From: jpc@philabs.philips.com (John P. Curcio)
Subject: NYT article on John Kordic (Very long!)
Organization: Philips Laboratories, Briarcliff Manor, NY.
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 17:41:13 GMT


The following is very long, from the Monday New York Times (8/17/92).
Reprinted without permission.

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He Skated on the Ice, Then Fell Through It
John Kordic's Short, Chaotic Life

By Joe Lapointe


QUEBEC, Aug. 16--  At the funeral mass for John Kordic in Edmonton last
Friday, the program passed out to mourners showed a black-and-white picture of
the young hockey player when he played for the Montreal Canadiens in 1986.  He
was smiling dreamily and holding the Stanley Cup with another man.

Inside the program, a prayer of St. Francis of Assisi said, in part:
"When there is hatred, let me sow love. ... Where there is despair,
hope. ... Where there is sadness, joy."

The snapshot captured the high point in the life of a marginally
talented and greatly troubled athlete, a life that ended eight days ago
in Quebec when Kordic, after a struggle with nine police officers, died
of heart and lung failure shortly after being taken in an ambulance
from a motel room to the hospital.  In the motel room, police said,
there were unused syringes and bottles of anabolic steroids.

Since then, details have come rushing forth about Kordic's tormented
life and sordid death.  They tell of Kordic's bouts with alcohol; of
his use of drugs, including cocaine, and the steroids he took to make
him a stronger fighter, and of his conflicted relationships with this
coaches and family, especially his father, who strongly disapproved
when his son had to become a brawler to sustain his career in hockey.

These details shed light on the pressures that molded Kordic through
his 27 years, and illuminated the story of a decade-long journey that
began in Edmonton and included stops in Portland, Seattle, Sherbrooke,
Montreal, Toronto, Newmarket, Washington, Quebec, and Cape Breton.
When his coffin was carried out of a red-brick Croatian Catholic church
and transported to the cemetery, John Kordic was at the end of that
troubled journey, back home in Edmonton, at last at rest.  But behind
him, he left anger and frustration of those who knew him and cared for
him, lingering questions about his final hours and profound doubts
among dedicated hockey people about the National Hockey League's drug
policy and the subculture of the sport that glorifies those who fight.


A Ring, a Rose, And Paranoia

Kordic's life ended on Saturday, Aug. 8, shortly after he checked into
the Motel Maxim in Ancienne Lorette outside the city of Quebec.  He had
moved back to Quebec after finishing the season with Cape Breton, a
farm team of the Edmonton Oilers in Nova Scotia, and had expressed hope
that he could turn his life around if he could catch on with the Oilers
and play in his hometown.

He was engaged to marry a former exotic dancer named Nancy Masse, who
used to work at a Quebec club called Le Folichon, less than a mile from
where he died.

His final summer was a mix of contradictions.  In early June, he
proposed marriage by giving Masse a diamond ring and a red rose, and
taking her on a ride in a horse-drawn carriage.  Kordic told her that
he wanted to have a son and to name him Ivan, after his father.  She
said he didn't want his boy to play hockey.

But in an interview here today, Masse also described sessions of
cocaine use and increasing bouts of paranoia during which Kordic would
say people were plotting against him.

"I said, 'John, you are killing yourself,' but I didn't know it would
be that true so soon," she said.  "He used to say, 'I hate myself for
hurting people.' John was like a little bird who fell from the nest."

Masse said Kordic's favorite television show was a soap opera called
"The Young and the Restless," and that, while watching it, he would
taunt a character who was alcoholic.

"Go ahead and drink it," she said Kordic would shout.

Masse is a slender, 23-year-old Quebec native with dark skin and blue
eyes.  During the interview, she occasionally choked on her words.  She
recalled their first kiss, and how she slept "with my head on his
bicep, like a pillow."  She recalled how they used to lift weights
together, and how he taught her the correct way to throw a punch.

At the funeral home last week in Edmonton, she said, she put his red
rose, dried out now, in the coffin.


Bruises on His Face, Cuts on His Hands

Marlene Bouchard, who helps run the Motel Maxim for her parents, said
Kordic came to the front desk on the night he died with bruises on his
face and cuts on both hands.  She said he had stayed there "about nine
times" in the previous year, but had never appeared in this condition.

"He had a hard time breathing; I never saw anyone breathe so hard," she
said in a interview Saturday in the breakfast room of the motel.  "He
was leaning forward against the counter to support himself."

Bouchard said she suggested that Kordic check into a hospital but that
Kordic said he only wanted to sleep.  "He kept hitting his chest," she
said, mimicking the motion by softly hitting her chest with her fist.

Because of the cuts on his hands, Kordic was unable to sign the
registration card.  She did it for him.  "He said, 'You know who I
am,'" Bouchard said.  "It was like he was proud to be known."

She said that Kordic paid in advance, in cash, with a $100 bill pulled
from a crumpled wad in his pocket.  She said a taxi driver had to help
Kordic up the stairs, with his luggage, to Room 205 at the back of the
motel.  Soon, Kordic began making hostile calls to the front desk,
between 9 P.M. and 10 P.M.

"He was talking to people with hard words," said Camille Gagnon, the
affairs information agent for Surete du Quebec, the provincial police
force.  When motel staffers went to Kordic's room, they found that
Kordic had ripped a picture from the wall and damaged some of the
furniture.

Kordic cursed the employees and accused them of putting drugs in his
luggage and traces of drugs on his money.

Local police were called and two officers arrived and tried to quiet
him.  But when Kordic remained loud and agitated, police reinforcements
from the city of Quebec were called at 10:40 P.M.  According to Gagnon,
nine officers in all entered the room, taking off their guns and
leaving them on a chair outside the door.

"It was very hard to control Kordic; this is a strong guy," Gagnon
said.  After wrestling him to the floor, they shackled him to a
stretcher, needing two pairs of handcuffs because the arms and torso of
the 6-foot-2-inch, 238-pound Kordic were so large.  They tied his feet
with rope.

Because of his condition and his behavior, police called an ambulance
to take Kordic to the hospital at Laval University.  "The ambulance
started for the hospital at 11:04," Gagnon said.  "Kordic was O.K. at
this time.  A few minutes later he started to get major trouble with
his heart."

According to the police, Kordic was given heart massage en route to the
hospital, but was pronounced dead 30 minutes after arrival.  In his
hotel room, Gagnon said, police found about 40 unused syringes and
"seven or eight" bottles of steroids.

The autopsy tests showed that Kordic died of heart and lung failure.
Toxicology tests on blood and tissue won't be finished for at least a
month, Gagnon said, but police say they are sure that drugs were a
major factor in Kordic's death.

"If we take care about what the witnesses just told about the way he
was acting and if we consider what the police officers think, Kordic
was on drugs," Gagnon said.  "It's a fact, yeah.  We think it might be
a lot of things.  Steroids.  Drugs.  Alcohol.  The fact that he was
wrestling pretty hard with police officers, he got tired.  All those
resulted in his death."

At the time of his death, Kordic weighed nearly 30 pounds more than his
listed playing weight.

A full inquest into the death has been ordered by Dr. Jean Grenier, the
chief coroner for the province of Quebec.  It will be conducted this
autumn.

Masse said that Kordic was claustrophobic, and she thinks paranoia in
the ambulance led to a heart attack.  In his last weeks, she said, she
could hear his heart beating faster than normal when they were in bed
together.  She said Kordic was also perspiring abnormally.

She said she didn't believe police reports that Kordic had needle marks
on his arms.  Kordic would inject the steroids only in the left
buttock, she said, sometimes shaking so much from nervousness that he
would break the needles.  He used steroids, she said, because he was
under pressure to fight in hockey.


A Father Unhappy With Son's Image

The other man pictured on the funeral program was Ivan Kordic, John's
father, who died in 1989.  Although Ivan Kordic supported his son's
hockey ambitions, he strongly disapproved of Kordic's role as a
designated fighter.  Many who knew Kordic said his father's negative
opinion troubled him and that the expectations of others caused him to
take muscle-building steroids.

Among those who fault hockey for limiting players like Kordic to the
role of a "goon" is Don Cherry, a former N.H.L. coach, a friend of
Kordic's and a television commentator for "Hockey Night in Canada."

In Canada, Cherry is considered an advocate of rough, aggressive play.
But even Cherry is against the specialist whose only role is to fight.
"It is demeaning for a human being to sit on a bench for most of a game
and be thrown out there only to fight like a mad dog," said Cherry.

Of Kordic, he said:  "He always wanted to play the fame of hockey, but
everywhere he went he was considered just a goon."

It was the ability to fight, not scoring skills, that brought Kordic
into the N.H.L. as a big, chubby-cheeked, 20-year-old rookie with the
Canadiens in 1985.  "He did an excellent job," said Jean Perron, who
coached the team to its most recent Stanley Cup championship the
following spring.  "He beat the best fighters in the league."

It is a role accepted in hockey, but one that Kordic apparently felt
uncomfortable with.  Perron recalled seeing Kordic crying in the locker
room while talking on the telephone.

"I told him, 'John, why are you crying?  We won the game!  You should
be happy,'" recalled Perron, now a radio broadcaster.  "John would say,
'Ah, my dad is giving me grief.  He doesn't want me to fight."  His dad
never accepted his fighting."

Kordic's tears were the first signs of trouble.  A few months later,
when Kordic reported to training camp for the 1986-87 season, Perron
was disturbed at what he saw.  "I couldn't believe it," Perron said.
"How could you bulk yourself up the way he did?  He looked like Mr.
Universe.  I got phone calls that he was on steroids and people were
asking me to look after him."

Although the N.H.L. has suspended players for cocaine use, it does not
ban the use of steroids if the are acquired legally.  But league
officials have voiced support this week for reformed drug policies.
"We don't have a policy against steroids; it's not an illegal drug,"
said Gary Meagher, the league spokesman.  "But, if steroids created the
Kordic tragedy, then the league has an obligation to take a look at the
issue."


For a While, The Best of Times

Despite the steroids and his father's dislike of all his on-ice
fighting, Kordic's early years in Montreal were the best of his
career.  He shared living quarters with Michel Labonte, a boxing coach
and brewery worker who taught Kordic how to throw better punches.

"For a while, he was one of my best friends," Labonte said in a
telephone interview.  "Beautiful guy to have fun with.  He loved
laughing."

But Labonte noticed behavioral changes, about the time Kordic's father
became ill with the liver cancer that was to end his life in 1989.
Kordic was drinking heavily and staying out late at night, Labonte
said.

When his father became ill, Kordic told The Toronto Globe and Mail,
"All of a sudden you're mad at yourself that you weren't closer than
you were.  I spent all of my time doing things against his will...  I
took his death really hard."  A dozen people interviewed for this
article all said that Kordic's rapid decline coincided with the death
of his father.

The Canadiens tired of his unpredictable behavior and became
disenchanted when Kordic expressed a desire to change his game from
fighting to scoring.  Hockey coaches have an old slogan for players who
try to make this transition:  "From crusher to rusher to usher."

Pat Burns, who became the Montreal coach in 1988, and now coaches the
Maple Leafs, said Kordic "was not the most skilled guy."

"It's difficult to keep up the tough-guy image," Burns said, "and, if
you don't, people don't want you around anymore."

When Montreal traded him to Toronto in November of 1988, things did not
improve.  In Toronto, he had fights in the locker room with teammates,
including one in which he slapped Allan Bester, a 5-7 goalie.  In the
1989-90 season, Kordic had nine goals, the most he ever scored in an
N.H.L. season, in 55 games.  He also had 252 penalty minutes.

Bob Stellick, an executive with the Maple Leafs, said the team arranged
for Kordic to stay in detoxification centers-- he would not specify for
what-- and even brought his mother to Toronto for several weeks to live
with him.

"I would have to baby-sit John on the road," Stellick said.  "He was a
funny guy with a great sense of humor, but he would just wear you out.
...  He had chronic money problems and his life style was
self-destructive.  You felt used by him."

After the Leafs cut him in 1990, Kordic's agent, Howard Gourwitz,
enticed the Washington Capitals to give him another chance.  David
Poile, the general manager of the Capitals, was asked last week what
value he saw in Kordic at the time.

"He was what you call a legitimate tough guy," Poile said.  "He was
your loaded gun.  He had limited talent, but he was a tough guy.  And,
whether, maybe that's, uh, maybe that;s another reason why we should
look at things ...  as ... anyway, we'll see."

Kordic played only seven games with the Capitals in the 1990-91 season,
with no goals and no assists and 101 penalty minutes.  After what Poile
called two "relapses," -- he, too, would not elaborate -- Kordic was
cut from the team, but Poile said he resented criticism that the
Capitals and other teams simply abandoned him.  The Capitals paid for
another stay in rehabilitation, Poile said, although they were under no
obligation to do so.


The Last Stop:  The Nordiques

Last autumn, Kordic caught on with the Nordiques, the worst team in
hockey for the previous three seasons.  He roomed with Bryan Fogarty, a
young defenseman also battling alcoholism.

"Me and John were straight and sober," Fogarty said in a telephone
interview.  "We were being tested almost every other day for drugs and
alcohol.  There was no lying.  He was straight.  Then he had a little
slip in January.  That's when the team found out about it and they
split us up."

Fogarty said he had no doubt that Kordic was using steroids.  "It was
pretty easy to know when his weight was fluctuating 10 or 15 pounds
weekly," Fogarty said.  "He got in his mind that he has one good year
using steroids to beef up and to be tougher than everybody else and now
that he did it the one year it's almost like he can't do it without
it."

When the Nordiques cut Kordic in January, he had player 19 games with
no goals and no assists while compiling 115 penalty minutes.

Kordic finished out the season with Cape Breton, the Edmonton farm
team, and earned praise for his work ethic and team spirit.  This
summer, he talked with the Oilers about a tryout in training camp.
They promised nothing, but said they would continue the discussions.

Kordic move back to Quebec City, where he spent time with Masse.  Le
Folichon, the club where she worked, is located on a road neat the
Quebec airport that is filled with many small motels, fast-food
restaurants and small businesses.  The bartender, who identified
herself only as Francine, said: "John would come in here and sit very
quietly at the bar; he looked like a loner type."

On July 16, neighbors near Masse's home called police about a
disturbance.  Kordic was taken to court in handcuffs and charged with
misdemeanor assault against Masse.  Masse told police it was the third
such incident in recent weeks, but later withdrew the charges.

Kordic told the court he would see a psychiatrist, but it is unclear if
he did.

Masse said Kordic often cried, especially when something reminded him
of his father.  Two weeks before his death, she said, he spoke of death
and told her, "I will love you until I am in my grave."


Angry Words in the Sermon

Masse attended his funeral in Edmonton, and was identified in the
program as "very close friend, Nancy of Quebec."  She and others
listened as the Rev.  John Cunningham, in his sermon, spoke of what he
called the hypocrisy of the news media and of the sports world, which,
he said, used men like Kordic, misled them and discarded them.  "Let he
who is without sin cast the first stone," he said.

There were no comments from family members, including Kordic's one
brother, Dan, who plays for the Philadelphia Flyers.  Lillian Kordic,
one of the two sisters, issued a written statement that said, in part:

"When my brother was alive, he frequently was the object of media
exposure, both good and bad.  The difference was, at times, he was
allowed to speak for himself.  That is no more.  As a family we feel
that now he is gone, he should finally be left in peace."

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-JPC

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