The same thought has crossed the mind of several people in recent days – people who knew Claude Lemieux and people who saw him earlier this week: ‘Did Monday night trigger something?’
That was what author and NHL historian Liam Maguire asked when he spoke to the Daily Mail in the wake of Lemieux’s shocking suicide.
Rejean Tremblay has wondered the same. The veteran hockey writer, who knew Lemieux for years, told the New York Post: ‘It’s possible that surge of love, that wave of love on Monday evening, triggered an emotion that was too intense.’
We may never be able to connect the dots. We may never know what changed over those five days in May – between Game 3 and Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final between the Montreal Canadiens and Carolina Hurricanes.
Lemieux was honored at both: on Monday night, the 60-year-old was greeted by thunderous cheers as he carried the ceremonial torch in Montreal; on Friday night in Raleigh, fans mourned his death.
By then, the search for answers had started. Theories had begun to develop and details had begun to emerge. But there remains so much to untangle: what led a four-time Stanley Cup champion, one of the most celebrated and controversial figures in hockey, to take his own life?
Lemieux carries the torch in the opening ceremony of Game 3 of the NHL’s ECF
Hockey historian Liam Maguire (left) is pictured with ex-Canadiens teammates Claude Lemieux (center) and Chris Nilan (right) before a playoff game against the Carolina Hurricanes on May 25. Lemieux was found dead in Florida three days later after a suspected suicide
Maguire was among the last people to speak to Lemieux. He was there on Monday, when Lemieux returned to the Canadiens, where the Quebec native spent seven strong seasons and won a Stanley Cup title.
‘I said, “Geez, you look great, I don’t even think you’re five pounds over playing weight,”‘ he told The Daily Mail. ‘He laughed and just said he was running a business in Florida, doing some stuff, and living life. And I mean, it’s so ironic to say that now that he’s gone.’
Three days later, Lemieux’s body was discovered by his son at the family’s furniture business in Palm Beach County. He had hanged himself.
‘It might have reawakened old pains, old suffering,’ Tremblay told the Post about Lemieux’s night as torch bearer. It didn’t seem that way to Lemieux’s clients. Lemieux worked as a player agent, representing players such as Hurricanes goaltender Frederik Andersen and Golden Knights star Rasmus Andersson.
They will face off in next month’s Stanley Cup Final but both detailed their heartache after losing the man who helped guide their career. Andersen struggled to contain his emotions after Friday’s game in Raleigh; he described Lemieux as ‘like family’ and said he ‘has the biggest heart.’
Andersson heard from Lemieux on Wednesday. They had reportedly known each other since the Vegas star was 13 and they spoke most days, plotting the next move in Andersson’s career. ‘We laid out a plan,’ he told the Las Vegas-Review Journal this week. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I got the call.’
Not even his family had a sense that tragedy lay around the corner, apparently. According to a friend, Colombe Lacroix, Lemieux had been ‘depressed’ and going through ‘a difficult time.’ But, Lacroix told the Post, his loved ones ‘never saw it coming.’
So what had been troubling Lemieux? According to the Post, the NHL legend had – at one point – gone ten years without speaking to his children, which Tremblay said ‘hurt him tremendously.’ Then there was his snub from the Hockey Hall of Fame.
He won the 1986 Stanley Cup with the Canadiens as a rookie – his first of four titles
Lemieux’s son Brendan paid a heartbreaking tribute to the NHL legend after his death
Lemieux in 1991 during a game against the Minnesota North Stars
‘It’s ridiculous that he’s not [in],’ Maguire told the Daily Mail. ‘It’s only because the Hall of Fame is a political entity. The first-ballot guys are rubber-stamped, the ones who anybody would say is a no-brainer.
‘When you get to the next level down, then you have to check off boxes, and Claude doesn’t check them all off because he didn’t play nice.’
Tremblay told the Post that Lemieux never got over the ‘injustice,’ adding: ‘The sense of rejection ran deeper than one might have imagined.’
One of only 11 players to win Stanley Cups with three different teams, Lemieux earned Conn Smythe Trophy honors with the New Jersey Devils as the 1995 playoff MVP. But while he’s celebrated by fans of the Canadiens, Devils and Colorado Avalanche, he’s widely hated by many others over allegations of dirty play.
Lemieux’s infamous hit on Kris Draper in Game 6 of the 1996 Western Conference Finals left the Detroit Red Wings center with a concussion as well as a broken nose, collarbone and jaw. Fallout from the incident spilled into subsequent seasons as Draper’s teammate, Darren McCarty, tangled with Lemieux on several occasions.
Lemieux and McCarty would later bury the hatchet in a series of public events aimed at raising money for charity. Still, even in death, Lemieux’s violent past remained difficult to ignore.
‘This is extremely sad no matter what feelings from past or present you hold,’ McCarty wrote on X after learning of the tragedy. ‘My thoughts and prayers to his family and friends and people who got to see the person off the ice wasn’t the person on [it].’
Even on Monday, when Lemieux was re-introduced to Maguire by former Canadiens forward Chris ‘Knuckles’ Nilan, the hockey historian sensed some nagging reservations over the player’s past.
‘Chris introduces me as this hockey know-it-all,’ Maguire said. ‘For a split second I thought on [Lemieux’s] face I could sort of sense that he was thinking, “Oh God, please, please don’t go there. Please don’t say anything about the Draper hit…” It was something with his body language.’
Ex-Red Wings enforcer Darren McCarty fought Lemieux several times, but still remembered his rival fondly, saying the Quebec native was a different person away from the game
Lemieux won a Stanley Cup and Conn Smythe honors as playoff MVP with the Devils in 1995
Maguire did not talk to him about the Draper hit or another incident when Montreal coach Pat Burns accused Lemieux of diving before refusing to allow trainers to treat his ailing star.
Such memories, Maguire felt, still caused pain for Lemieux.
‘I think it was something that he always had to live with,’ said Maguire, who thinks Lemieux was still trying to change the perception of his career. ‘I think that’s why he did all the [charity events with McCarty].’
Monday’s heart-warming torch ceremony also seemed like an effort to change his ferocious on-ice reputation.
‘He could have said “no” to doing the torch, because he knows that regardless of how well it’s going to be received… there’ll be some dialog: “Why are you bringing that piece of s*** out here?”‘ Maguire said.
Instead, Lemieux embraced the moment and showed his affection for the fans who remember him with love instead of vitriol.
‘Getting that in front of 22,000 people, the full-on adulation he hadn’t gotten in 20, 25 years,’ Maguire wondered, ‘did it trigger something?’
Sadly, suicide among former hockey players is not uncommon. For instance, in 2024, Lemieux’s former Colorado Avalanche teammate Chris Simon took his own life at 52. Simon has since been posthumously diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), the degenerative brain disease linked to repeated head trauma.
Lemieux addressed Simon’s suicide at a December reunion celebrating Colorado’s 1996 Stanley Cup title.
Lemieux won four Stanley Cups with three different teams over his illustrious career
Lemieux and his future Devils teammate Scott Stevens collide in New Jersey in 1991
‘It’s very difficult, and especially with Chris passing at such a young age,’ Lemieux said. ‘We have to count our blessings — be grateful for the days that we have and enjoy and appreciate those times when we get together.’
It’s too early to say if Lemieux’s death has any similarities with Simon’s, or how Monday’s profoundly emotional scene in Montreal impacted his final days.
But in ‘the hope that Claude’s life can continue to help others,’ Lemieux’s family is donating his brain to the UNITE Brain Bank at the Boston University CTE Center.
‘This decision is a gift to science, to athletes, and to future generations of families seeking answers,’ a statement read. ‘No conclusions should be drawn at this time regarding any diagnosis.’
Lemieux is survived by his wife, Deborah, and his four children. On his trip to Montreal this week, reports claim, the NHL legend saw his own parents for the final time.
And during Monday’s outpouring of love, Lemieux’s famously stoic face was briefly replaced with a slight grin as he carried the torch at the Bell Centre.
While he was never enshrined in Toronto alongside so many other Hall of Famers, Lemieux did cultivate his own admirable legacy, as some more astute fans can attest.
‘At the end of the day, he’s one of the most ferocious, fiercest competitors and winners in hockey history,’ Maguire said of the four-time Stanley Cup champion. ‘That’s how I’m going to remember him. In the realm of the world that I hang my hat on as a hockey historian, that’s who he was.’
If you or someone you know needs help, please call or text the confidential 24/7 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline in the US on 988. There is also an online chat available at 988lifeline.org.
