Former NHL Enforcer Lived Out of His Truck

Stephen Peat was born in Princeton, British Columbia, and built a hockey career as an enforcer, a player known for fighting. He played 130 games for the Washington Capitals between 2001 and 2005, collecting 234 penalty minutes. The Carolina Hurricanes acquired him in December 2005 because of that toughness, but injuries sent him to the minor leagues and he retired in 2007.

Life after hockey did not settle easily. According to a National Post interview published in December 2017, he held only brief jobs in construction and motorcycle repair and twice failed a real-estate course. By then he was 37 and, since the spring, had been without a home in the Surrey area of British Columbia. He rotated between motels, short-term rentals, the home of his female companion's parents and the cab of his 2005 pickup truck.

Peat linked his struggles to the repeated concussions he suffered in hockey, citing headaches, memory loss and anxiety. He also described a strained relationship with his father over money from the sale of a rebuilt family home, a point his father disputed. He said he had gone through rehabilitation programmes and had been clean since October 2016, while acknowledging a relapse, and that he was taking medication for anxiety and depression.

He felt the NHL had abandoned him, although he had received several thousand dollars from the league's emergency assistance fund. The interview does not say how his housing situation was later resolved.

His account was an unusually open one for a former professional athlete, and it appeared in the paper under the headline of fighting, homelessness and brain troubles.