In three seasons in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL), Stephen Quirk played a total of 135 games that were enough to change the rest of his life. In an interview given to Dutyhe tells how the physical, psychological and sexual torments suffered during his time in the ranks of major junior hockey still haunt him, 27 years later.
His story, first highlighted by Radio-Canada, precipitated the downfall of commissioner Gilles Courteau after 37 years of reigning over the QMJHL. The latter’s resignation has set off a whirlwind in Stephen Quirk’s existence that brings him no sense of justice. “I’ve never met him, but I can empathize with him,” says the imposing Nova Scotian. I know what it is, the feeling of having lost everything. »
Ordinary man, out of the spotlight for 45 years, he now sees his name attached to the most recent scandal to splat Canadian hockey.
“I’ve worked for correctional services for 23 years,” begins the shyly smiling colossus who appears at the other end of the screen. “It wasn’t my dream job,” he says, shrugging his shoulders. Two and a half decades have ended up accustoming him to work, never to the violence suffered in the secret locker rooms of his adolescence.
“They stole everything from me, everything,” he says, his voice quavering, from his residence on Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. My hopes, my dreams: they left me nothing. »
We always had to show that we had what it took to succeed in hockey, otherwise we would look too weak
He still loves hockey, “the most beautiful game in the world” in his eyes, but no longer experiences any joy in playing it or finding the atmosphere of an ice rink. Some evenings, he remains unable to set foot in the arena to cheer on his 9-year-old daughter’s hockey team. If his two boys had wanted to play sports, he would have refused outright. “Out of the question, he decides bluntly. It will take me a lot more than words to trust them again. »
The dream, the reality, the nightmare
Stephen Quirk pushed his first pucks on the frozen pond near the family home in North Sydney. With a hockey stick in his hands, he had heart and talent: he shone among his comrades on the ice. He quickly put on a uniform to climb one by one through the minor hockey ranks until, in 1995, he received an invitation to the Moncton Wildcats training camp.
“I was so proud,” he recalls. I grew up in a community where everyone asked me how things were going in hockey. His talent belonged to him, but he also raised the hopes of his entire community who saw, in the accession of one of his own to the prestigious QMJHL, a bit of his own consecration.
“I remember my training camp very well. I had had very good first days and after a week, the coach had let me know that I was going to be part of the team next season. It was, he remembers bitterly, one of the most beautiful moments of my life. »
He remembers the surge of pride, the eagerness to grab a phone to tell his parents the news, the feeling that the passion he had nurtured since childhood finally had a chance to blossom, who knows, in a professional career.
A Wildcats rookie, he only had one more step to take to set foot in the National League. Moncton, at that time, represented a cloudless future, the beginning of a dream shared by so many others but becoming a reality for him, Stephen Quirk, 17 at the time.
His nightmare soon began. “I thought I was having the greatest experience of my life; the opposite was expected of me. Hockey has become my cage, my prison. Honestly, from my party initiation, I probably did everything I could to try to escape this league. »
He remembers having recurring conversations with his parents where he mentioned his wish to give up the sport. “I told them that there were a lot of fights, he explains, that it was not hockey. His family, kept secret about the abuse he suffered, kept telling him that he was living an incredible opportunity, that he had to persevere.
“It’s a social trap that is slowly closing in on you, illustrates Stephen Quirk with hindsight. Everyone has your success at heart, there is an entire community that encourages you and counts on you. I didn’t have the strength to disappoint her: so I decided to bury my suffering, to carry my burden and to continue playing hockey because… because…” He hesitates for a long moment, his head down. “Because I had no choice: it seemed to make people around me so happy. »
A painful silence to dissipate
If there is any blame to be cast, it is, in his opinion, on the culture of sports which pushes teenagers to grit their teeth and endure abuse without complaint.
“We always had to show that we had what it took to succeed in hockey, otherwise we would look too weak. I ended up believing, continues Stephen Quirk, that “what was needed” was to accept this torture and continue to play without flinching. This is not acceptable: no one should have the right to harm children like this. »
As soon as the story of his life comes too close to the abuse endured during these years in the QMJHL, he stops, tilts his head, inhales to regain his composure. The wounds remain fresh and the traumas, on edge. The former hockey player follows a therapy that allows him to lift, little by little, the silence that has long veiled the worst period of his life.
“Very few people around me still know what I went through,” he says. His testimony may have caused a storm in Quebec, without causing a tidal wave in Nova Scotia. In his family, his wife knows the truth, his 21-year-old son too. It was when the latter was about to experience himself the initiation reserved for recruits of his basketball team that his father’s demons emerged after decades of dormancy.
“It was very, very difficult,” recalls Stephen Quirk. I was so afraid that he would suffer what I had endured. His three youngest children, ages 12 and 9, still don’t know anything about his years in the QMJHL.
Her mother didn’t know anything either, barely a month ago. It was the outbreak of the scandal in Quebec that prompted her son, barely two weeks ago, to evoke for the first time in front of her snippets of her time in the QMJHL. “I was afraid, he says, that she would feel guilty for what had happened to me. »
This conversation with his mother, dreaded for more than 25 years, still concealed a few silences. “I didn’t tell him everything,” says the former hockey player. She’s a strong woman, but I try to protect her. Major junior hockey shattered part of his life: it’s not true that he was going to smash a mother’s heart as well.
Stephen’s father, who left eight years ago, will have believed until his last breath that his son lived his best years in the major junior ranks. “My parents deserve an apology. They entrusted their child to an organization and this organization betrayed them, he accuses today. At least they have the right to be asked for forgiveness. »
Why did he agree to confide in the Duty in what represents the first interview of his life? This speech, matured for a long time with his therapist, Stephen Quirk does it to improve the lot of boys who still suffer, perhaps, in silence.
“I think hockey has a real opportunity to reform,” he concludes. The sport still has a long and difficult road ahead of it, but change now rests in its hands. »