HANGING UP THE SKATES
A look at Souray’s NHL career
Retirement has come for former Canadien Sheldon Souray with less noise than his legendary slap shot, the big defenceman slipping quietly into post-hockey life when his contract with the Anaheim Ducks expired on June 30.
“I’ve been retired for two years, you know?” Souray said with a laugh on the weekend, speaking from his summer home in northwestern Idaho.
“This is nothing more than just kind of confirming things.”
Souray played his final NHL game on May 12, 2013, his Ducks eliminated by the Detroit Red Wings in the Western Conference quarter-finals.
He skated in 758 games from 1997 to 2013, for the New Jersey Devils, then the Canadiens, Edmonton Oilers, Dallas Stars and finally Anaheim, playing 40 more in six seasons of playoffs.
Souray’s January 2014 surgery to repair torn wrist ligaments — even he might have lost count of the number of operations he had on the joint — sidelined him for all of last season, his final year in a three-year Ducks deal.
“Obviously, my phone hasn’t been ringing off the hook,” the native of Fishing Lake, Alta., joked of all 30 NHL teams that haven’t been waving a contract at him.
“But this hasn’t hit me like a ton of bricks. I’ve been paid the last couple of years and I’ve still felt like I’ve been part of the game, even though I haven’t been. I guess it’s official once the paycheques stop coming.
“But it’s all good, brother. I’ve been blessed. I’ve always said how much I’ve appreciated being a part of such a great league and playing with some great guys. I’ve made some wonderful friendships.”
There will be no retirement moss growing beneath Souray, who in January will marry Barbie Blank, the former WWE star — she was famous in wrestling as Kelly Kelly — and a Maxim cover girl. The couple, who in October will return to Southern California to spend the winter, are patiently exploring business opportunities.
His two daughters from his first marriage, Valentina, 11, and Scarlett, 8, have been with Souray and Blank since May, precious time together that he says “has really been the highlight of my life. The girls couldn’t adore anyone more than they do Barbie, so that’s a bonus. We’re humming along.”
Souray’s NHL career took root in the third round (71st overall) of the 1994 entry draft, chosen by New Jersey. He would arrive in Montreal from the Devils on March 1, 2000, traded here with a draft pick and defence prospect Josh DeWolf, who never played an NHL game, for defenceman Vladimir Malakhov.
The 6-foot-4 defenceman with the laser shot proved a colossal hit with fans here, one of this city’s most popular players of the day.
He scored only nine times in his first 105 Canadiens games — often hampered by injuries — though he was a rugged, physical presence when he was on the ice and a thoroughly engaging one with fans and media off it.
And then Souray scored 15, 12 and a career-high 26 goals the next three seasons; 2006-07 saw him score 19 of those 26 on the power-play, second-most in the league, while he was adding 38 assists for a career-high 64 points.
Coming off that career season, he signed a five-year, $27-million contract with his hometown Edmonton Oilers, a match made in heaven that soon went to hell over a shopping list of injuries and a feud with management over medical concerns.
Souray spent the 2010-11 season in the minors, shipped to Hershey, Pa., by the angry Oilers, then was bought out of his final Edmonton season, which freed him to sign for a year with Dallas.
He agreed on July 1, 2012, to three seasons with Anaheim for $11 million, playing with his dear friend and former Canadiens captain Saku Koivu until his balky wrist ultimately ended his career.
Souray turned 39 on Monday, a birthday which he says “is going to be no different than any of the other ones. We’ll shake the glass a little harder next year for the big four-oh.”
It was in October 2003, in his large Boucherville home, that I first met with him and his wife of 14 months, former Baywatch star and Playboy model Angelica Bridges, for a feature profile. They were bursting with pride that day over their 4-week-old daughter, Valentina.
Raised on the Métis settlement of Fishing Lake, near the Saskatchewan border, Souray developed into a solid rearguard with tiny-town roots who never denied the goofy streak that ran a mile wide through him, accented with a self-deprecating sense of humour.
(Off to a tremendous start in the 2003-04 season, Souray’s name was being spoken in the same breath as legendary Habs defenceman Doug Harvey. His six-point night having just broken the team record of five by a defenceman, co-owned by the late seven-time Norris Trophy winner Harvey, Souray said: “The only Harvey they’ve associated my name with is the place where you go to build your own burger. And the only Norris I know is Chuck.”)
I came to know the three-time all-star very well off the ice during his time with the Canadiens. He joined me in September 2006 for the downtown launch of a hockey book I’d written, and a staggering number of fawning young women lined up that day for my autograph — and, coincidentally, his.
A year earlier, I had seen a very human side of Souray in conversations away from the arena when his storybook marriage to Bridges was collapsing bitterly and very publicly.
But we probably best hit off by long distance during the cursed 2004-05 NHL season, which was killed in its entirety by a lockout.
An October morning over breakfast in Montreal — laced with a terrifying amount of coffee — he and I cooked up the idea for us to collaborate on a weekly Postcard From Sweden for the Montreal Gazette, concluding the deal with a handshake.
Souray had just signed to play during the lockout with Färjestad of the Swedish Elite League, and the Postcard was a little project we figured would be fun until it ran its course after a month or six weeks, when the lockout surely would be settled.
But then the labour dispute dragged on and we just kept speaking and typing — for 23 weeks.
I’d usually find Souray by phone on his Friday evening to talk for an hour about a theme he had in mind, and then I’d ghostwrite his thoughts into 800 words for the next morning’s paper.
He offered a view not just of Färjestad hockey, but of life in Karlstad and a travelogue of the country. I can’t imagine any other locked out player who would have embraced the Postcard with his enthusiasm and tourist’s eye while shoving a stick in his own spokes.
In every instalment, he liberally poked fun at himself while sharing thoughts about his homesickness for his family and the NHL.
The man who was a fashion plate in North American arenas struggled to adjust to wearing sweatpants on Swedish road trips, by bus.
Our project proved such a hit in Sweden that it was posted on the Färjestad team website, translated more broadly in the country and was devoured by Elite League media and fans.
It even led to the editor of Cosmopolitan’s Swedish edition asking Souray to pen a column comparing Swedish and North American men.
“How the hell would I know?” Souray told me. “I haven’t dated either.”
Showered with freebies, including an ocean of coffee from team sponsor Löfbergs Lila, he happily boasted generally, “If it’s free, it’s for me!” He had a few kilograms of Löfbergs Lila, which I bought at IKEA, waiting in his Canadiens dressing-room stall upon his return, payment in full for his 23 columns.
So now Souray steps into retirement, cherishing many memories of his 324 games in a Canadiens jersey, 29 more in the postseason. Through six seasons here, he scored 53 goals, added 89 assists, was selected for three all-star games (voted a starter in 2007), nearly put the team into bankruptcy with all the sticks he exploded and was a strong, valued leader on the ice and in the room.
Ask him for a favourite memory and he’ll reply that it was being witness to Saku Koivu’s remarkable 2002 return from cancer.
“The game Sak came back from cancer was absolutely unbelievable,” Souray said. "I love anything that was associated with that because it was real life.
“I was hurt at the time, training with Sak for his comeback. I remember going to Rivs’s (defenceman Craig Rivet’s) place and Sak was there, having just returned from cancer. I was in tears. I was there for that and that was important life (stuff )."
Souray has banked that memory, and many others, as he turns the page into the next chapter of his life.
“Now I have a chance to sit back — it’s still pretty fresh — and reflect on that a bit,” he said, “to think about how lucky I really was in hockey, how truly blessed I’ve been. And how much fun it’s been to be do something like this for as long as I have.”