These days, Theo Fleury is finding harmony. Really.
The 42-year-old former NHL hockey star is now a budding singing star. And songwriter.
On Sunday, on Battle of the Blades, Fleury and partner, Jamie Salé, will skate to Fleury's first musical composition, a song called As The Story Goes. He sings it himself, and his voice is strong and clear and good. It's country and western night at Battle of the Blades, and it may be a little-known fact that Fleury grew up with song and it's now busting out.
"I grew up around music," he said on Friday. "Every Sunday, we'd go to my uncle's farm in small-town Manitoba and we're a Métis family and one thing about Métis culture, it's all about music."
He'd listen to the fiddles, the guitars, the spoons, the jigging. In every home in which he has lived, there has been a karaoke machine at the ready. "And obviously, I've been through a lot of stuff, which makes really good lyrics and good music," he said
At first, he wanted to name his tune The Backward Ass Country Song. But when he hooked up with Canadian musician Phil Deschambault, who had just read his frank book Playing with Fire, Fleury decided to follow his new friend's advice.
Fleury had a heartfelt message to impart: No matter how hard we fall, we can always make it back.
"And the experience of getting your life back together makes you a quality human being," he said. "You've got so much more to give."
He calls the song As the Story Goes, because his life isn't over yet.
"Like an old country song, like Conway Twitty saying make believe, I'll be the man trying hard," the song goes.
Fleury is learning all kinds of new things about himself since he decided to take up the Battle of the Blades. He is the oldest of the hockey players on the show. But he was the first to sign up, after Salé jokingly asked him if he wanted to give the show a try, while sitting beside him at the Conn Smythe dinner last January in Toronto.
"Theo seems like an all-or-nothing guy," said choreographer Lori Nichol, who worked with Salé and Fleury last week. "He's so willing to just love and give. I have incredible respect for what Theo has gone through and what he stands for now."
With his experiences of dealing with sexual abuse and overcoming it, Fleury said he has learned that the majority of the world is not very comfortable in its skin. "And I was one of those people," he said. "Today I am [comfortable] because I don't care what you think of me. I know who I am. All of my friends know who I am."
And who is he?
"I'm a guy that's been through a lot of stuff," he said. "I think after the abuse happened, I just took hold of the abuse and I was abusing myself for a long time. I don't do that any more. I'm gentle and loving with myself. I don't try to do that to people around me.
"I just want to help now. I want to help as many people as I can to get to the same peace and happiness that I have found in my life, because there were lots of times when I couldn't see that ever happening, that I could ever be comfortable in my own skin."
On the Battle of the Blades, Fleury lays his soul out on the line, emoting for all the world to see. "He's a performer," Nichol said. "And he thrives on it. He didn't know either, to that extent."