Myhres gives back to hockey
Brantt Myhres is enjoying every single minute as chief executive officer of Greater Strides Hockey Academy, which is providing opportunities for aboriginal kids to play, but Myhres says he’s grateful he’s alive and well to run it.
“I shouldn’t be breathing,” said Myhres, who has been sober for four years but lost many battles to cocaine and, to a lesser degree, alcohol as a player.
“The one time I got rushed to the hospital from a cocaine overdose I couldn’t swallow. I basically was sitting on the side of the highway. I was dying. Without me getting to the phone it was over,” said Myhres, who played 154 career NHL games for six teams between 1994 and 2003 after being drafted in the fifth round (97th overall) by the Tampa Bay Lightning in the ’92 NHL entry draft.
“That’s why when that thing happened with Derek (Boogaard) over the summer, it really shook me. Jeez, how many times did that happen to me where it was maybe one too many?”
Myhres, who got caught and was suspended five times with “dirty urine tests, dirty cocaine tests” put a proposal in to the National Hockey League and the National Hockey League Players’ Association to be a “sober liason for guys” when he got out of the game. But with the upheaval in the players union, it didn’t get off the ground. He’s had three meetings with Donald Fehr, the head of the NHLPA, though, and there may be some traction there to do some work with them.
“Players need somebody to talk to who’s been through the same thing, not just talking to a doctor. It’s like if you have cancer, I can sympathize with you, but if I’ve had cancer and battled with it, there’s an instant bond,” said Myhres. “If you get an ex-hockey player who’s been through four stages of the program and gets sober, you gain an instant credibility with the player. That’s the biggest thing: having a player go to somebody before it becomes a problem.”
Maybe Nashville Predators’ Jordin Tootoo could have used a sounding board before he required help.
“Yeah. Maybe he could have phoned and said, ‘I’m struggling here.’ I’d be on the plane the next day … you can build trust with these guys, and a relationship. The last thing I was going to do was phone a doctor that had control over my career and tell him I had a program. Everything I did was swept under the rug and that prolonged everything.”
“I wouldn’t open up to anybody because it was like I was calling the cops on myself.”
There is less down time between games for players to be abusing drugs or alcohol when teams are playing every second night, but it’s a double-edged sword to Myhres.
“If you’re playing every second night, your sleeping patterns are pretty screwed up and guys are popping sleeping pills or you’re injury-prone playing every second night and you’re popping pain medication, which is just as deadly as going out and buying a bag of cocaine,” he said.
“The accessibility to these prescription drugs now is insane. All of a sudden you pop an Ambien and a couple of percocets and you think it’s OK because a doctor’s prescribed it. Time or no time off, a drug is a drug is a drug,” he said.
Now, Myhres’ drug of choice is seeing that aboriginal kids have the chance to play hockey. His biggest supporter is Treaty 7 Management Corporation, where his uncle Charlie Weaselhead is chief.
“There’s two legs to what we’re doing at Greater Strides. The first leg is the after-school programs which started last October where the aboriginal kids come out and the only requirement is attendance in class. We have two of those, one in Stand Off and one in Calgary, for all ages … four days a week, an hour and 15 minutes of instruction and drills and conditioning. It’s really growing and parents are coming out to watch,” said Myhres.
“The second one is our big vision. We’d like a charter school for the kids and we’re looking to start out with one midget boys and one midget girls prep team, about 45 to 50 kids. We’re looking at an area 30 minutes west of Edmonton, almost by Stony Plain. Having some synergy with an existing school until we get ours built, or we go from the ground up with dormitory housing. We’d like a cultural centre, and a place where the parents can stay too, because some kids will be coming from all over the country.”
Myhres, whose grandmother Doris Martineau was a Frog Lake First Nation member, has seen scores of aboriginal kids with wonderful hockey talent, but not the proper tutelage or places to play.
“The hardest part for aboriginal kids is getting to the rinks, and money of course comes into play if you’re talking travelling. At the midget age, a lot of kids are going to play for men’s senior teams because they’re getting paid rather than staying on a midget team. They take that route, but they’re playing with guys way older and there’s stuff after games,” said Myhres.
The charter school idea is an exciting one.
“We want hockey players and students who want to make a difference later on. There’s going to be certain academic requirements to get into the school. I’ve said before, I don’t care if any of these kids play a lick of hockey professionally. Our goal is to build leaders out of this, whatever their trade may be. They have to come back and make a difference in the community. We need role models. There’s not many of them,” he said.
The after-school programs are a huge hit.
“On our Monday group, there are a lot of kids who can barely stand up. We have a girl named Meagan Big Snake, who went to Oswego State (N.Y.) for four years, as an instructor. She was one of the few girls off her reserve to go and play hockey. She’s a really talented girl.”