic

32:44

traumatic encephalopathy. It's

32:47

a type of degenerative brain disorder,

32:49

and it can result in a constellation

32:52

of symptoms that get progressively worse.

32:55

Headaches, dizziness,

32:57

aggression and a lack of inhibition, impaired

33:00

judgment, risky behavior, a

33:02

predilection to substance abuse,

33:04

and eventually,

33:06

depression, suicidal ideation,

33:08

and

33:09

dementia.

33:11

CTE has been linked to

33:13

repeated blows to the head,

33:15

and the only way to diagnose it is

33:18

by conducting an autopsy after

33:20

someone is already dead.

33:22

Joanne Bogard wanted to find

33:25

out what happened to her son.

33:26

She let them have his brain.

33:29

I think the family wanted answers.

33:32

You know, I think the family, and certainly Len,

33:34

wanted two things. One, to know

33:36

he could do anything he could

33:39

for Derek. It was too late to save his life,

33:41

but what can I do now for Derek?

33:44

And

33:45

part of that was find all the answers I can

33:47

about what happened to him. And if that can save

33:50

other lives, or if that can raise awareness, then

33:52

great.

33:53

His family awaited the results while

33:55

they mourned.

33:56

Toward the end of that year, they got a call from...

33:59

the doctors, the scientists at Boston University

34:02

to say he had stage two

34:04

CTE. And it was as bad as they

34:06

had seen anybody at the age of 28,

34:08

but it reveals itself in things like memory loss

34:11

and impulse control, things that we might

34:13

consider more with dementia or Alzheimer's

34:15

and they're kind of cousins of CTE.

34:18

Derek was showing those symptoms

34:20

at the age of 28. And sure enough, he had a

34:23

level of CTE that they had seen mostly

34:25

in people much, much older than him.

34:28

Players of football players have been posthumously

34:30

diagnosed with CTE after

34:33

their deaths, but

34:34

only a handful of hockey players'

34:36

brains have ever been studied.

34:38

Though

34:38

the list of players who have been diagnosed

34:41

is growing.

34:43

Bob Probert was the first, with

34:45

their Stan Makita, Jeff Parker,

34:47

Todd Ewan, Larry Ziedel,

34:50

Steve Montador, Reggie Fleming,

34:52

Rick Martin.

34:53

And just last month, Henri Richard,

34:56

Maurice's brother and a star in

34:58

his own right, was diagnosed with a

35:00

disease after he died at

35:02

age 84.

35:04

The months after Derek's death were in

35:06

some ways the first time that the NHL

35:09

had to really publicly reckon with CTE

35:12

because Derek wasn't the only

35:14

enforcer to lose his life that

35:17

year. You have Derek Bogart dying in May

35:19

and then later in the summer you have Wade Bielak, another

35:21

longtime NHL player, and Rick

35:23

Ripien both die. She had three

35:25

enforcer-type players

35:28

die during one offseason basically,

35:31

one summer. And so there was a call.

35:33

If Derek wasn't the wake-up

35:36

call, certainly the snooze button went

35:38

off again with Wade Bielak and

35:40

with Rick Ripien. I think it really

35:42

awakened everybody to the plight

35:45

of the enforcer, but also to hockey

35:48

players more generally about

35:50

what is it that we're putting them through and who's

35:53

responsible for their care. If these guys

35:55

who are looked up within their own

35:57

clubhouses as being the toughest.

35:59

guys, the guys that we

36:02

want to be more like that because they just

36:04

have this invincibility about them.

36:06

If they are the ones that are dying,

36:08

what does that say about all the rest of us

36:10

and the structure in which we live?

36:12

Rick Ripien and Wade Bielak both

36:14

committed suicide.

36:16

Their stories were remarkably similar to

36:18

Derek's and Bielak's family

36:21

allowed an autopsy of his brain. He

36:23

too had CTE.

36:26

So how did the NHL react to all

36:28

of this?

36:29

It was a horrible summer for the NHL

36:31

and of course viewed through

36:34

their lens, it was a PR nightmare.

36:36

Their response was, what can we do to get

36:38

this to blow over? How can we bat

36:40

in the hatches until it goes away?

36:42

And that's what the NHL did. I think in this day

36:44

and age, leagues are concerned with

36:46

things like lawsuits. And so they

36:49

protected themselves by not saying much of anything, by

36:51

not admitting to anything, by

36:54

telling people to be quiet, by not

36:56

opening up books in terms of our

36:58

care, our substance abuse programs.

37:01

And then the games begin.

37:03

And as we see with hockey and other sports,

37:05

the games begin and we kind of forget about all

37:07

this. The families were left to their own devices

37:10

as if this was just an accident, an unavoidable

37:12

accident that

37:13

had nothing to do with the parameters of

37:16

the NHL or the teams or even

37:19

our own society. I think it speaks

37:21

poorly of all of us.

37:24

In 2013, a group of 100 former

37:26

players sued the NHL, alleging

37:29

that the league was negligent and had hid

37:31

the long term risks from players.

37:33

The NHL fought them in court every

37:35

step of the way. Eventually, the

37:38

players settled for a paltry $19 million.

37:41

Former NFL players had

37:43

been able to reach an almost billion dollar

37:46

settlement just a few years earlier.

37:48

According to Jeremy Allingham, the

37:51

worst part of all of this is the

37:53

lengths that the NHL is going

37:56

to obscure the links between fighting

37:58

and hockey and CT.

37:59

They're denialists.

38:02

They are CTE denialists. They

38:05

are perpetuating a practice

38:08

that hurts their players, but that they

38:10

know a certain segment of their fans' love. They

38:13

leave fighting in for money. At

38:16

the forefront of that denialism has

38:18

been NHL commissioner Gary Bettman,

38:21

hockey's pontific's maximus. Year

38:24

after year, Gary Bettman has denied

38:26

that any link has been determined between

38:28

head trauma and CTE.

38:30

Here he is being questioned by Liberal MP

38:33

Darren Fisher during a parliamentary

38:35

hearing in 2019. So

38:37

it appears that the evidence now is

38:39

overwhelming, showing a link between concussions

38:42

and hockey and other sports. What

38:44

is your belief now and

38:46

what is the league's position these days on

38:49

whether it's a link between CTE

38:52

and concussions? I'm not

38:54

sure that the premise that the

38:56

link is clear now is one

38:58

that the scientific and medical

39:00

community has embraced. And so

39:03

while we understand that

39:05

this is an issue that needs

39:07

to be constantly followed and focused

39:10

on, there has not been conclusive

39:13

determinations.

39:14

And here he is speaking to NPR

39:16

earlier this year. And does the league acknowledge

39:18

that CTE can result from

39:21

head trauma? We listen to

39:23

the medical opinions on CTE,

39:26

and I don't believe there

39:28

has been any documented study

39:31

that suggests that elements of our

39:33

games result in CTE. There have

39:35

been isolated cases of players

39:37

who have played the game have had CTE,

39:41

but it doesn't mean that it necessarily

39:43

came from playing in the NHL.

39:45

Here's the problem with what he's saying.

39:48

There's plenty of scientific evidence

39:50

out there. Just last month, a Columbia

39:53

University study showed that hockey enforcers

39:56

on average died 10 years earlier

39:58

than their peers.

39:59

comes to CTE specifically,

40:02

the problem is that we can't

40:04

diagnose it until someone is dead.

40:07

Now, we're going to get into the weeds a little here,

40:10

but this is all very important to

40:12

understand. What the NHL

40:14

is demanding is a level of

40:17

scientific certainty that we

40:19

wouldn't be able to reach for decades

40:21

and decades.

40:23

The only papers they will accept

40:26

is a longitudinal

40:28

lifetime study of people.

40:31

So basically what that is, is you need

40:33

to start with kids who are six years old

40:35

now

40:37

and then run two groups and

40:39

go, oh, the control group didn't

40:41

have any exposure to contact sport

40:44

and the others did. And then when they're 60

40:47

or 70 or 80, or frankly, when they die,

40:49

because we still can't diagnose CTE in living people,

40:52

then you go, okay, well, now

40:55

we see that

40:56

this group that had contact sport

40:58

exposure has CTE and now we

41:00

can say, okay, repetitive brain trauma

41:02

leads to CTE. But

41:05

if you talk to reasonable scientists

41:07

about that, they say it's ridiculous because

41:10

there are hundreds of studies

41:13

that link repetitive head trauma

41:15

to the symptoms of CTE.

41:17

Instead, the NHL hides behind

41:19

something colloquially known as the Berlin

41:22

consensus. The Bible

41:25

of concussion medicine is called the consensus

41:27

statement on concussion and sport.

41:29

Basically, the way it works is 36 experts,

41:32

brain experts, scientists, doctors,

41:35

neurological experts get together and

41:38

they talk about how concussion

41:40

should be treated, what causes them, the underlying

41:42

issues, et cetera, et cetera. The

41:44

latest version of that consensus statement still

41:46

says there's no link between

41:49

repeated blows to the head and

41:51

CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy. And

41:54

the more I learned about that process,

41:57

the more everyone should be waving their hands in

41:59

the air going, whoa, that's not right.

41:59

whoa, whoa, whoa, what's going on here? This isn't how

42:02

this should work.

42:03

So when they wrote the thing the last time in 2016 and

42:06

it came out in 2017, it's due to have an

42:08

update next year, or this year actually.

42:10

32 of the 36 authors had direct links to contact

42:13

sports. And

42:18

these are tenuous links. These are massive

42:21

research grants. These are chancellors

42:23

of NCAA universities. These

42:25

are team doctors in the NFL.

42:28

This is the head of medicine for the IIHF,

42:31

the International Ice Hockey Federation. These

42:34

people

42:35

make their living off

42:37

contact sports and then they turn

42:40

around and go in a room and write the foremost

42:42

quote unquote research paper

42:45

on concussion and sports. And so

42:47

in the end, what we get is a watered down statement

42:49

that the NHL, that the NFL, that

42:52

the junior hockey leagues can point to and say,

42:54

hey, we're just falling in the science.

42:57

The NHL strategy has precedence.

43:00

For decades, the asbestos industry

43:02

acted similarly to deny that there

43:04

was scientific proof that their product

43:06

caused cancer.

43:08

And of course,

43:09

there's big tobacco.

43:11

You talked to Dr. Robert Cantu

43:13

from Boston University, who's one of the foremost researchers

43:16

on concussion and sport. And he'll say,

43:19

this was the exact playbook by

43:21

the tobacco industry. Well, we don't know because

43:23

we haven't done a longitudinal study that lasted 70

43:25

years of 20 people's lives or 100 people's

43:27

lives. But

43:31

as Cantu puts it, he says, not

43:33

everyone who smokes gets lung cancer,

43:35

but that doesn't stop us from understanding

43:38

that the more you smoke, the more of

43:40

a chance you have of getting lung cancer.

43:43

Same holds true for repetitive

43:45

shots to the head and concussions and

43:48

chronic traumatic encephalopathy. For

43:50

Jeremy, there's no reason that

43:52

fighting needs to stay in hockey. I

43:55

think the NHL's response to

43:57

fighting in hockey has been pathetic. The

43:59

leadership. is non-existent, the

44:01

only thing that will remove fighting

44:05

from the game of hockey is a

44:07

courageous administrator of

44:09

the game to say, you know, we don't need

44:11

this anymore.

44:12

To be confident in our game and

44:15

to say this game is fast

44:18

and spectacular and beautiful and entertaining,

44:20

we don't need that shit.

44:22

What we need to see is more goals, more skill,

44:25

more talent, more speed, and not

44:27

two dudes bashing each other's face in. So

44:29

far, you just don't see it. Every time they have

44:32

a chance to speak up or to make

44:34

a move in the right direction, they squander that

44:36

opportunity. So I would say the

44:38

NHL has failed massively.

44:41

But even if fighting is banned tomorrow,

44:43

so many former players will

44:45

be living with the consequences.

44:48

And some, like Derek Bogard,

44:50

don't even get to have that chance.

44:57

Derek's father, Len Bogard,

45:00

has been publicly outspoken over the

45:02

years about how the system failed his

45:04

son. And he's been trying to

45:06

convince the powers that be

45:08

that fighting has no place in

45:10

hockey.

45:12

And his mother, Joanne Bogard,

45:14

does what she can to make sure

45:16

her son isn't forgotten. Every

45:20

year on Mother's Day, the anniversary

45:22

of Derek's death, she writes a

45:24

remembrance in the Regina Leader post.

45:28

Here's some of what it said this year. 12 years

45:32

have passed. I like to dream

45:34

of what could have been. You would

45:37

be 41 this year. Where would you be?

45:39

Would you have children to snuggle and love?

45:43

I'm sure you'd be helping teach your

45:45

nephews and nieces how to ride bikes,

45:48

skate, swim,

45:50

and dance. It is something we can all only dream

45:52

of, and I do. Truly

45:55

miss the sound of your voice and those big

45:57

teddy bear hugs with those long, long arms.

46:00

CTE slash concussion

46:02

fight continues, and I know because

46:04

of you and now many other NHL players,

46:07

the awareness continues.

46:10

In my mind and heart, you will be 28

46:12

forever. Love

46:14

you forever and ever, son. Mom

46:17

and our ever-growing family."

46:20

John remembers speaking to Derek's father,

46:23

Len, after they discovered Derek

46:25

at CTE. And he says

46:28

that Len just couldn't shake the thought.

46:31

What would his son's life have been like

46:33

had he not passed away? Would

46:35

Derek have even been able to recognize

46:37

his own family 10 or 15 years later?

46:42

Len, I think, is haunted by that,

46:45

that notion that not only did we lose our

46:47

son, and the guilt of that, and the horror

46:50

of that, and the sadness

46:52

of that, but the realization hit Len

46:54

that how did we save our son?

46:57

What kind of life would he have lived?

46:59

If these symptoms were like this at the age of 28,

47:02

what would he be doing to me when he was 35 or 40

47:05

or 45?

47:07

That is the double tragedy of CTE,

47:11

is that it can kill people early because

47:13

of some of these symptoms and change

47:15

their lives. And if it doesn't kill you early,

47:18

it beats away at you

47:20

as you age. That realization,

47:22

I think, really hit Len hard,

47:25

that the best case scenario here was

47:27

that Derek lives. And

47:29

what kind of life would he have lived?

48:06

That's your episode of Commons. If

48:08

you like this episode, please leave us

48:10

a rating and review in Apple Podcasts.

48:13

This episode relied on work done by John

48:15

Branch in the New York Times, Jeremy

48:18

Allingham in CBC News, Roy

48:20

McGregor in the Globe and Mail, A. Martinez

48:22

in NPR's Morning Edition, Derek

48:25

Silva and many, many others.

48:28

This was our final episode in our season

48:30

on hockey. We hope you enjoyed it. On

48:32

a personal note, this is also the

48:34

100th episode of Commons that

48:36

I've hosted. And I just want to thank you

48:38

all so much for listening and for

48:41

all the support that you've given over

48:43

the last five years. If you want to get

48:45

in touch with us, you can tweet us at

48:47

commonspod. You can also email

48:50

me, arsheyatcanadaland.com. This

48:52

episode was produced by me, Jordan

48:55

Cornish in Noor Azria. Our

48:57

managing editor is Annette Edgifor and

48:59

our music is by Nathan Burley. You

49:02

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