NHL: Eagle caged for public intoxication, criminal mischief at Kentucky hotel
Former Maple Leafs goaltender Ed Belfour was arrested and charged with criminal mischief and public intoxication in Kentucky on Tuesday, according a regional correctional facility.
The hall of famer, whose lengthy career earned him a Stanley Cup ring and an Olympic gold medal and the nickname “the eagle,” was arrested at a hotel in Bowling Green, Ky., around 3 a.m. on Tuesday morning, according to the Warren County Regional Jail.
Police arrived at the hotel after receiving reports of a drunk and disorderly man who tried to fight a hotel employee and who struck a glass window. Authorities told a local news outlet the man was found lying on the floor of the hotel’s spa room “clutching a curtain rod that had been ripped out of the drywall above a window next to him.”
Belfour, 54, is pictured grinning in a mug shot released by the correctional facility. He was released later that day.
This wasn’t Belfour’s first alcohol-related run-in. He was arrested on misdemeanour charges of resisting arrest and assault after an incident at the
Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek in Dallas in 2000. Belfour was playing with the Dallas Stars at the time.
Police found Belfour holding a hotel security guard in a headlock in that incident and, according to authorities, an officer used pepper spray on him when he refused to let go. Belfour reportedly offered police up to $1 billion later if they would let him go. He eventually received 24 months probation and was fined $3,000 (U.S.). He was also arrested at a Miami bar in 2007 on charges of resisting an officer and disorderly intoxication. He was with the Florida Panthers at the time.
Belfour played for five teams during a 17-year NHL career, winning 484 games, fourth all-time, and two Vezina trophies as the league’s top goaltender. He won the Cup with Dallas in 1999 and Olympic gold with Canada in 2002. He spent three seasons with the Leafs, from 2002-03 to 2005-06.