EMERY DIES AT 35
Former Senator Drowns
It was the 2006-07 season and Ottawa Senators goalie Ray Emery was off to a great start.
As the National Hockey League All- Star Game approached, I asked him what he had planned for the break.
“I’m going bungee jumping in Whistler,” Emery said.
Great story, I thought. A key member of the Senators is going to throw himself from a cliff during his time off.
“Do me a favour?” his teammate and good friend Jason Spezza asked me in the Canadian Tire Centre parking lot about a half-hour later. “Don’t write it?” What? Why?
“Things are finally going Razor’s way,” Spezza said. “That’s going to get him in trouble.
“Do you want to talk to Marty Gerber every day instead?”
Gerber, the Senators other goalie, was a well-liked, nice man, but also quiet and never really had much of interest to say to the media.
Emery was different. He was a rebel. He was colourful. He was entertaining.
And he also made some bad decisions.
Sadly, one of those ill-advised choices led to his death on Sunday morning.
Authorities have confirmed the 35-year old Emery drowned while swimming in Hamilton Harbour shortly after sunrise. Whether he had just woken up or had not been to bed from Saturday night is unknown, as Emery did like to have a good time.
Either way, he would have been better off in bed.
“They went out for a swim and unfortunately he did not emerge after diving in,” Hamilton Police Insp. Marty Schulenberg told The Hamilton Spectator. “We responded along with Hamilton Fire and EMS. Unfortunately, our efforts on the water and in the area around the piers were met with negative results.”
The Senators’ fourth-round pick (99th overall) of the 2001 draft, Emery fought his way into the NHL, both figuratively and literally.
Setting aside his abilities as a puck stopper for a moment, the website dropyourgloves.com lists him having a total of five scraps over his three-year stint with the Ontario Hockey League’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds and seven over three seasons with the American Hockey League’s Binghamton Senators.
In the NHL, he fought three times, including twice during a game against the Buffalo Sabres in which he battled goalie Martin Biron and then, moments later, went toe-to-toe with enforcer Andrew Peters.
He had a big smile on his face while exchanging punches with the latter.
“It’s my favourite part of the game,” Emery later told reporters. “But my mom was there. She got mad at me. So I can’t do it again for a while or my mom will be really mad.”
Emery spent a total of seven seasons in the Senators organization. With Ottawa, he sometimes found himself in hot water, including the day he missed a team flight. Another time he fought his pal, Brian McGrattan, during practice.
He drove a white Hummer and once said police pulled him over 30 times in two years. Another time a senior citizen threatened to kill him in a road-rage incident.
Emery also had some shining moments in the Ottawa net.
As a rookie in 2005-06, he took over when Dominik Hasek suffered a season-ending adductor strain and was the backbone of a division-winning team that eliminated the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the playoffs, but lost to the Sabres in the conference semifinals.
In the spring of 2007, he became the only goalie to ever lead the Senators to an Eastern Conference championship and the Stanley Cup final. During that playoff run, Emery had a 2.26 goals against average, .907 save percentage and three shutouts.
However, he lost the starting job to Gerber in the following season and did not handle the demotion to backup very well. Trying to change the culture of the dressing room, the Senators finally waived him in September 2009.
When no other NHL team claimed him, Emery headed to Russia and the KHL. He put up some good numbers with Atlant Mytishchi.
He also became a YouTube hit after he chased a team trainer who had tried to put a hat on Emery’s head after he was yanked from a game.
Emery returned to the NHL with the Philadelphia Flyers in 2009-10. In between minorleague stops, he also played with the Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks, then returned to the Flyers for two more seasons.
His NHL career ended at 287 games in 2015-16, after he tried to make another comeback with two teams in the AHL and one in Germany.
Emery made headlines again in the fall of 2017, when he was arrested for allegedly assaulting his former fiancée, Keshia Chante.
That was the last we heard about the tattooed and ill-tempered Emery, who may have been a polarizing figure with the Senators, but also had a certain charm and an easy smile.
Personally, I always liked talking to the guy, and not just because he was a good story.