Price’s drinking issues | The team saw nothing coming

For players and coaches who have worked with Carey Price, his drinking problems, revealed in an interview published Tuesday morning by The Athletic, came as a surprise.

Simon Olivier Lorange
The Press

Guillaume Lefrancois
The Press

Dominique Ducharme was the head coach of the Canadiens in the fall of 2021, when Price called on the assistance program of the NHL and the Players’ Association.

Ducharme then met Price on a daily basis, at training camp in Brossard. “He was getting on the ice, often without equipment, but his knee wasn’t responding well. He still came every day, but for treatments. For us, it was a surprise (that he used the assistance program), because the focus was on the knee,” Ducharme told The Presson the line.

The Quebecer, dismissed from his duties last February, assures that he had not noticed any change in mood either or perceived any warning signal from his former goalkeeper.

“Carey is still a calm guy, who likes to laugh and have fun with guys, but he’s not the clown on duty either!, recalls Ducharme. I saw him every day. But it was mostly on the therapists’ table. I was going to see him, we were talking about his knee. He was in a decent mood. But it’s never fun to be hurt. I couldn’t think this situation was going to happen. »

Stéphane Waite, he was no longer coach of the goalkeepers of the Canadian when Price put his career on hold. However, he claims to have remained in regular contact with number 31. “One thing I knew was that he found it very difficult, losing in the final. That, he told me,” explains Waite.

But nothing made him fear that the guardian was dependent on alcohol. Even the day it became known Price was taking a break from hockey, Waite told 98.5 that “it has nothing to do with drugs, it has nothing to do with alcohol has nothing to do with gambling. »

That’s why he, too, was surprised by Price’s confession that came out on Tuesday morning.

“At team dinners, he had a glass of wine or a beer like everyone else, and he went to bed. I have never seen any abuse. Even at one point, I said to myself that if he had an addiction, it was to the “pain killers”. But it couldn’t have been the booze,” says Waite.

Everything suggests that Marc Bergevin was also unaware of the situation. This is what he assured on October 7, 2021, the day the CH announced that Price had registered for the aid program. Five days earlier, on the 2nd, the Habs claimed goalkeeper Samuel Montembeault, subject to waivers by the Panthers.

“I would see when Carey was coming off the rink and his knee would swell up a bit. It was nothing out of the ordinary, but I had a feeling,” Bergevin said at the time.

In the interview with The Athletic, Price affirms that it was on October 3 that he decided to ask for help, the day after the arrival of Montembeault.

As of this writing, the Los Angeles Kings have yet to respond to an interview request from The Press for Bergevin, now senior adviser to Kings GM Rob Blake.

His teammates ignored everything

The goalkeeper had completely hidden his addiction from his teammates too, if we trust their reactions Tuesday morning, in the locker room.

“I never suspected anything, he was always himself,” assured Nick Suzuki, who played his first two full seasons in the NHL alongside Price.

“If he didn’t feel well, we didn’t know at all,” confirmed Jonathan Drouin, member of the Habs since the summer of 2017.

Also, while Price’s consumption peaked after the 2021 playoffs, there had been no warning signs in the weeks prior.

Jon Merrill, who is now playing with the Minnesota Wild, was a member of the Canadiens when the club reached the final. “It was a weird year,” he recalled Tuesday morning after Wild training at the Bell Center, a few hours before a duel against CH.

“There was COVID, so we couldn’t do much together, not even go to dinner,” he added. Difficult, in these circumstances, to pick up the signals of a teammate in need. “And on the ice, he was outstanding,” concluded Merrill.

The Habs players only learned in the fall of 2021 that something was wrong. It was at the end of training camp, just before the start of the season. As Price was then undergoing rehabilitation, he had spent little time with the group.

“I don’t think I had yet met him formally at that time,” says Chris Wideman.

In a meeting with all of his teammates, Price generally explained that he would leave the team entourage to join the NHL’s Player Assistance Program to fight addiction. However, he did not go into details.

“He wanted to keep it for himself, his family and his close friends,” said Drouin. It was already a shock for us to know that Carey was not coming back with us, that he was taking a break for his own good and that of his family. »

It wasn’t until the following months that his bout with alcohol became known in the locker room. The players, however, respected his choice not to reveal it to the public. “We kept that between us”, sums up Christian Dvorak.

“As soon as we found out, we wanted to be there for him and support him as much as possible,” says Suzuki, however.

By the time Martin St-Louis was hired in February 2022, Price’s cure had already been over for quite a while. The new head coach therefore did not see fit to discuss the situation with his goalkeeper, who played five games at the very end of the season. He reiterates, however, that his “door is always open” if his players want to chat with him.

“A team is a family,” he insists. And in a family, you pay attention all the time to the people around you, to know how they are doing. If they have problems, we must help them, […] without waiting for things to get too big. It’s important to pay attention to it, especially with young players. »

The famous “door always open” is a phrase often uttered by coaches. But beyond this principle, is it possible that coaches missed the warning signals that Price could have sent?

“Whatever the problem, whether it’s a hockey player or not, it’s the person who knows it and that’s the day they decide to talk about it, believes Ducharme. Even when you’re around someone, there are always things like that that can surprise us. It’s up to us to support him when that happens. We see the players maybe three hours a day, maximum, at the arena. The guys are spending more time together, that’s for sure. But even for them, it was a surprise. »