Montreal Canadiens superstar goaltender Carey Price has finally shed some light on the issues that led him to seek help and step away from hockey last season.
In an interview with The Athletic’s Arpon Basu, Price spoke about his struggle with alcoholism that drove him to enter the NHL/NHLPA Player Assistance Program just over a year ago.
“I think after we lost in the (2021) Finals and coming close to a goal and having a surgery, and knowing I’m right on the 18th hole (of my career) here, I was not a happy person, I wasn’t being a good father. I was drinking a lot,” Price said. “I just got to a point where I was like, ‘I’m not even having fun doing this.’ Like, ‘what am I doing?’ I felt like I was getting to a point in my life where I had to make a decision.”
That point came in early October, when the 35-year-old decided he had to make a change and get help.
“It would have been Oct. 3, and waking up, I was in a pretty bad place,” he told Basu. “And I was just like, you know what? This isn’t working for me; it’s not working for my family.”
By the following Thursday on Oct. 7, Price had voluntarily admitted himself into a residential rehabilitation facility.
Basu gave Price the opportunity to avoid the topic in their interview, but the Vancouver native was eager to talk about it.
“I think most of it, I see it in sports and high stress positions, there’s a lot of pressure on athletes these days, I think even more so with social media, media attention, you’re always under the microscope,” he said. “And I think no matter how good you are at dealing with it, it’s still a weight on your mind, the pressure to perform.
“It’s not easy to do that day in, day out. Yeah, it’s a fun job, but you’re still doing a job and having to perform at a peak level every day. It’s something that you strive to do as an athlete, you enjoy doing it, but it’s not particularly easy to do, especially when things aren’t going well.”
The 2015 Hart and Vezina Trophy winner had to adapt to a new lifestyle and take on new challenges in the months following his rehab.
“Once I left the facility, it’s something new, you’re excited about it. But that next six months, I felt like it was on my mind a lot, I was thinking about it a lot,” Price said. “Not to say I was ready to jump off the wagon, but I can see why the success rate, it’s not that great. But I look at my kids every day and to be able to not be wasting mornings of my life anymore and able to wake up on Sunday morning and cook my kids pancakes is something very fulfilling to me.”
Price also understands the importance of speaking publicly about his alcoholism, and the impact the conversation can have on First Nations communities in particular — a group he holds near and dear as a descendant of the Ulkatcho First Nation.
“Substance abuse has been a very big issue in First Nations communities. I’ve had friends and family that have passed away from it,” he said. “So, I could have done this privately. Nobody ever would have known about it. But at the end of the day, I wanted to be able to show it’s OK to ask for help.”
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Price shed light on his current injury status and his uncertain playing future.
“We’ll have to take it step by step. I don’t have a plan to retire right at this moment,” Price said. “Right now, my goal is just to be pain-free from day to day. I’m still having some issues getting up and down stairs and carrying my kids up and down stairs is difficult. So my first priority is just to get my body pain-free in just day-to-day living.
“There’s that outside hope of a miracle happening, that maybe I could come back out and play at some point.”
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