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One Day At A Time
After overcoming a substance abuse problem and a lifetime ban from hockey, Brandon Sugden strives to put his past behind him.

By Dan Hickling
MinorLeagueNews.com

01.27.04 - Syracuse, N.Y. -- Brandon Sugden's eyes speak silent volumes.

Every gaze taken emits a mixture of emotions.

Pain, hope, gratitude, and resignation all pour out at once, telling a story without having to resort to words.

It's through those eyes that Sugden sees the event, which three years ago threatened to end his hockey career, though ultimately helped save his life.

It was in January 2001, while playing the enforcer's role in his one and only game with the ECHL's Peoria Rivermen, that the hard-drinking Sugden came unglued.

The truth is that a hockey stick in the hands of an enraged, out of control, 6-4 muscleman can become a deadly weapon.

That it didn't, one night in Dayton, Ohio, when Sugden hurled his stick into the stands at a woman who was slinging insults at him, is something for which he is very thankful.

"I regret it every day of my life," says Sugden, who is in effect living his second life, as a winger for the Syracuse Crunch in the American Hockey League (AHL). "There's not a day goes by when I don't think about it. I see it 100 percent differently now. The lady was screaming obscenities at me, (that) were really personal, and were about the nature of my problem."

Time has had its mellowing affect on the 25-year-old Toronto native.

For nearly three years, Sugden had nothing but time on his hands as he sat on hockey's death row to ponder his misdeed.

After the incident in Dayton, Sugden was hit by the ECHL with a lifetime suspension, one that was honored by the other professional minor leagues.

Not only wouldn't Sugden be playing with Peoria, he wouldn't be playing anywhere, ever again.

For someone whose life was wrapped around hockey, being banished from the game was hard to come to terms with.

Denial turned to grief. Grief turned to anger. Anger, well, it just stayed and stewed for a while.

"I ended up working in a bar," said Sugden. "I just stayed there, and tried to get hockey sorted out of my head for a few months. Then after that, I really started to miss it, but there was nothing I could do. I got (ticked) off, because I was physically ready to go. It was pretty tough to deal with."

A Downward Spiral

Dealing with problems, especially off the ice, is something that Sugden will readily admit that he hasn't done well with in the past.

The same rage that made him such a feared fighter in juniors, and a middle-round draft choice of the St. Louis Blues in 1996, manifested into a hazy drug and booze nightmare over the years.

Matters came to a head while he was playing with Dayton in 2000, when the Bombers, out of concern and frustration, told the then 21-year-old Sugden, to go get clean.

"I was (using) a lot of substances at the time," Sugden acknowledged. "A lot of drugs. I got sent home. They told me I had to straighten my life out. When you hit rock bottom, you never really want to hit there again. I checked into rehab myself. The St. Louis Blues offered to pay for it, but I wanted to pay for it myself."

He paid all right. While Sugden was able to kick the drug use, it was alcohol that continued to keep him in its grip. Right up until that fateful night in Dayton when he did more than just shake a stick at the demons that were ganging up on him.

"I think that if I hadn't have been hung-over at the time," he said of the stick throwing incident, "and if I hadn't have been emotionally wrecked, by all the drinking, I'd have done it differently."

The Road To Recovery

Fortunately for Sugden, he wasn't left to fight his battles alone.

After going home to Toronto, he found his father Travis, a former boxer, ready to help whip him back into physical shape.

Unsure that hockey would ever welcome him back, Sugden's efforts became a king-sized leap of faith.

"It's tough to work out, when you don't know if what you're doing is going to (pay off) or not," he said. "It's tough to motivate yourself. I was working out four or five hours a day, and it could be for nothing, but there was a small chance that it could be for something. That's what kept me going."

Just as importantly, he found an influential advocate in Larry Landon, Executive Director of the Professional Hockey Players Assocation (PHPA).

Upon being first notified of the suspension, the PHPA believed it was excessive and unjustified, and therefore, decided to arbitrate the matter on Brandon’s behalf. However, the PHPA had to first win the right, via the Federal Court system, to compel the ECHL to arbitrate Sugden’s case.

For his part, Landon made a personal cause out of getting Sugden reinstated.

"Being a former player myself," Landon said, "I know how short a player's career can be. When Brandon was being denied a chance to work at his, I felt we had to (mount) an appeal."

Landon realized that the implications of the suspension reached far beyond the ice rink.

"We weren't just talking about his career," stated Landon. "His whole life was on the line. Any court would have given him a second chance."

Brandon believes the support group formed by his family and Landon was the driving force behind his attempt to get back into hockey.

"They were the ones who put in the time and effort," Sugden said. "I thank (them) so much for doing it. Everyone around me helped. There was only so much I could do. I had to concentrate on working out, staying in shape, and staying clean. I didn't want to get my head going in too many directions."

Sugden was healthy and chemical free when he received word on October 15, 2003 that an arbitrator had overturned the ECHL's lifetime ban, ruling "that a lifetime suspension is an extremely severe penalty that far exceeds that which may be imposed by most employers. A lifetime suspension also amounts to the potential loss of the opportunity to play on other professional hockey leagues thus a lifetime suspension can amount to a loss of a career. This penalty is thus so severe that it must be reserved for the most egregious offenses."

Brandon admits to being taken aback when word of his emancipation came down. Talk about getting high. The good news produced a feeling that topped anything artificially induced.

"It was unbelievable," he said. "The thing about it was that the decision was supposed to come within 48 hours of my hearing. It took three weeks. I was going nuts. When I finally heard, and Larry Landon called me, I had tears in my eyes. I think Larry had tears in his eyes, too. It was an unbelievable feeling."

Landon, who had placed the call to Sugden while stopping for gas, confessed that his eyes were growing moist during the emotional phone conversation.

"I was crying and pumping gas at the same time," Landon said. "My staff members were wondering what I was crying about. But it was one of the best phone calls I've ever made."

Sugden was made a free agent, and was promptly snapped up by Syracuse, who inked him to a tryout contract. Later the Crunch ripped up that deal and replaced it with a full year's AHL pact.

The job security is gratifying he said, but for now, he'd rather not look too far down the road. He's seen too much already.

"The way I live my life now is one day at a time," Brandon said. "The games, staying sober, everything. You start thinking too much in the future, you go crazy."

"He had a cloud over his head," said Landon. "We removed the cloud, and (Syracuse) gave him an opportunity. The (on ice) battles he is fighting now pales in comparison to the ones he's already fought."