Why did tootoo go to rehab

He says it was cathartic to tell his story. I think it helped my family understand how things are and why things were the way they were. I told them that I'm grateful for every experience that I've had. It has made me who I am today.

Today, Tootoo is a husband and father first and a hockey player second. Living in former Hawks forward Andrew Shaw's house not far from the United Center, Tootoo, 34, has settled in domestically.

Not until maybe a year into my sobriety … did I begin seeing life from a different perspective. Jen Tootoo, who married Jordin in , described her husband's transformation from party animal to tea-drinking family man as "mind-blowing. Not that I didn't love the guy he was before, but you just didn't even know him really. You didn't get on that level of a deeper kind of connection. When you have a past and an upbringing that has made you who you are, well, there are always things to work on and changing habits and breaking the past and the cycle.

He has done a really good job of communicating and learning those skills. He puts so many people first. He's honorable. Everyone respects him. He's a man of his word and he knows who he is as a person. That respect extends into the Hawks dressing room, where Tootoo is a mentor to some of the team's young players after signing a one-year, free-agent contract last summer. He also earns it on the ice protecting teammates. I know I can play the game, but my foundation is being a physical presence out there.

Before when I played it was out of anger and frustration and I didn't really give a damn about my health, but for me now it's more of being a character guy and being a good teammate for the young guys. Mentally, it's a grind. It's not easy being a pro athlete. Of course, the first thing I did was deny any wrongdoing. It had been a team party and of course I was singled out of the twenty guys that were having a good time, because people know who I am.

He gave me an ultimatum. He said:. But I still had to go through a process where they monitor you for a week. I had arrived in the middle of the night, when everyone was sleeping. Do I look like these people? What the [expletive] is going on? These people are in here for hardcore crap: heroin, cocaine. We all had problems and we were all trying to fix them.

I was there to fix myself. He eventually was bought out, but was scooped up by the Devils after a training camp tryout. After two and a half years with the 49ers and zero games played, Jalen Hurd has been released. The 49ers announced today that they have released Hurd, who had been on injured reserve. A talented athlete who had [more].

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Steph had a great reaction as Anthony Edwards told him he was chasing a milestone in Wednesday night's Warriors-T-Wolves game. Gobert and Turner had a legitimate scuffle it wasn't a fight. I said that it hadn't been me.

I played the "popular" card. It had been at a team party and of course I was singled out of the twenty guys that were having a good time, because people know who I am. Poile had heard all of that too many times before, and he wasn't buying it anymore. He gave me an ultimatum. He said, "If you don't accept what we're offering you, we've got to let you go. You're damaging our team. You have to enter the NHLPA substance abuse program and go into rehab or we're going to cut you, and everyone will know why.

Right then and there, I decided I wasn't going to fight it anymore. I said, "F, I'm done. Let's go. I didn't tell a f soul. On December 20, I went to a facility in Nashville to have what they called an assessment. I told Troy that I had a meeting and had to leave for a few hours, but I didn't tell him where I was going.

But I think he knew something was going down. We played our next game on December 23 and I just went about my business without saying a thing. We played on December 26 in St. Nobody knew that I was going to get shipped out. I played on December 26 and kept my cool.

I played, like, seventeen f minutes. On December 27, I had breakfast with Troy and his family, and then they went to the airport to fly home. That afternoon, I shipped out. I didn't have a drink during that period. I didn't want to touch alcohol. It wasn't like, I'm going to rehab, so I want to get trashed one last time. I was done. After my meeting with Poile, he had contacted the National Hockey League Players' Association, and they had taken care of the arrangements through their substance abuse program.

My contact was a guy named Dan Cronin. They sent a chaperone to pick me up and make sure I didn't miss my flight. I was thinking I was going to be away for a month, so I'd better buy an iPad and download a bunch of movies and some games -- stuff to keep me busy while I was at this facility.

The chaperone took me to the Apple Store and said, "Get whatever you need, no problem. The only people who knew what was going on were Poile and [coach Barry] Trotz. Not even my family or teammates knew. The team held a press conference that afternoon in Nashville, but only after I'd jumped on the plane. I went into the program with an open mind. I wasn't in denial.