CHAPTER NINETEEN

On November 1, 2012, Steve again went to see Dr. Elizabeth Pieroth. He told her that in mid-September he had been elbowed in the head. The hit had “buzzed” him right away, he said, and then, very briefly, he had seen a “green fence,” but he didn’t have any other immediate symptoms. Later that same day, however, he had developed an intermittent headache, feelings of nausea, and “spaciness, feeling drunk.” He took ten days off from his workouts and began to feel better, Pieroth wrote in her NHL concussion evaluation report, and he received neck massages that helped reduce the headaches. He began exercising again, but cautiously, and was able to ride a stationary bike and lift weights without any symptoms. But once he went back on the ice, the symptoms returned.

Three weeks after his injury, he began to engage in light contact in his on-ice workouts, he related, describing it as simple physical “resistance” with the other players. Over the next few weeks, he had increased the level of contact. Pieroth noted that Steve “has completed the Blackhawks’ return to play physical exertion protocol and many on-ice practices without any returns of his symptoms [and] last had any symptoms 2–3 weeks ago,” which, Steve told her, “were only momentary.” Pieroth reported, “[He said,] ‘I feel like I can take hits without concern.’ He said he was ‘100% okay with returning to play’ and said he had ‘no reservations about playing this game.’”

Pieroth noted, too, that Steve had completed the NHL concussion protocol, that his scores were consistent with his baseline results with only minor exceptions, and that there was “no other evidence of significant cognitive impairment secondary to his injury. After reviewing Steve’s history,” Pieroth continued, “his description of this most recent event, his recovery over the past 6 weeks and his current test results, I believe he can be cleared to return to full-contact play without restrictions. This is, of course, with the approval of the team’s head physician.”

According to Pieroth, she and Steve also “spoke at length about the current signs of multiple concussions,” just as they had done when she first examined him ten months earlier. She wrote:

I explained very clearly that there is no way of predicting if an athlete will suffer long-term problems from their history of concussions and repetitive contact to the head during their career. I also expressed my concern about his history and we reviewed the indicators when an athlete has suffered too many concussive injuries to continue playing in a contact sport. Steve expressed good understanding of this information and stated he does not plan to consider retirement from the sport due to his concussions at this time.

On the same day, Steve saw Dr. Terry. He told Terry that he had been working out without any difficulties and was back to feeling normal on the ice. He said he had taken an impact test and had no concussive symptoms, and had seen a vestibular therapist for an evaluation. According to his report, Terry found that Steve had no concussive-related issues remaining. Terry also reported that he discussed with Steve “long-term plans, long-term risks of continued play with recurrent repeated and prolonged concussions and his future safety. He understands these very well; he is very knowledgeable about the subject and has been for some time. He expressed a willingness to be cleared to return to full contact and has completed our protocol completely, and therefore we will allow him to return to play with no restrictions at this point.”

“Not disabled,” Dr. Terry wrote on Steve’s Fitness to Play Determination Form.

Four days later, Steve was bumped again.

Dr. Pieroth described the month that followed in a report she wrote in February 2013:

[O]n 11/5/12 [Steve] received a mild “bump” (described as being “grazed”: on the left side of his head) during a practice and developed symptoms of mild headache, mental fogginess/spaciness and neck pain. He believed the headache was related to a cervical/muscle issue and did feel better with treatment of his neck. Steve flew to Calgary on 11/13/12 for therapy on his neck, which he said lessened his symptoms overall. He skated on the 19th and 21st without any issues. However, on 11/21/12 he was elbowed to the face, which caused a return of his symptoms (mild).

The player flew to Phoenix on 11/25/12 to skate with other NHL players during the lockout. He received chiropractic treatment and felt better. He was working out/skating daily but again took a mild bump to the head (11/27/12) and he felt “spacey” again. Steve took a few days off and returned to skating on 11/29/12. On that date he collided with another player [both of whom were skating backwards], which caused a return of symptoms.”

November 5, November 21, November 27, November 29.

—

Steve returned to Toronto for Christmas and stayed with his brother Chris. For two days, Chris recalls, he just sat on the downstairs couch. “He couldn’t come upstairs. He was bothered by light. Usually, he’d chirp you, and when I say chirp, I mean bust your balls. He didn’t even want to talk. He was just kind of hunched over. I was saying to him, like, ‘Just lie down, go for a walk, get some fresh air.’”

On December 28, he flew back to Chicago and was examined by Dr. Julian Bailes of the NorthShore Neurological Institute. “According to Dr. Bailes’ report,” Pieroth wrote later, “[Steve’s] neurological examination was normal. Dr. Bailes recommended antidepressant medication, which Steve refused at that time, and various nutritional supplements. Dr. Bailes concluded, ‘I believe that based upon his present condition, Mr. Montador could attempt to return to play using a customized and slowly progressive protocol unless he sustains recurrent symptoms. He has a normal neurophysiologic and neurologic examination.”

One day later, Steve flew to California and checked himself into rehab at The Canyon Rehabilitation Center in Malibu. He was accompanied by Dan Cronin, director of counseling for the NHL/NHLPA’s Substance Abuse and Behavioural Health Program. Steve’s admission form read:

Patient had been 7 years sober and used marijuana one time a year and a half ago. He is currently suffering from increased depression he believes to be from head traumas from his line of work. In the last month and a half specifically the symptoms have gotten worse. Patient is taking supplements to help him with this and will be with us for a limited amount of time. He may need to leave within a week to two weeks for work reasons. [The “work reasons” relate to the possible end of the lockout and the resumption of the 2012–13 NHL season.] Has had some suicidal thoughts and has had cravings for cocaine. Unhealthy sleeping patterns and lack of motivation. Patient also has childhood issues of not feeling good enough. His profession has given him a passion in his life. Has not had very long relationships or successful ones….Lack of feelings.

Steve was asked a series of questions as part of his admission, to which he offered his answers:

Can you stop drug use without a struggle, no cravings or urges? Yes

In the past could you stop drug use without a struggle, no cravings or urges? No

Have you ever thought of killing yourself? Yes

Have you ever attempted suicide? No

Have you had thoughts about killing yourself today? Yes

Are you thinking about killing yourself now? No

To what degree are you [feeling] hopeless (out of 10)? 7

The next day, Steve wrote in his journal:

I’m frustrated, sad, and scared. I guess I do feel.

I’m not sure I don’t want to use, drink, or die. But they all seem like great options.

Stuck, will I ever get physically better?

Two days later, on New Year’s Day, he wrote:

Things I “should” be grateful for

• life, family

• friends

• some form of health

• some form of cognitive ability

• ability to provide for self/family

• sobriety

And then on the next day, this:

Things I am and/or should be grateful for:

• feeling better this aft, why? Don’t know, something lifted.

His next journal entry is about the CBA negotiations. With almost half the season gone, the NHL and NHLPA were reaching a critical stage. Later that day, Steve was on a conference call with the other players. No one knew where he was, or what condition he was in.

The rehab centre’s forms offer observations made by Steve and by staff members. From Steve: “Sick and tired of feeling this way. Unsure if it will change.” From staff members (about Steve): “Just tired metaphorically and literally.”

On January 4, Steve again wrote in his journal about the CBA negotiations. His notes were cryptic, and several issues remained to be resolved, but the sides, it seemed, were closer. On January 5 and 6, he wrote down the main provisions for the prospective deal. While his entries on most other subjects tended to take up one page or less, his CBA notes covered ten pages. Buried in them were three short lines:

Transition—compliance buyouts,

2 compliance during 13/14—14/15

2 total—100% off cap

Under the proposed new CBA, NHL teams would be given two years to buy out the contracts of two players whom they no longer wanted and couldn’t trade. The players would be paid the full amount of their contracts, but the contracts wouldn’t apply under the team’s salary cap, allowing it to improve itself in other ways. Steve’s head injuries had made it likely his NHL career was over. Unbeknownst to him, these three lines made it certain.

As his treatment required, Steve wrote a goodbye letter to substance abuse and destructive behaviour. He wrote it on the same days that he jotted down his CBA notes:

To all the substance abuse and destructive behavior in my life, beat it!

To all the substance abuse and destructive behavior in my life, where would I be without you???

I owe you so much, thank you for bringing me to Hell, thank you for making me an alcoholic/drug addict, for helping me hate myself, never accept myself, and never connect with another human being on a level I can feel. Thank you for teaching me how not to treat a lady, a parent, a friend or any being. Thank you for locking me inside my own mind, locking me out of my heart, and for casting a shadow on my days; for that anxiety, hopelessness and fear. I am especially grateful you have hurt me, but not broken me. For that, I’m definitely grateful.

For if there is light, I see it now. Sun has shone and chains are broken and I can walk freely within the moment with acceptance never dreamt of, with joy filled with laughter, within my own skin. To love you is to appreciate you, you showed me the way. It was the wrong way, but a way I know well, one to avoid, with all the love in the world.

To all of my days in bed, despair in hand, suicidal thoughts on my brow, you are cast away with a hug. Your stories will never be forgotten, if not at least appreciated for their candor. Each moment that passes proves hope is real, love can be given, and dark days and shadows may stop by, but leave again.

I resign from your grip.

Your former servant,

Steve

The centre’s final report concluded that Steve had made progress at The Canyon, but that his prognosis was “guarded.” He was prescribed a grocery list of antidepressants:

Lunesta, 3mg. one tablet

Seroquel 100mg. one tablet

Seroquel 25mg. one tablet

Zoloft 50mg. one and one half tablets

And, as needed:

Gabapentin 600mg. one half to one tablet

Propranolol 20mg. one tablet (every four hours)

When he checked out, Steve collected the items he had brought with him. Among them were five books: Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk, The Practicing Mind, Empire of the Summer Moon, Slaughterhouse-Five, and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Steve also had in his wallet, besides the usual credit cards of someone his age and wealth, a cheque for $20 million he had made out to himself.

On January 6, 2013, four days before Steve left rehab, the new CBA was agreed to by the NHL and NHLPA. The league ratified the deal on January 9; the players on January 12. The same day, back in Chicago, Steve underwent his physical with the rest of his Blackhawks teammates, and failed.

Ten days later, on January 22, Steve went to see Dr. Terry, who later wrote:

[Steve] says he is essentially asymptomatic when working out and with his activities of daily living. He says he does on occasion get a little bit overstimulated and will have some symptoms. He calls these minor and transient. If he shuts down for a bit they go away. The main thing that does this is when he is out shopping. He still remains on his antidepressants. He is still following up externally with psych. He has been working out and has mentioned he has had no symptoms with working out.

Vally had retired as a player the summer before, and was now the goalie coach of the Bridgeport Sound Tigers, the AHL affiliate of the New York Islanders. Steve had called him often since December, and to Vally he sounded different. “Monty was always so excited when we talked, and loud, and full of laughter, and now there was none of this,” he recalls. “He was repeating himself. He was talking really slow and low. He was saying things like, ‘I’m getting some really tough opinions, and I don’t know if I am ever going to feel normal again.’ I said to my wife, Chrissy, ‘He’s not getting better.’ I felt that if I didn’t get on a plane and help this guy out right away, he’s not coming out of this.”

Late in January, Vally flew to Chicago to see Steve, who picked him up at the airport. For the entire thirty-minute drive to Steve’s apartment, “He was talking and talking about his brain, and telling me all this stuff about what it does, and how synapses work, and all the time he’s taking these really big breaths. Monty always took a breath before he’d speak, that was something I thought was funny about him. But this was like ehhh whoooo, ehhh whoooo. One after another. It was really distracting. He thought it would get more oxygen to his brain.” When they got to his place, Vally says, “I was shocked. In his kitchen, he had this entire counter full, and I mean full, four feet by two feet, of different supplements, all from the vitamin shop, organic this and that. Oh yeah, and two jars of cashews. And Monty knows what they all are, and what time of day to take them.” Vally couldn’t believe the state Steve was in. “Then suddenly, he’s Monty again. He’s telling me, ‘Vally, Vally, you’ve got to promise me one thing. You have to take your omega-threes every day. You need them for your brain. Just promise me.’”

They went downstairs. “He says, ‘This is where we’re going to hang out.’ And that’s what we did. He put on some light-sensitivity glasses and we just hunkered down. We were not leaving that basement. It was really dark down there. No natural light. He was on the phone all day, every day, talking to doctors. We watched the Blackhawks game one night. Another, we did go to a restaurant, but otherwise, we just ordered in. We didn’t leave. I think he was at his deepest, darkest moment at that point. He was so fragile. He was a different guy.”

Steve had always wanted to know everything. Every new thing he learned offered him the promise of something better. Now, the more he knew, the worse things seemed to be. Every new doctor asked him the same questions, gave him the same tests, told him the same thing. The tests said, you’re fine, above-average this, superior that; but it was the headaches and “spaciness”—what the tests didn’t reveal. They were the problem. When they went away, he’d be fine again, he knew that; then he could play again, he knew that; unless they came back again.

He was doing all the right things. Every day he lived smartly: he ate the right food, he got the rest he needed. On the ice, he was so incredibly careful about what he did, and the other guys were so incredibly careful around him. Then he’d get the tiniest bump—one that for all of his hockey life wouldn’t even have counted as a bump—and it was like he’d been run over by Scott Stevens. How was it possible that such a nothing could be such a something, especially for a big, strong guy like he was? The point is: it wasn’t possible, it couldn’t be possible—and that’s why he knew that the next doctor, the next treatment, the next something would be the answer. And if it wasn’t, the one after that would be.

And the doctors saw this the same way he did. It was so clear in their reports. They believed in science, and the best science they knew was incorporated in the tests they administered—and the tests said there was nothing fundamentally wrong with him. So he kept going to see them with a problem that came from some nothing little bump, and they kept telling him he was okay to play, because their science, the best that they knew, told them that there was no reason he couldn’t play. The doctors knew there was a lot they didn’t know, but they are people of science, and they knew that someday they would know, because there are answers. They didn’t want to shut him down. They didn’t want to tell him he can’t play. It was his life, and he wanted to keep playing, and trying—and besides, the answer might be just around the corner.

But now Steve was starting to hear a different message from some of his doctors. One, a “world-renowned Indian doctor,” as Vally described him, “told Monty that the damage to his brain was irreparable.”

Steve was depressed—because of the setbacks that never seemed to end; because the lockout was over and the season had begun without him; because the end of his career was closing in on him and his life ahead was uncertain. Who wouldn’t be depressed?

And he was depressed because he didn’t like this new version of himself. He didn’t like what he was thinking. He could feel himself getting weaker, and he didn’t know what he would do next. This wasn’t the same as it was seven years ago, when he checked into rehab and started going to AA. This wasn’t even the same as it was a few weeks before, at The Canyon Rehabilitation Center. He was just beginning to realize that AA and rehab centres weren’t the answer for the problem he had. He was beginning to realize that he was depressed because the damage to his brain had caused depression. Chemicals that had always moved from one part of his brain to another, chemicals that influence mood, behaviour, and function—they were no longer moving the same way, or they weren’t being created in the same amounts. Steve’s depression was physiological, not just psychological.

Going into rehab at this point was for “maintenance,” as he put it, to stop his fall—even if only for a month or two—not for a cure. If there was a cure anywhere, he knew it wasn’t with Terry or Pieroth or Kutcher, or even with Carrick or Bailes or The Canyon Center. It wasn’t with the best science at that moment. They were all trying, all doing their best, as if their best was the answer. But it wasn’t. What they knew couldn’t help him. Because what happens when the damage is already done? When it’s not about medicine or research or treatment, or about what you can do now? When it’s about what you did before? Sometimes treatment isn’t the answer. Sometimes only prevention is.

What Steve was getting was the equivalent of hospice care—that’s all it was—and he didn’t know it. He was becoming a different person because he was a different person. And he was about to face the biggest test of his life without his best self.

When Vally thinks about those days he spent with Steve in Chicago, and when Steve visited him at his new house only a few months before, he says, “Things went from pure joy to pure misery. This was a completely new Monty.”

—

Vally left Chicago on January 27. The same day, Steve saw Dr. Terry, who wrote in his notes:

[Steve] says that he does feel like he is doing a little better today. He did have some episodes where he noticed some symptoms. These are minor, sporadic and infrequent. He says since he is seeing a therapist currently he is taking antidepressants as well. He says that this seems to be helping. He has been doing some workouts. We have encouraged him again to not work out through symptoms especially, [and] if he has any worsening of any of his symptoms he should stop. He understands this.

On February 1, Steve saw Patrick Becker, the Blackhawks’ physical therapist. Becker reported that Steve didn’t skate that day but did “his normal routine of cardio instead like he does most days (treadmill, bike, elliptical). Also did about a 30 min. workout in the gym, mixture of strength, balance/vestibular exercises, and flexibility. Monty does express enough sense to shut it down when he doesn’t feel good, which he describes as ‘spacey’ and [having] some trouble with focus.”

Steve saw Becker again a few days later: “He skated for the first time. Looked off, as I anticipated….One thing I am trying to get him to do is not go so hard on one day, then to suffer the rest of the day or next, leaving us to take a step back every other day. The largest challenge with him is not overdoing it, as his ‘bad days’ don’t get bad until later in the day, not necessarily during or after the workout.”

On February 6, Beckert reported: “Says he got ‘dizzy’ a few times, but that resolves quickly and did not feel like symptoms escalated too greatly.” When Steve saw Dr. Terry a few days later, he told him he was feeling much better, and that the antidepressants had helped him “tremendously.” He said he was back doing some informal drills and wanted to start into regular practice, including contact drills. Terry advised him against this.

On February 21, Terry wrote:

Steve came to the office today and said that he has been completely asymptomatic. He has been beginning our testing protocol and has done well to this point. He has said that he has been under restrictions with no contact although he says that he has asked other players to undergo some contact and collision activities with him. I said that he has done this with the understanding that this was against our wishes but he has not had any ill effects from them. At this point he is going to re-engage in practices. He is going to be on limited contact until he is cleared. He understands the game plan.

Later in the month, the Chicago Tribune reported that Steve hadn’t experienced concussion-related symptoms in weeks, had been skating and taking some contact, and was close to returning to the lineup.

In his March 1 dictation note, Terry wrote: “[Steve] presented to discuss his concussion. He is currently still symptom-free. He has been skating with limited contact with no issues whatsoever.” Four days later, Steve’s Fitness to Play Determination Form, signed by Dr. Terry, read: “Not disabled. Return to play.”

The Chicago Tribune reported that even if Steve does begin play with Rockford, the Blackhawks’ AHL affiliate, and not with the big team, he “couldn’t be happier.” He was quoted as saying, “Here we are. I can smile and talk about it a little bit and get on the ice. It’s a brand new day.”