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In the memoir Playing with Fire, Theo Fleury has a roller coaster ride. This ride paints a picture where it seems that he has everything, money, an NHL career and a family while simultaneously he has nothing at all because his abuse is destroying everything that he cherishes. This journey relates to the poem, When Coldness Wraps This Suffering Clay.
The poem says, “When coldness wraps this suffering clay/Ah! whither strays the immortal mind?/It cannot die, it cannot stay,”(1-3). Theo’s mind and body are the clay.  The coldness that envelopes him is his sexual abuse. It wraps itself around his mind and it lives deep within through his shame and guilt of letting the abuse happen to him in order to get to the NHL. The notion of not dying and not staying, is portrayed in the memoir because Theo is determined he is not going to break down and allow the hockey world to take advantage of him again. Following one of Theo’s disappointing seasons he says,“ After a disappointing first season in New York the world was saying that I was done, so I took it as an opportunity to shove it up someone's a**”(Fleury 217).While he experiences all of the highs in his career, his games always manifest into fights with other players and rage that needs to be vented by fighting. It is almost as if the fight in the game represents the fight for his life, not dying from that internal fight that is warring within from the abuse . It also seems that Theo does not feel worthy of all of his successes because he feels like he is responsible for his sexual abuse. So how does he deal with this internal struggle, he numbs himself through drugs, alcohol and gambling. When he is doing this he feels nothing and he forgets what is going on. However, when he wakes up from these drunken nights he hopes not to remember what happened, because if he remembers, he relives the abuse that can not die and can not stay.  Via his addictions, Theo refuses to die from the rage that lives within. But he knows that he can not stay and continue his existence of denial and addiction any longer, otherwise death will be an eventuality.

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This memoir delivers a journey through emotions. The emotions that Theo expresses are very raw and unfiltered. He expresses his deep despair, his struggles and how he is on a journey to healing with the help of his wife, Jenn whom he seems to be finding a serenity with.  What surprised me the most was the reason Theo Fleury was always fighting in hockey.   I always thought that he was a tough guy for the sole reason that that is his style of hockey and that he fought to prove that despite his size he was a force to reckon with. Instead, Theo Fleury fought with demons of sexual abuse each day and these demons angered him and the game and the fights were an avenue for him to get out all of this rage inside caused by Graham James. Also, I believe that Theo was always fighting to protect not just himself ,but also if anyone did anything wrong to his teammates. “ I hit every guy that came my way,I had two secret weapons: anger and a high tolerance for pain”(Fleury 58). While he was unable to help himself as a boy or stand up for other victims initially, on the ice he could stand up to anyone who tried to hurt anyone. I was inspired that despite all his adversities of abuse and addictions he always strived to be that little boy that loved hockey and wanted to play in the NHL. After every binge, Theo always made it to every game and played to win. His memories are always about hockey and how it shaped him and destroyed him at the same time. But the joy and the relief that the game brought him almost seems to neutralize all of the destruction that it brought.  As a hockey player myself, what angered me the most about his memoir was that the associations and the teams knew about the sexual abuse and allowed it to continue for the sake of having winning teams. I feel that hockey, my team and my coaches have had such a positive impact on my life. I feel the same love of the game and spirit of competition that Theo Fleury felt. In such, it saddens me that the sport that I love allowed the continued abuse of young players fully well knowing that they could have stopped the cycle.

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This memoir Playing with Fire relates to the ongoing problem of sexual exploitation of minors. In  some cases abusers have escaped punishment for more than 30 years. Theo’s story is bringing to light the rampant sexual abuse by people of power in various industries. In sports, it has been a very serious issue especially in junior hockey. Many players have found themselves in a similar situation, according to Sports Illustrated.  A recent class action lawsuit filed by former CHL player includes mentions of hazing and sexual abuse going back 40 years.  There seems to be a pattern of how predators go about targeting their victims.  Theo describes the questions he was asked by Graham James “ By the second week, he was questioning me about my parents. What did they do? Where did I live? I was a fairly open kid,...”(Fleury 19) Young people are being taken advantage of, especially those that have dysfunctional family lives and those that have ambition but lack the resources to achieve their goals.  For example in the movie industry,
There have been countless examples of this, from Kevin Spacey to Harvey Weinstein. The hashtag Me too represents the countless acts of sexual abuse. In these situations they were both people who had a lot of influence in Hollywood and used it in the wrong way. Canadian, Peter Nygard is also an example of an influential designer that used his money and influence to sexually abuse children who felt powerless.  This is  similar to how Theo Fleury felt.  He felt a sense of  powerlessness to do anything to stop the abuse because no one would believe him or he would not get a shot in the NHL because he was a whistleblower. Many who have experienced sexual abuse are left with lasting scars for decades after the incident. While convicting these sexual predators does not change what happened to the victims, it  is a step in the right direction to setting a precedent that sexual abuse offenders will be sentenced to justice. What was once a victim’s voice silenced by shame, fear and powerlessness, has now become a voice that is heard, recognized and can become a voice for healing others and themselves. In Theo’s story once, he acknowledge the role that his sexual abuse played in how he lived his life, he could begin a path to self recovery and an journey to find serenity and not blame himself by punishing his body with bruising hockey and addictions.

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This memoir of Theo Fleury uncovers decades of sexual abuse that have happened at all levels of hockey across Canada. This story, while it is autobiographical in nature, to Theo Fleury represents the story of thousands of young boys that were exploited by adults and people in positions of power. This story can be retold by many faceless young boys who played hockey. It underscores the unwritten code of silence, where sexual predators,like Graham James, are allowed to continue to exploit children even though the various hockey associations were aware that he was abusing players. Fleury’s connection to Sheldon Kennedy connects to the facts that this crime is committed again and again by the same people. When Theo sees his parents after a long period of time his emotions are mixed, “ How could you turn your son over to a pedophile ?’ I yelled at my mom for abandoning me … All of the anger that had been building for years came spewing out,and it was ugly”(Fleury302).It is in the silence that hockey associations allow this to continue. It also underscores the fact that predators, like Graham James, target victims like Fleury and Kennedy because they know that they do not have a strong family connection and they are easy to manipulate. After Graham James also coached Joe Sakic, but Sakic was not abused by him because he did not have the same family dynamic as the others, and he felt that he could not manipulate him as easily.  Fleury’s face on the cover represents struggle within. This fire at the hands of his sexual abuser will remain within him forever. It is through the exploration and the connection of the abuse to his life and how it shaped it, that Fleury deals with playing with the fire of hell, his abuse. He slowly learns  that he was never alone and that he had to confront the abuse, not with anger and shame. But from the perspective of a boy that didn’t have the tools to cope with what was going on and get help. His story tells people that it isn’t the fault of young individuals, but the fault of many for staying silent and complacent as the lives of many young boys are ruined. 

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The personal question  from the book was “ Why wasn’t Theo Fleury able to share his abuse with the Peltz family as he seemed to have a trusting relationship with them?  Theo struggles to find someone who he can go to about the abuse he is experiencing. While it is understandable that Theo does not feel that he can turn to his mother and father because each of them are struggling with mental health and addiction issues, the Peltz family seems like his safe haven throughout the book. They represent the stability and the maternal and paternal figure that Theo is missing in his family.  The Peltz family were there for him throughout the trials and tribulations of his challenging youth and his troubling addictions in his career in the NHL.  The Peltz’s were parents, and trusted confidants to Theo Fleury. Throughout the book,  he constantly talks about the Peltz’s and how they were his rock. As a child, Mrs Peltz drove him to the hospital and to see a specialist each month after his horrific hockey injury that nearly ended his career. The Peltz’s are referred to by Theo as, “God’s angels who had been watching over me for years ”(Fleury,19) Theo’s hockey career is his main focus however, this relationship is intertwined throughout his whole journey. So the question begs why didn’t he feel that he was able to tell them about the abuse experienced at the hand of Graham James?  Theo seems to carry with him the stigma of shame and this shame that he carries within him does not allow him to tell the Peltz’s because Theo wants them to experience and bask in the success of his NHL career and his Team Canada and Olympic successes, not the shame of being abused.  Both of the Peltz’s supported him emotionally and physically to get to the NHL. If he had been able to communicate with someone like the Peltz family it would have allowed him to veer away from the spiral of alcoholism and drugs. This sense of fear, isolation and inability to act and tell the Peltz’s  at such a crucial time in his adolescence, caused a crisis of self confidence for Theo. This crisis of self confidence led him down a dark path.

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Works Cited

Byron, Lord. When Coldness Wraps This SUFFERING Clay, by Lord Byron. 11 May 2019, www.poeticous.com/byron/when-coldness-wraps-this-suffering-clay.

Campbell, Ken. Shocking Allegations in CHL Lawsuit DETAIL Sexual Abuse and 'A Deviant Culture'. 9 Dec. 2020, www.si.com/hockey/news/shocking-allegations-in-chl-lawsuit-detail-sexual-abuse-and-a-deviant-culture.

Fleury, Theo, and Kirstie McLellan Day. Playing with Fire. Triumph Books, 2009.