All language subtitles for The Last Gladiators (2011) (The Last Gladiators 2012) (ENGLISH)

I have my mother's hands.

I actually might
have small hands.

Sometimes I wish I maybe
could have been a doctor.

You

want to hit with the yeast as much as
you can, but when you're standing on a

quarter-inch of steel blade and you're
getting tugged on and pulled on and you're

trying to keep from getting
punched, you don't always

hit with those knuckles
and do the best you can.

I had teeth in my hand here
and shattered my knuckle.

I broke this knuckle.

It's not there anymore.

This is where I got
my finger almost bit off.

This one right here.

I had surgery on that and I had surgery on
this one where I got bit in the same fight.

I feel it days, you know.

But it's part of paying
the price, you know.

I can still use them.

You know, probably $18,900 for 99 people
in the stands out of the 19,000 at one

time or another,
wherever they work,

probably want to punch
someone in the mouth.

Whether it's their boss, someone they work
with, somebody in competition with them.

They never get to do it.

But they like to see
someone else do it.

MUSIC MUSIC

MUSIC Chris Nyland is as
tough as any SOB in the NHL.

And everyone knew how important he
was for the Montreal Canadiens of that era.

I mean, he was their spine.

He was their backbone.

Domenico's got the size advantage,
but I don't know whether he's got the size

advantage, When he was playing
with the Montreal Canadiens,

he gave everything he had
to the city and to the team.

And there's not a heck of a lot more
that you can say about any human being.

The perception people had of him
was that he did have a screw loose.

And I think that that
enhanced his toughness

because a lot of people
were afraid of him.

My oldest daughter
Colleen was at a pool party.

One of her girlfriend's
ex-boyfriends followed her in his car.

And he jumped out of the car and he took
her and threw her into the garage door.

And then my daughter
Colleen got involved and he

hit Colleen in the chest
and knocked her down.

And I went and found him.

And I just kicked his
ass all over the store.

I punched him, I hit him with
bottles of coke, I kicked him.

I beat him.

Yeah, I beat him.

I went to court.

I was charged with assault and battery,
dangerous weapon, all those things.

The prosecutor was
all over me, you know.

I don't know if he
had a daughter.

And if he did, if that happened to
her, he might have called the cops.

But good for him.

You know, good for him.

He was one of the toughest players
in the league during the 1980s.

Amassing over
3,000 penalty minutes.

Please welcome
Chris Knuckles Norton!

For Chris, I think his
love of the game, he

loved it more, so much
more than the rest of us.

And when it came time to end,
it was that much tougher for him.

I got in a fight with three
big fucking black guys.

They fucking beat me, kicked me.

I broke two fucking ribs.

I tore my rotator cuff.

I fucking slit open
my black eye.

Actually felt good, but I couldn't
breathe for fucking months.

When he retired, it affected
him as a form of rejection.

And that just snowballed into bad
decision, beginning bad decision,

beginning bad decision.

Fuck.

You're making it fucking
more difficult for us.

Fuck.

Fucking asshole goalie.

Long time shitty goaltender.

You're pissed through every
nickel or dime you ever made.

The money's gone.

The life is gone.

And I saw somebody
this past winter.

And he asked, how's Chris?

And I told him, I said, not good,
and it's not gonna end good.

My dad was a Green Beret.

He was Special Forces.

And I seen him jump out
of planes when I was young.

I used to go and watch him.

My dad was an aggressive guy.

He was an aggressive guy.

And it rubbed off on me.

I looked up to that.

He had a friend, Bubsy.

I think they were
probably 12 years old.

And there was about a
15-year-old kid from down the street

coming, beating on Bubsy right
down by the schoolyard there.

And Chris ran down and jumped the kid
from behind and started fighting with him.

He always took
up for friends of his.

He hung around a
bunch of rugged guys.

But, you know, he was a
little bit tougher and crazier.

He seemed to like to
go after big muscleheads.

And then other times, you know,
through his loyalty to his friends,

I think, when he was in
beefs, you know, went pretty

far and could get in a
good amount of trouble.

Even if they were just hanging on a
corner, you know, somebody ended up saying

something to somebody
and a fight broke out.

And it just got to the point and
it's like, oh, what did he do now?

I really frustrated my dad
in a lot of ways because

he couldn't understand
some of the things I did.

If I did something wrong, if there was
a call from the school because I got in

trouble, whether it was the police calling
or something happened again with Chris and

I was coming through
the door, I was ducking.

I always asked him to be
truthful about what happened.

And he always was truthful.

And I wasn't
always happy with it.

And oftentimes, we'd have a little
confrontation amongst ourselves.

He slapped me and he punched me.

There were times he
scared the shit out of me.

Would he scare me out of
repeating the same behavior?

I think that was his goal.

But if, you know, you look at
my track record, it didn't work.

It's crazy.

As crazy as I was as a
kid, one of the things I truly

believed that helped me was my
passion for the game of hockey.

We have a hockey rink
down the street here.

And, of course, they
lock it up at night.

He'd climb over the fence and get
himself in there and skate around, playing,

shooting.

That's all they
ever wanted to do.

It was his whole life.

Once he started playing,
it was his whole life.

Hockey was definitely the
anchor in my own mind, my soul.

And if I didn't have that,
you know, who knows?

I used to listen to
my transistor radio at

night and listen to the
Boston Bruins up in bed.

Bobby Orr and
the Big Bad Bruins.

You see the way they
play, you see the plays

they make, you see the
fights that they were in.

There's definitely something
inside of me that clicks

at an early age that
that's what I wanted to do.

My dream was to play in
the National Hockey League

and my dream was to
one day play for the Bruins.

If you trace the roots of hockey, it
was a game that really grew up in a

frontier atmosphere where
there wasn't much policing.

So, if you got a referee, and he misses
a call, and somebody gets whacked in the

head, you're not going to dial
911 and wait for a cop to arrive.

You're going to
whack the guy back.

And when one whack
leads to another whack, then

the sticks drop and
then the fight happens.

Back in the 40s and 50s, if you
get in a fight, you were by yourself.

If you get cleaned up, somebody would
tell you, hey, next time don't be so cocky.

Find somebody you can beat.

They're now getting involved in
there and they're all coming out.

Bruins, in their heyday, the late 60s,
early 70s, really transformed hockey.

Anybody ever put a
glove on Bobby Orr?

Wow!

I think a lot of players in the league
looked at the Boston Garden as a...

what do they call that Mel
Gibson movie with the dome and...

Thunderdome.

It was an enclosed cage.

Two go in and one comes out.

You could call it
the Boston Garden.

As things would go on, of course you saw
the Broad Street Bullies, the Philadelphia

Flyers, who won a pair of Cups in the
early 70s by using fighting as a tactic.

Teams would get what they called the
Philly Flu, where guys would come down

with mystery ailments the night
before they had to play the Flyers.

Coach, I don't
feel good, I'm sick.

Yeah, because you don't want to lose
any teeth tomorrow when you've got to go

against the Schultz and Moose
DuPont and all those other thugs.

They would carry a
tough guy in every line and

they would beat the crap
out of you in every scrum.

We're gonna have a
Donnybrook right down below us.

The Broad Street Bullies
created an arms race.

Two years through the league, two
championships, and everyone said,

oh, this is how it's done?

Everybody started finding
the toughest dudes they could

find, from Medicine Hat to
Moncton to Moose Jaw, you name it.

If you were tough and you could face
one of those guys, you became a necessity.

The enforcers became necessary.

Work from you guys.

Put your heads
on the ice out there.

Guys, we all know
how to play hockey.

Just play it smart.

That's right.

If you don't do it, stick
a fucking Christ pop on!

Come on!

Come on!

Let's go now.

Slapshot, it's the Casablanca
of hockey fight cinema.

It's sort of just
become ingrained.

This is what hockey's about.

A hockey fan needs fighting.

It's an adrenaline rush.

We were kind of the
dead-end kids in the sense

that Northeastern could
never get the best players.

So we kind of got the kids out with just
the hard work and lunch bill type of game.

We had a scrimmage against the Boston
Bruins, and one of the players on the

Bruins, Mike Milbury, went after a
kid on our team who was probably 5'7",

tossed him around,
and next thing you know,

Nyland's fighting Mike
Milbury and Terry O'Reilly.

For a college kid to go after...

You know, back then, they
were the big, bad Bruins,

real tough guys, and
hence the name Knuckles.

He always talked about
playing in the National Hockey

League, which we never
thought would ever happen.

I told my dad I thought I was
gonna get drafted, you know.

And he said the only way I'd probably
get drafted is if there was another war.

I had a phone call here
from the Boston Globe.

Congratulations, your son's been
drafted by the Montreal Canadiens.

I thought it was a
prank phone call.

And I said, oh, that's
nice, and I hung up.

But then we got more
phone calls, and it was true.

Not in the first round, not
in the second round, not in

the third round, not in the
fourth round, 17th round.

There were 235 players
taken in the draft that year.

It was 231.

A lot of people say at the end there,
they got a bunch of names up on the board

and they throw a dot, and whichever
name the dot hits, they draft you.

My first game, I fought a guy
named Bam Bam Belanger.

There was some pushing and shoving on
the ice, and I came in and pushed Belanger.

I punched him
kind of in the chest.

The referee's
going to broke it up.

I came back to the bench, and
there was a kid, Dave Allison.

He was out of the
Ontario League.

And he looked down the bench at
me and says, hey, fucking college kid,

you know, you ever
been in a brawl before?

They look at you
like a college kid.

He's a pussy, you know?

And then the next shift, I went out
and fought Belanger, and I fed him lunch.

And I come back to the bench.

Now Allison's not sure.

He said, well, Jesus, this college
kid, where did he learn to fight?

We're on this first road
trip, and the fans are crazy.

They're in these small towns, and this guy
is running around and fighting guys he's

never heard of, the
guys that are pretty tough.

Three weeks into the season, the
whole league was talking about this guy.

Timmy Burke, my teammate down there,
he said that no one knew this college kid

could fight, and he came, and he
systematically went through the league and

fought every tough guy
until they were nothing.

There was no more takers.

What a line, you know?

What a line.

And I think Montreal and
me doing that realized that

maybe we should see if
you can do it at this level.

The NHL is a game.

It's beautiful.

It's elegant.

But it can be nasty.

And if you don't have
people that held other guys

accountable, they're going to
take liberties because they can.

When your players are out there,
your skilled players, they're trying to

get somewhere, and a guy's giving them
an elbow or getting them in the corner,

and they call it a face wash when they
get their glove and rub it on their face.

A lot of these guys aren't the
roughest, toughest guys in the world.

They're artists.

They're not plumbers
and construction workers.

They're artists and dancers.

So you have somebody to go out
there and say, hey, leave my buddy alone.

It's the only game in which
you can't run out of bounds.

And so there's a constant
presence of people who

would knock these
finesse players off their pins.

You need guys to create
room for those players.

Nice move!

Another nice move!

If there wasn't Amadi Mkhzoli, there
wouldn't have been a Wayne Gretzky.

Mkhzoli allowed
Gretzky to beat Gretzky.

That's what a tough guy does.

There was one night Doug Evans was
playing for Winnipeg and he speared Gretz.

And it was probably
the third or fourth time

he tried to take liberties
with Wayne Gretzky.

And what I did is I hung down
in their end and I cross-checked

him very, very hard, right
across the chest, down on the ice.

And when he was on the ice, I
leaned down and I really hit him hard.

Almost to the point where it's like a
computer screen when the light goes out.

Now, I got four games for it.

But that can't
happen on my watch.

Not everybody
can be a tough guy.

It takes a certain character.

And it's all about character.

You've got to be willing to
do everything and anything

that you can do that
other people wouldn't do.

That's what it takes.

The

Montreal Canadiens
are going for the win.

Most fans agree this is the finest
hockey team ever assembled.

Montreal Canadiens, the most storied
franchise in the history of hockey and one

of the most storied franchises
in the history of sports.

The Hall of Famers.

24 Stanley Cups.

It's just like I couldn't
believe I was there.

I mean, holy shit.

Here I am.

We're in Philly.

I'm sitting on the bench.

Game gets going and Philly
starts running around playing rough.

They want to rough us up.

And Claude Rowe was the coach.

Claude's short and
a stocky little fat guy.

He's lost his eye
playing junior hockey.

And Claude came up behind me on
the bench and he said, Yankee boy.

He said, don't be
afraid of these men.

They're just men like us.

And I'm like, okay.

I look at him.

He's like five foot four.

200 pounds.

You know, one eye.

I look out on the ice and
there's Philadelphia Flyers.

All these huge guys.

Bob Daley's like 6'6".

And you know, Kelly.

You know, all these tough guys.

I'm like, just men like us.

All right, you know.

And I end up getting on the ice
the next shift and I fought Bob Kelly.

You know, I give it to
him and I got him down.

And I said, geez, now
I know I can do this.

I can do this.

We got one going here.

He wasn't afraid of anybody
in the National Hockey.

Didn't matter what tough
guy that you mentioned to him.

He'd be ready to take
him on at any time.

You got to give Nyland credit
for even tackling that big boy.

Six foot four.

It's like, you know, you have a
paper route and they kick him up.

And wants to give me
your money, you know.

And you sucker him.

And you run.

Or you sucker him
and you get beat up.

But you hang on to your money.

I ain't taking my
paper route money.

He was the toughest guy
in the league, you know.

And he knew how to fight.

Now Nyland's coming down.

A couple stitches, but you know.

I'm not going down.

You know, I ain't going down.

Heh heh.

Chris had a reputation of,
what is he going to do next?

Is he going to be in the
shower waiting for me?

Is he going to be out in the
parking lot waiting for me?

Like, don't cross this guy.

We've got a fight.

Baxter and Chris Nyland.

One time he was
fighting Paul Baxter.

And they were yapping back
and forth in the penalty box.

And back in those days, they used to keep
the pucks in the white container frozen.

Baxter's yapping at them.

They're going back and forth.

Chris picked up a puck,
whipped it, cut Baxter in the head.

Baxter goes out cold
in the penalty box.

Nyland just threw
something at him.

He's out of the game.

Look out!

Ooh!

And he just slammed the glass.

So first he throws a puck,
knocks a guy out in the box.

Now that guy thinks,
oh, I'm out in the stretch.

I'm cut.

Here comes Nyland now
chasing me down the runway.

You know, with skates on.

That stuff travels.

Heh heh.

We were in Philadelphia.

And I felt somebody give
me a jab with their stick.

And I didn't know who it was.

And so I jab him back.

And I look around
and it's Bobby Clark.

So I'm going, oh, no.

I'm in a fencing duo
with Bobby Clark, right?

So all of a sudden somebody grabbed
me and threw me up against the glass.

And I actually had
my feet off the ice.

And it was Ben Wilson.

He was a real tough guy.

One of the flyers
and enforcers, right?

So he had his arm cocked.

And he says, you ever
touch Bobby Clark again?

He says, I'm going
to effing kill you.

He says, as a matter of fact, he
said, I might effing kill you right now.

I figure I'm dead.

My face will be just pulverized.

And all of a sudden
he's lying on the ground.

Chris came in and hit him with
one punch and knocked him out.

And basically saved my life
because I could have been dead.

Chris and I got married in 1981.

He was still a rookie.

And a lot of the players
were veteran Canadian guys.

But he just assumed, you know, you
guys are coming to my wedding, right?

And they're just like, who's
this crazy American kid?

So I think they just wanted to come to
Boston and find out what the deal was.

And pretty much
the whole team came.

The Canadians loved
having Chris Nyland.

He was like Linus'
security blanket.

You felt a whole lot better
at night knowing you could

suck your thumb and have
Chris Nyland there beside you.

There

have been a lot of great
fighters in the NHL over the years.

But the number of...

fighters or tough guys who
could play the game is minimal.

And it has been minimal.

Are you a tough guy because
you have no other choice?

Or are you a tough guy because
you know this is your only chance?

And for me, it was the only chance
I had to get to where I wanted to go.

So it was my key to the door.

Just imagine, imagine from when you
were a little kid, whether you want to be a

doctor, a policeman,
the president, whatever.

My dream was to play hockey.

And I got there.

And however I had to do that, that's
what I did to try and play in the NHL.

I was a regretful tough guy.

It was never what inspired me.

I loved the game of hockey
and I didn't like my role.

My second fight in the
National Hockey League

was against this guy
named Bob Probert.

I didn't know who he was.

I never did the
hockey film thing.

Ewan, I knew that was coming.

Oh, look at Ewan.

Did he ever rack him?

Knocked him out in one punch.

Because he caught
him square on the jaw.

It was the first punch.

And the coach says, you
can do that again tomorrow.

Bob Probert will go down as the undisputed
heavyweight champion in NHL history.

He was just that big and
that tough and that fierce.

Probert remembers very well that
Ewan happened to catch him with a punch.

And Ewan is not out of
the woods by any means.

Down goes Ewan.

Wow.

Payback time.

Payback time.

Here you go.

This is an establishment of
authority in the game right now.

When I was younger and I first broke into
the league, it wasn't one of those things

that I thought, geez, I
want to be like Dave Schultz.

I want to be a
fighter in the NHL.

No.

For me, it was, you know, I
want to be like a Bobby Orr.

I want to be somebody
that can score goals.

Bob Probert was a good player and
had come into the league as a good player.

I think guys who come
in as three-minute-a-game

goons, they couldn't even
aspire to be Bob Probert.

Guys say, Probes, come
on, give me a shot at the title.

And so, of course,
you know, I did.

Every game, the resident tough guy comes
out to test himself against Bob Probert.

There's a certain
thing about fighters that

when they get challenged,
they don't back down.

Two big guys under the
scoreboard and center ice is thrown.

Bob Probert with
a thundering right.

Down goes Simpson.

If you engage with Bob Probert, you
were taken on more than you could handle.

But people thought
Tony Twist was nuts.

He was a bulky guy,
not as tall as Probert, not

as good a player as
Probert, but he scared people.

You know, a day of the
game, you're in Toronto, you

practice second because
you're in Toronto's ice.

So you get in there, you get the good bike
ride going, you do a few push-ups and get

all stretched out, no
shirt on, and then you go

sit on their bench and
you watch them practice.

You know, I'm pissing
on your lawn right now.

Let's see what you got.

There they go, twisting race.

They're firing punches
right at center ice.

Twist got his...

Ray can't get his sweater off.

And in.

Tony Twist throws cinder block.

He was not a good
hockey player as far as skill.

No one could really figure out, was he a
winger, a forward, or was he a defenseman?

Because he basically went out there during
the face-off and if something needed to be

done, they dropped the puck, he dropped
the gloves with some guy, and they fight.

A big right from Twist.

Oh, and he hammers
him with a hard right.

You got 20,000 people
chanting your name.

Be like the rock star
going out there and

singing the song that
everybody loves to hear.

Everybody was waiting
for you to get on the ice.

Everybody wanted to hear that
one song and wanted to see you fight.

Tony Twist, make it shake!

They all waited for him.

It was the closing.

It was Leonard Skinner
singing Sweet Home Alabama.

I promise you, there's
a twinge in my dick.

I enjoyed it that much.

You know, this guy,
he's a fine broth of a lad.

He'd come up the hard way.

You went down to Halifax,
you fought every night.

Now, why would you go
down and fight every night?

I wasn't a great college hockey player,
but when I got down there, I had to fight

because I really didn't
want to spend my whole

career in the minor
leagues like yourself.

Don, so far, this
isn't too revealing.

He fights a lot, and he
admits he doesn't have talent.

Now, bring
something out of this.

How are you?

Fine.

Good.

Good, good.

You ready?

No drop the gloves today?

No drop the gloves?

I don't know.

Maybe.

Depends what happens.

I never planned that.

Okay.

If it happens, it happens.

Hey, my name is Bob.

Hey, Bob.

I'm Chris.

How are you?

Fine.

Nice to meet you.

Yeah, so I don't know.

It could happen, Bob.

Just could happen today.

You never know.

Are you feeling lucky today?

I wanted to be a hockey player.

I just didn't want to fight.

There were games I'd fight, and then
I'd sit on the bench the rest of the game.

Some home games, I'd play
against tough teams, and the teams

that weren't perceived to
be so tough, I wouldn't play.

I'd fight every night, but
I wanted to be a regular

player, and they wanted
me to be a regular player.

They wanted to be
able to put me on the ice.

Uh, not just when it came to a
game, but when it came time to fight.

Claude Riel, I used to stay off
to practice with him every day.

Skate and shoot and pass.

And skate and shoot and pass.

Claude Riel was always
saying, jump on your skate, Chris.

Come on, Chris.

Jump on your skate.

Come on, skate, Chris.

Come on, Chris.

Shoot the puck, Chris.

Shoot the puck, Chris.

He'd be firing pucks at him,
showing him how to stop, turn.

What do you do?

He'd say, okay, my Yankee boy.

It's game seven,
six seconds to go.

Let me see how you do it.

Creating game situations.

Bob Ganey would take
him out after practice.

A Hall of Famer.

Say, get behind me, your skates,
right behind my skates, let's go.

And he would stretch out those
strides and teach Chrissy how to skate.

Larry Robinson taught him
techniques and maneuvers.

You always ask,
was that alright?

Did I do this thing okay?

What do you think of
the way I'm playing?

What else could I improve?

I'm going to start on the bench.

Whatever you want me, coach.

Whatever you say, I do.

And then Jacques Lemaire
took me and worked with me

every day on passing pucks
to me in the face-off circle.

And he'd take me down in front of the
net and put 50 pucks in the crease and say,

here's where you're going to
score a lot of your goals from.

So what you're going to have to do here
is grab a puck one at a time, take them,

flip them up on your
forehand, go on your backhand.

Because you're going to be in front of the
net most of the time, and you're going to

be reaching for rebounds,
and you're going to have

to put them up over the
goalie when he's down.

All those things.

And then he played me.

Well, with Carbano, Nyland, and Gainey up
there, they're not going to get too much.

Here's a two-on-one.

Nyland to Carbano,
to Nyland, he scores!

That's not so bad for Chicago.

Nyland dropped it to the ice.

That's in by Nyland.

That's good!

That play started and
ended with Chris Nyland.

And he put me in situations I
was never in before, you know.

He put me on the ice if we
needed to go in the offensive zone.

He put me on the power play.

He passed other people who may have been
better players, who may have been better

fighters, who may have been better
something else, who didn't have the same

degree of commitment or
spirit or drive that he showed.

Nyland!

Nyland going down.

Decides to carry
on around the net.

Trying to stop it.

He scores!

Chris Nyland!

I had 21 goals.

I had 18, 19, and I forget.

I don't know.

I forget.

There's so many of them.

Chris Nyland on a penalty shot.

Scores!

I'm so grateful for it.

It's really hard to explain how much
it means to me because it really does.

I get emotional when I
talk about it but my life

could have went a whole
lot different ways, you know?

And for those people to be in my life
and help me, I guess they saw things in me

that I couldn't see
in myself, you know?

The amazing thing is Chris
Nyland became the patron saint of

all hockey players who aspire to
be something other than a goon.

Canadian's goal is 19th of the year,
scored by number 30, Chris Nyland!

At one point, Jacques Lemaire
came up to me, you know, Chris.

He said, you fight too much.

You're fighting too much.

He said, you got to
slow down the fighting.

And it was weird.

I almost didn't trust him because I always
saw in Boston that when guys stopped

fighting, they were
out the door, you know?

Oh, you don't want
to play tough no more.

You don't want to fight.

You don't want to do it no more.

So always in the back of my head,
oh, I'm going to slow down fighting.

The next thing, they're
going to get rid of me.

Say, oh, you don't
want to fight no more.

You think she's a hockey player.

But I got to a point where
I couldn't slow down.

If anything, I had to turn
it up a notch, you know?

Because I didn't want to jeopardize
everything that I worked so hard to get to.

There were times,
like in the situation in

Boston, Chelios was
jumped on by Jay Miller.

And I was grabbed by
a guy named Battilier.

And he said, let go of me.

And he can't, right?

But he's not a fighter.

But he can't let go of me.

I said, let go of me.

I'm going to knock you out.

I said it three times.

Oh!

Battilier wasn't even watching.

I can't take a match
and burn his hands over.

Let's go to my sweater.

I got to punch him.

So I threw a shot at him.

It looked really bad.

But hey, that's life.

You know, I knew
they wanted to kill me.

Chris and I aren't.

Ooh.

There was hatred there.

Bruins Canadiens versus
the Red Sox Yankees.

And Chris was a guy from Boston
now playing for the Montreal Canadiens.

A villain.

And Chris would be
yapping at people.

He'd be in a penalty box,
threatening guys on the bench.

He harassed Boston guys.

Fans and players.

And he'd come in.

Right away, the fans would be
yelling, Nyland, Nyland sucks.

Nyland.

Warm-ups.

Game time.

Any time he was on the ice, there was
no chance throughout the whole building.

You know, we'd go into games and
we would have cups of beer thrown at us.

And, you know, people
wanting to fight my dad.

Here comes a piece of
pizza and I hit you in the back.

I turn around and I said, did anybody
get the balls to come down here?

Whoever did that.

No one stood up.

No one said anything.

It was a horror show.

It was absolutely awful.

Back then, you know, in
order for Knuckles to get

off the ice, he had to
come by the Bruins' bench.

And when he went to go by the
Bruins' bench, all hell broke loose.

Nyland.

Oh, Nyland took a
swing at Linsman.

Now this will clear the benches.

There we go.

Then Ray Flynn at the
time, the mayor wanted to

talk about pressing charges
because it happened.

Off the ice rink.

It happened in the hall.

This thing is spilled out into the
hallway between the dressing rooms.

And I would not hesitate in having
the police making arrests for either

disorderly or in fact
for assault and battery.

This is unbelievable.

And then every time a player got ejected,
they took a piece of plexiglass and they

put it on a hinge and
swung it down so it closed

the bench off and they
called it the Nyland glass.

My claim to fame in the
Boston area is that it was

the first thing that
happened in the Boston area.

The code's about honor,
which means I'm not

going to take advantage
of you when you're down.

I'm not going to sucker
or cheap shot you.

I'm not going to take the
bread off your family's table.

The best example in my era would
be a scrap I had with Ryan Walter.

We started fighting and I
turned a certain way and my right

shoulder popped out and with
it was an exclamation of pain.

And he said, what's the matter?

I said, my shoulder
just came out.

He says, okay, fight's over.

We'll finish this another day.

Wendell Clark got
traded to Quebec.

They were down
early in the game.

We were in LA and he came out
and he said, Marty, we gotta fight.

He was doing what
he needed to do for his

hockey team and I
said, okay, Wendell, fine.

And we had a fight.

To say no, I don't
have to isn't acceptable.

Marty McSeller was one of those guys that
when I got in the league I was younger and

he was at the end of
his career and he wanted

my respect and I couldn't
show him any respect.

I was fighting him a lot and I was
having good fights against him.

Donald Brashear
wins it by knockout.

Sometimes we would fight
twice a game and he would

always keep coming back
and he would never quit.

And upon that, we're gonna
have a little bit of a battle, Brashear.

Brashear and I had a
fight early in the game.

And he's flexing and
challenging our bench.

Now as a tough guy,
that's not acceptable.

In the last 35 seconds Vancouver
puts him on the ice and I'm basically told,

get out there, get out
there, just get out there.

So now I gotta go get him.

And I'm gonna make him fight me.

I beat him once
already in that game.

I taunted their bench.

I got everything I
wanted out of that game.

There's no real sense
to get into a fight.

Oh, McSorley slams Brashear
and caught him in the helmet.

Donald Brashear is
down and maybe out.

I don't know what Marty
McSorley was thinking.

I made it special to play in the NHL
and go and do something like that.

That's not what I
had intended to do.

I wanted to go fight.

It was all bad for Donald.

I didn't want him to be hurt.

But it was like a snowball.

You would have hockey people
say, well, it was an accident.

He was trying to get
Donald to fight him.

And then they would switch
over to somebody who has nothing

to do with sports saying
we're at the site of the incident.

And it just seemed
to carry its own life.

In a rare criminal conviction for sports
violence, a Canadian court today found

suspended professional hockey
player Marty McSorley guilty of assault.

I'm really comfortable with
the fact that people want to view

that or whatever that ended
your career or what have you.

I'm comfortable with the fact that I
went out the same way I came in.

I challenged Donald
Brashear to a fight.

I wanted him to fight me.

I felt that he should fight me.

I was disappointed in
him as a hockey person.

I missed probably like 30 games.

That's what kind of sucked
because I had like 11 goals

that year and it was the
last year of my contract too.

So had I scored like 20
goals, I would have been able

to show that I can be the
player that I want to be.

You're not on the
fucking farm now, baby.

You're on the ice.

Let's go.

You're not shoveling shit today.

Let's go.

Enough of the laughs.

Enough of the fun.

Let's go.

Pay attention.

Don't be looking at the broads.

Does the team need you to liven
it up when it is, in fact, listless?

Well, I guess I've
played that role before.

I've done that for
the hockey club.

I've maybe gotten
a fight or two.

But for me to get the team going, I
have to lead by example and I hope I

just can be a plus for my hockey
club and work hard and be a leader.

We started the 85-86 season with seven
rookies and Chris sat us all down and told

us how important it is to be a
Montreal Canadian, what a privilege it is.

And he talked about Bob Ganey,
Larry Robinson, that they were older and

who knew how many more
years they were going to play

and if they'd have a
chance to win a Stanley Cup.

I can say it was a pep talk, but
it was probably more of a threat.

Yeah, 85-86.

It's a one.

I remember the night we won
the Stanley Cup, I had a torn

ligament to my ankle and
my ankle was all ballooned up.

They watched me skate in warm-up
and they wouldn't let me play.

You grew up in Boston, you knew what the
Canadians were all about, you've seen the

tradition, but you've never seen
and celebrated the Stanley Cup.

How happy are you going to be if this
night ends the way the score looks like?

Well, I'll be really happy.

It'll be a thrill to win.

It was the ultimate experience
I've ever had in my life.

To have a Stanley Cup with your name on
the cup under the Montreal Canadiens team.

I guess it's hard for me to explain
my feelings for it because I am...

It's something that was such a big
part of my life and it meant a lot to me.

A real lot to me.

To do what they are is...

To me, I guess it meant so much
more than if I was a mighty duck.

Just, you know, he got the ring and
we were all looking at it and he said,

Dad, I want you
to have this ring.

I was impressed that he did
that and he wanted me to have

it and it just shows that
there's a lot of love there.

How it go boys?

How it go?

Good job boys.

How it go?

How it go boys?

He was close to
everybody in the team.

He did not have like a clique
and he would talk to all the players.

The French,
Anglophone, Americans.

We say that in French, there's
a word saying Rassembleur.

Rassembleur means get all the
people together for the same goal.

He had a party at his house.

He invited everybody.

If we were out, he'd
call you over, sit here.

He was the guy that
everybody liked to hang out with.

When you play for the Montreal Canadiens
there are certain expectations and that

includes the hospital
visits both to the English

Children's Hospital and the
French Children's Hospital.

Well, Nyland didn't
merely go when ordered.

He went pretty
much all the time.

He's a high school
yearbook player.

And he has a lot of
mushy stuff written in here.

From Cynthia, Rose, Paula.

He wouldn't even let
his mother read this.

Imagine, I come in
and he lets me read it.

The fans loved Nyland
as much as the players did.

And Chris really liked
to be with the fans.

I brought friends of mine
and said, you gotta go

witness the way this
kid gets treated up there.

Like they worshipped the
ground he walked on up there.

I'm talking about restaurants where
there are cab drivers, cops everywhere.

They love him.

Hey guys.

How are you?

How's it going?

Before you were born, you.

You too.

You could hear that
accent from Austin.

He was a great player.

You were the best fighter
of Montreal Canadiens.

Okay, thank you.

I thought I was pretty good too.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

The fans were great to me there.

The people were
great to me there.

I was married.

My first two children
were born there.

Life was good.

It was good.

There was a time I
mentioned to my wife.

I said, gee, I says, we're
riding the crest of a wave.

We didn't realize it
was about to break.

Caught somewhere
between a boy and man.

I'm still caught somewhere
between a boy and a man.

Here's the deal.

You see a lot of these boys.

Just try and get your
fat ass up to the line.

Chris will accept authority
if he respects authority.

And if he doesn't
respect the authority,

then he's not going
to accept the authority.

We left what was a very
comfortable and secure situation.

With Jacques Lemaire
as our head coach.

To Jean Perrin, who was an
inexperienced coach in the NHL.

So we all had to adjust.

You don't always
have a great boss.

We were in practice one day and
he was passing pucks out to shoot.

I was standing out there.

It seemed like an hour.

But I was standing out
there probably for about

five minutes and he hadn't
passed a puck to me yet.

So I'm yelling, Jean,
I'm waving my stick.

Jean, I'm over here.

You know.

And he kept passing
everybody else.

So he finally passed me a puck.

So when he passed it to me, instead
of shooting it, I took it and I flipped it.

Like, toward him.

Like, you know, screw you.

And it went...

It hit him right in
the top of the head.

He ended up
getting eight stitches.

Cut him open, knocked him down.

I think it's pretty funny now.

But, uh...

And even then I kind of... The guys
were like, what the hell are you doing?

And I think that animosity was
there with the coach from that day on.

I thought he should have
been more like LeMay.

He respected me.

And this other guy, you know, I just
didn't like the way I was being treated.

The team wasn't doing
as well as we had hoped.

And the players weren't happy.

For myself, I had a bit of a
problem where I wasn't playing much.

But Knuckles felt that I
should have been playing.

And I wasn't
being treated fairly.

He wanted guys
to be treated fairly.

He just didn't feel that was
happening with Jean Perron.

And he spoke up for 75% of what the
guys were thinking in the locker room.

Knuckles had the balls
to go and say it out loud.

Chris was making a mistake.

You don't tell the
coach how much ice time

another player on the
team should be getting.

That's up to the coach.

Nobody else.

You know, we all told Chris to back down a
little bit or just, you know, take it easy.

I don't think he knew
what backing down was.

You know, the coach
came in the room one day

in Hartford and started
pointing everybody out.

And then he came
to me and said, Chris

Nyland, when is the
last time you had a fight?

And I was like, you
know, you know, I basically

told him where to go
and what I thought of him.

I certainly wasn't going to let
somebody tell me, hey, you go fight.

You go blow it out your ass.

As a manager, I
had a big decision.

I have to trade a very
important part of our team.

A friend.

You know, I'm a manager,
but it was also a friend of mine.

You move Chris or
you change a coach.

Serge, the general manager who I played
with, Serge and I, you know, I love Serge.

Serge loved me.

And I thought when it
really came down to it, they

would have fired the coach,
you know, and kept me.

But they fired me.

Kept the coach.

If you challenge your coach, if you
don't think you'll be moved somehow,

at one point of time,
you know, you're stupid.

I mean, it's got to happen.

You cannot
challenge the authority.

So I eventually, I move him
and I send him to the Rangers.

When I got traded,
I was devastated.

It broke me.

I never got over it.

I never got over it.

Still, I did what I felt
was right at the time.

And sometimes, that costs you.

You know.

Whether it's right or whether
it's wrong, it costs you.

For a lot of fighters,
there's a sinking feeling

in their stomach because
they know what faces them.

It's like sitting in classroom all day
knowing when the bell rings, three o

'clock, you've got to go fight the
toughest kid in the school on the

playground and everyone's
going to be watching.

I was scared all the time.

And a lot of times, how you
get past the fear is the bravado.

The night before, it
was tough sleeping.

The night before a game, knowing
that there was a battle coming.

I was never scared
about being in a fight.

I was scared
about losing a fight.

You lose one fight and then you lose
two and they lose confidence in you,

my career was over.

You start out as a young
frisky kid challenging all

these famous scrappers and
you blink and there you are.

You're 10, 12 years
into the league.

You've had your shoulder
fixed two or three times.

You've broken your
hand a couple of times.

And there's a 20-year-old
kid and he's just

foaming at the mouth
when he looks at you.

He wants to take you down.

I was becoming an
unrestricted free agent.

Arguably at the top of my game.

And I was hoping to
negotiate a great contract.

The Blues at that time said,
we're going to pass on you.

You're going to pass on me.

Wow.

And I thought after all
these years, the last thing I

would expect was the Blues
were going to pass on me.

And they passed.

So from there, I got on my motorcycle and
went for a little bit of a motorcycle ride.

And the guy pulled
out in front of me.

I saw him about 50 feet ahead
of me and all I could see was car.

Couldn't go left,
couldn't go right.

Tony Twist of the St. Louis Blues is
hospitalized in intensive care tonight

after a motorcycle accident
last night in a St. Louis suburb.

Broke my pelvis.

My knees just all torn up.

Went through five surgeries.

I lost my career.

And that was it.

You know, a salad
and that was it.

I woke up in New York and I'm
like, I can't believe I'm in New York.

I can't believe I'm
not there anymore.

It's weird, like, a lot of guys
get traded and they go around.

And they go from team to team.

I never wanted to
play for another team.

Two old road warriors
going each other here.

And that was intense.

I played, you
know, I did my job.

I fought, I stood
up for the team.

All the same things
I did, you know.

But that little
something was missing.

The passion, the loyalty
to the team that I had

in Montreal was just not
the same in New York.

Nyland has gone after two of the real
heavyweights for the Flyers in this game.

A fellow like Nyland is really
fighting the war of attrition.

The body can only take so much.

I knew in the back of my
mind that was taking its toll.

Like after games sometimes,
you know, I go back

to the hotel, my hands
would be killing me.

I'm having a bucket of ice.

You know, I'm biting hunks
of skin off my knuckles.

You sit there and you're like,
oh, you know, I want to heal.

But you have to
have the armor on.

You have to play the role.

You have to be tough.

It doesn't allow you to
really show your true feelings.

You know, I'm
having a tough day.

You know, a couple
of fights tonight.

I'm hurting.

You know, I think you can
talk me through this one.

You know, I mean,
you just can't do that.

I got injured a lot.

Don't forget, it was a
fight that caused the

pelvic muscle injury
to Nyland to begin with.

I felt a little jinxed.

And I said, geez, there's
just nothing going right here.

I wanted to get out.

I was thinking maybe I
could go back to Montreal.

But that wasn't an option
and I ended up in Boston.

I wasn't happy about it
because I I despised the Bruins.

I remember the first game.

Boston.

Really nervous.

Because, you know, there's
17,000 people yelling Nyland sucks.

All of a sudden, they're
going to be cheering for you.

Bringing each one out and
they kept him to the end.

And then they said number 30 before they
could even say his name the cheering began.

Chris!

Thunderous, thunderous cheers.

Prolonged ovation.

This outpouring of affection.

Welcome home, Chrissy.

You're one of us now.

It was amazing.

But again, I still had that little
thing about Montreal inside of me.

I did have some bitterness toward
the Bruins and now I'm playing for them.

I did feel like a
little bit of a turncoat.

But it was my childhood
dream to play for the Bruins.

It was the ice where he
watched Orr and Cashman

and Esposito and all those
guys when he was young.

He finally got here.

But he got here at a point in his career
where he could no longer be the Chris

Nyland that they hated
eight, ten years earlier.

He was old.

You know, I was 33.

Older.

At 33.

I was going through
some things as a player.

Questioning myself.

Nyland just punched Kershaw.

Nyland punched Kershaw.

I thought I might be losing it.

And if I'm going down,
I'm going down swinging.

This is Jay Caulfield and
now he's going to go as low.

Chris Nyland just doesn't quit.

Well, it didn't take that long for the
hometown boy to win back the home crowd.

Mike Milbury was one
of my favorite coaches.

He's the type of guy
you go through a wall for.

Look at Mike Milbury.

Nobody

named me the All-Star game.

You know, he got
attention for that.

I tried to pick people who
had courage, showed some

leadership, and toughness,
no question about it.

And Chris Nyland
has that in spades.

I just had anticipation
of seeing him get on the

All-Star team and do
something besides fight.

Show that he could play
with all these All-Stars.

I broke my ankle.

Before it.

I missed the All-Star game.

Following year.

And Rick Bonas, new coach,
came in and took Milbury's place.

Guess I didn't have a whole
lot of respect for Bonas.

And the Bruins did this thing where
they had an A squad and a B squad.

And if you're on the B squad,
it wasn't good in training camp.

And I got relegated
to the B squad.

So if you're on the B
thing, we want to see if

you want to really work
hard and be a Bruin.

Were they testing my mettle?

Like they don't know my mettle?

I mean, they knew
what I was made of.

They knew how I was.

There's no question that I was
going to be there for my teammates.

I'd fight, I'd play the game.

It's a way of rubbing your
nose in the shit a little bit.

I remember the assistant coach,
Michael O'Connell, one of the biggest

pussies to ever play the
game, came up to me and

said, jeez, Chris, I know
what you're going through.

You know, when it was near
the end of my career, I said,

hey, listen, you know what
the fuck I'm going through.

You don't know what
I'm going through.

You know?

You never played like me.

You don't know what
I'm going through.

You never did what I did.

You don't know what
I'm going through.

So he kind of wandered
off like the pussy he is.

With Chris, disrespect
is everything.

And to be disrespected where he
sees his teammates know that he's being

disrespected That's like a double slap
to him, and he feels bad that he's letting

down his teammates then,
and it just snowballs to,

you know, where he's
not going to let it slide.

The season started,
and the Bruins usually

started a long road
trip, and I wasn't playing.

Lyndon Byers was there, another kid, Alan
Stewart, was there, and they were fighting.

They were fighting for jobs.

You know, it looked like they
were trying to phase me out here.

So, we fly back to Boston.

The next day, Alan Stewart
retired, gets sick of fighting, hated it,

packed up his car, and drove back to
Saskatchewan, or wherever he's from.

And then the next day in practice,
Lyndon Byers breaks his ankle.

So, Bonus came to
me and says, Chris?

You ready to play?

You ready to go tomorrow night?

I said, you know what, Rick?

Go fuck yourself.

I said, you think that's
the way you treated me?

I'm going to go through a
fucking wall for you now?

I don't think so.

No, I ain't ready to play.

So, play I didn't.

Then that went on for a while,
and they put me on waiver.

They put me on waivers,
the bastards, I found out.

And then the last day
of the waiver wire, I got

picked up, and I ended
up going back to Montreal.

Serge, who traded
me, brought me back.

We decided, so, well,
let's bring him back.

You know, he should retire
as a Montreal Canadian.

To be able to wear that jersey again,
and be proud to wear it, and say that I

retired where I began, to
me, that was enough for me.

I didn't chase it, I didn't
try and get another job.

You know, blow the bugle
on the bench, and rah-rah.

I couldn't do it.

And I packed it in.

I was sad it was over.

And I had a hard
time watching hockey.

You know, I'd be watching, I played
against that guy, I can beat that guy up.

I think I can score
on that goalie.

You know, I could, I could,
I could, I could, I could.

But I guess I couldn't anymore.

You know, all of a sudden you get
up and you didn't have anywhere to go.

You can prepare all you want, but
when it happens, there's an endgame.

You know, you lose one night,
you can get it back tomorrow.

And no getting it back.

He tried a lot of
different things.

Some different sales things,
and office jobs, and stuff like that.

But it's like putting, you
know, a tiger into a classroom.

It's just not a good idea.

He started working
for John Hancock.

And he's like, you know,
geez, I don't like this.

And you can tell it
was painful for him.

Come on, buy this policy.

Nah.

Come on, really, you need it.

Come on.

You know, you're
gonna die someday.

It'd be nice to leave that
money to your wife and your kids.

Nah.

See you later.

Go to the next victim.

Nah.

Nah.

Get about 10 nahs in a row.

It's like, nah, I
don't want to do this.

For some reason, I guess I didn't
feel whole without hockey in my life.

I ended up meeting
with Jacques Lemaire.

And Jacques gave me an opportunity to
be assistant coach for them in New Jersey.

I guess the knock
on me there was the

players felt like they
had two head coaches.

Because Jacques is really
stern and he's demanding.

And a lot of times the
assistant coach has to go around

and pat everybody on the ass
and coddle them and burp them.

And, you know, I
wasn't real good at that.

He was gone after one year.

Usually assistants stay
around for a few years at least.

But if you only last one
year as an assistant,

there are no openings
for you at the NHL.

I went to the NHL
draft, talked to a lot of

people, you know, did
the old schmooze thing.

You know, schmooze this
one, schmooze that one.

Sucks.

One day, I'll never
forget, I went to work and I

think in the morning he was
watching Band of Brothers.

And I came home from
work nine hours later and

he's still on the couch
watching Band of Brothers.

And I thought to myself,
you're not a retired

general, you're a
retired hockey player.

You need to get out
there and get a real job.

You know, I wouldn't go to
the bar until like 4.30, you know.

I'd always have that time limit.

I'd be waiting, you know,
4.30, come on, 4.30.

I would get in there and, you
know, the early news would be on.

And then, you know, another month
or so, going by, a month and a half.

And I'd get in there and
One Life to Live was on.

So it was getting
a little earlier.

And then I kind of said to myself,
you know, if I keep going in this

direction, you know, I'm going
to be watching the Flintstones.

I had my knee done 11 times.

I had my shoulder done.

I've had four different
surgeries on my hands.

I think all in all, the count
was like 26 different surgeries.

I ended up taking painkillers.

They helped me for
the short term, but once

I got addicted to
them, I was a slave to it.

Every day I had to take it.

You know, I didn't much let
anybody know I was struggling.

People could probably see it.

You know, I had one guy,
in particular, Steve Shutt.

Shutty, I was playing some
old-time hockey with him.

He was getting me in some games
and making some money on the side.

It was nice.

He said, something up with you?

No, I'm fine.

Come on, will ya?

I went to Abu Dhabi
to play hockey.

And then to
Afghanistan afterwards.

I went with Bob Probert, who's
become a good friend of mine.

And, you know, we spent
like three weeks together.

The last night we were there, me and Proby
got in a fist fight at the restaurant.

At the dinner table.

He threw a punch at me, and
then I got up and cracked him.

And then I played this
one flying everywhere.

You know, anyway.

Anyway, Shutty was sitting at the
next table over and was pissed off.

Just pissed.

You know, then he called
me when I got back to Boston.

He said, listen, I
don't want you back.

Bob asked me if I'd be willing to
talk to somebody from the league.

I said, yeah.

So, I sat down with Dan Cronin, who
was a substance abuse guy with the league.

He talked to me,
asked me about my life.

He said, I know you've
been hurt quite a bit.

You've had some surgeries.

How do you deal
with those pain issues?

I said, oh, the odd time, I'd take
a couple Percocets, you know.

Meanwhile, I had
about 20 of them in me.

He was obviously somebody
who was in pretty bad shape.

And he did his very
best at trying to convince

me that there was
nothing wrong with him.

And when I left him, he
thought he'd done his job.

I wasn't too truthful with
him about certain things,

because it's not nothing
I wanted to own up to.

The next day, he called me
up and said, you know what?

I've been not honest with
you, and I need to get help.

He was in the hospital.

He asked for all
of us to come in.

And my parents and my siblings
sat in a room across from him.

And that's when he told us how bad it
was and what kind of drugs he was on.

That was nuts.

That was like getting hit
by a bus to hear that story.

I couldn't believe that this is my son
with everything he had going for him.

Laying here like a
goddamn incapacitated, I

was an isolated person
that I was ashamed of.

I was ashamed of him.

Famed Canadian hockey analyst Don
Cherry said he's never seen anyone tougher.

The legendary
enforcer died yesterday.

He ended up in jail,
then in and out of rehab.

Somehow, the man who was
born to scrap fought his way out.

And today, across the city,
it was obvious the player who

fought so hard and gave so
much will never be forgotten.

Windsor, Ontario bid
farewell to Bob Probert, one

of the most feared
fighters in hockey history.

If you look at the number of
fighters who've had issues off the ice,

including Chris Nyland, including Bob
Probert, I believe it's something in the

job that puts so much
pressure on these athletes

that it affects them in
every aspect of their life.

It's not a job you
necessarily leave at the rink.

It's part of your DNA
and you can't escape it.

I think it might be
somewhat analogous to

what a fella feels
coming back from the rink.

The fact that I've got your
back and you've got mine.

And for the fighter,
that was his role.

I've got your back.

And he knows that all the
players in that room appreciate it.

That's what I think they miss.

The role they played and the
importance they had in the lives of others.

Where do you find that?

I went to treatment.

I stayed there for
about three months.

I came back and I
just felt so beaten.

I was desperate.

He was isolating himself
and he beat himself up about it.

Am I a bad guy, a good guy?

We've talked, I said,
Chris, don't knock yourself

down, meaning you've
done too much in your life.

Keep yourself going and be
proud of who you are because

you've done a lot as a hockey
player and you're a good man.

I started drinking again.

And eventually I
get back on the pills.

And it just took off.

My whole day ended up
being consumed with how

am I going to get pills
if I didn't have them?

If I had them, how am I
going to make them last?

Where am I going
to get my next ones?

He had all these
chances and he blew them.

Now he's back in
the same situation.

It was around that time I decided
that... I can't do it anymore.

I said, Chris,
you have to leave.

I ended up calling someone
to help me get some heroin.

And I got it.

And before long I
was shooting heroin.

It wasn't a bad place.

Bad place.

You know, I got divorced.

I was out till four in the morning
nights and, you know, crazy shit.

I OD'd a couple times.

I fell asleep with
needles in my arm.

Heroin?

Me?

Like... I couldn't believe it.

That to me was a...

Even to think that my mom
and dad would know that.

They're going to know it now.

The incident turned violent when
Nyland began fighting with security guards.

An irate Nyland bloodied the faces
of both guards before he was finally...

My mother turned on the TV just to see what
the weather was going to be the next day.

And she sees his
face on the television.

She's like...

What the fuck are you thinking?

What the fuck are you thinking?

So it gets to the point that
you're like, what can I say to him?

Because you know it's
not going to end good.

It's not going to end good.

I had a real bad car accident.

I just missed the 18
wheeler when I spun out

of control and went
into a ditch and flipped.

You know, after the
accident and everything.

Going to the emergency room.

In an ambulance.

And then walking out.

But it stayed with me.

I still couldn't get over it.

Like, oh my god.

I almost died.

I almost died.

How selfish that
would have been to me.

My three children.

My grandchildren.

Mom and dad.

All the people that I
left to deal with the pain.

And I said I gotta
try and kick this stuff.

And I was on the
couch for five days.

Sweating.

Puking.

Shitting.

I was so sick.

And...

I did probably the most
difficult thing that there is in life.

All I used to do was pick up the
phone and ask someone to help me.

I got on the phone
and I called Deanna.

And I felt bad calling
because... Like, I felt like...

I let them down.

You know, because they...

They'd held me out before.

You know, who likes to fail?

You know.

And I failed at that.

And other people.

I went to treatment for 60
days in a sober living facility.

The initial part of treatment you're
down on yourself I mean you're...

You're discouraged,
you're disgusted and...

I could see that in him.

He was very quiet
when I first met him.

We talked at the treatment center and
then we went to some meetings together.

He was good to me and then I
was leaving the sober house and...

I had been talking to him
and I said I'm going to start

looking for a place to live, do
you know any place around?

And he said well jeez, I've got a place,
I've got a loft over in my garage over in

Chinook, if you'd be interested.

And I'm thinking,
in your garage?

I'm going to live in a garage?

You know, he brought me over here
and showed me around, got a shower,

kitchen, got a wood
stove, and I said yeah.

He'd swim out
there every morning.

It was cold, very cold,
the water's very cold there.

Growing up where I
grew up, I didn't like taking

shit from anybody,
and I really never did.

It served me well in hockey, that
aggressive nature, to be able to go on the

ice and do the job I had to
do, it served me really well.

You know, I was ready
all the time to fight.

And then it got to a point
where it didn't anymore.

Especially after I was retired.

So I had a lot of frustration with that,
because I had a tough time dealing with it.

You know, like what
do I do with it now?

If it was anger,
if it was sadness.

And when I get sober, all
them emotions come back.

You know, you do have
a lot of guilt about it,

and you do have a lot of
shame about what you did.

I can't see.

I can't look back on his
lifetime and not be ashamed.

Especially when you can look at where you
were, and what was going on, and even in

your own mind saying,
what the hell did I do?

He's got to be ashamed.

Some of those less admirable things have
tainted some of the good things I've done.

And I don't, honestly
I don't like that.

Yeah, I don't like it.

I was going to give it a year.

It was almost two years.

There was some trepidation
about coming back.

You know, here I am,
the scene of the crime.

I'm hoping that being here with his
children and his grandchildren will be

enough to keep them on
the straight and narrow.

Hopefully.

You see that?

Look at that.

That's your father's jersey.

He's giving it to you.

Little Nyland.

You're the next Little Nyland.

Huh?

You want that?

He's 53 years old.

He's still involved
with the hockey thing.

He can't...

That break isn't there,
and I can't see it happening.

But I think almost he needs... He
needs something other than hockey.

You like red, white, and blue?

In some respects.

I wish he had never
played hockey.

Do you want to
see the shirt again?

You like the colors, don't you?

Huh?

Look at that.

You don't need to get
into too many fights.

Huh?

To play the game
I love to fight.

God, I mean, I love that.

I love fighting.

To this date, there's nothing else
I've done to be able to replicate that.

There's a feeling that only if
you're doing it can you get it.

It was awesome.

I've had, you know, broken wrist,
dislocated shoulder, broken jaw,

broken nose, broke my neck,
but it just comes with the territory.

That's the price you pay.

I don't regret anything.

I give anything
for reincarnation.

I'd be like, okay, make
me eighteen again.

I want to go, I want to
ride the roller coaster again.

In ice hockey, I learned that
you're going to have to wait 18 years.

If you didn't like a guy, what he said to
you or how he looked at you, you could

drop your glove and
punch him right in the nose.

Now that's something
that I really miss.

My name is... my name
is Knuckles Nyland.

I played 13 years in the
National Hockey League.

And in those 13 years, I
got more penalty minutes

than almost anybody ever
had in the entire league.

Those years in fulfilling the role of
enforcer, I had a very difficult time.

I don't want you to say, I'm Knuckles
Nyland, because you would never introduce

yourself that way and you
already said that's uncomfortable.

But you could say to
them, I bet some of you

in this audience know
me as Knuckles Nyland.

I prefer Chris.

If he can go and be a
public speaker and get

someone to pay him
for it, more power to him.

I just hope now that he can turn
around and he can rise to the occasion.

I'd like to say
hello to everybody.

My name is Chris Nyland.

I played hockey with
the Montreal Canadiens.

Now I heard Gaston talk about...

working together and
not picking on other kids.

If there's weaker kids in the crowd and
someone's picking on one of those kids,

you don't want to join in.

You want to take his side.

You want to help him out.

I just so happened to do that when I
played hockey for Montreal Canadiens.

When some of my smaller
teammates got picked

on, I would have to
come and help them.

We have to remember that
that other kid has feelings.

And we don't want to hurt
his feelings or hurt him or her.

I'm trying to get through
a day without hurting

any other person on
this earth in any way.

If I can do that, I think
I've had a good day.

I got you finally.

I got you.

I got you.

I'm gonna get you, I told you.

I guess the aggressive side
of me, my propensity to fight.

You know, I like to think that I can put
that in a little suitcase and tuck it away.

And if need be, I'll pull it
out when I have to use it.

But I like to keep
it tucked away.

You want to fight me?

You want to go?

You're my buddy.

Here, we'll fix that.

Ready?

Here, let me help you up.

You're not gonna
cry on me, are you?

Let me see your face.

Smile.

Let me see.

Are you okay?

It's not easy to look at yourself and
understand where you went wrong.

What your character defects are.

And the hard part for me is changing
those things that are ingrained in me.

Because some of
them were survival tools.

And it's okay if you're
surviving, but I want to live.

I want to live.