Former 67’s winger and 15-year NHLer dead at 52

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No player in the last 40 years, if ever, has come through Ottawa with the combination of size, toughness and talent that were the trademarks of Chris Simon.

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Hockey fans in these parts don’t need to be told that. They witnessed all of what Simon brought to the rink — the good, the bad and the vicious — in his three-plus seasons as a power forward with the 67’s, then 15 more with eight different teams in the NHL.

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What they may not know is that along with the silky smooth hands and thunderous shot, and underneath the rough, intimidating exterior, Simon was a very sweet, thoughtful and caring big man who was proud of his Ojibwe decent and loved nothing more than fishing with his grampa back home in Wawa, Ont.

He was also fiercely loyal.

“I’ll tell you a story about how he was as a teammate,” legendary 67’s coach Brian Kilrea said Wednesday, harkening back to an evening in Niagara Falls when his toughest players were best friends from northern Ontario — the 6-foot-3 Simon and defenceman Jeff Ricciardi, a Thunder Bay product who was generously listed at 5-foot-11. “Niagara Falls had a pretty good team and it was a competitive game. Their tough guy, who was about 6-foot-1, started a fight with Ricciardi, who would fight anybody but was only about 5-foot-9. Well this guy, he hit Ricciardi with a few punches, and I’ll never forget it. (Side note: Unless it was a different game, I’ll never forget it, either. The player was Brad May. The press box at the arena in Niagara Falls was close to the ice and the fight was right under us. The haymakers thrown were so hard that a Maple Leafs scout, the late George Armstrong, jumped up from his seat and spilled his coffee).

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“Jeff came to the bench (after his five in the box) and said, ‘Can you leave me off for a shift or two?’ He said, ‘I took a few knocks and I don’t feel right,’ ” continued Kilrea. “So he just sat on the bench and Simon, who happened to hear him, said to me, ‘I’m going to go get that guy.’  I said, ‘Chris, it’s a one-goal game. You want to get him, that’s up to you, but let’s put the game first.’

“Anyway, Simon went out on his next shift, stickhandled around everybody and scored a goal. He came back to the bench and as everybody was congratulating him, stopped and said to me, ‘Now can I get him?’ True story. Next time he was out that guy was on the ice. They had a fight and Chris Simon beat him pretty badly. I could almost hear him saying, ‘That’s for Ricciardi.’ ”

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Sadly, Chris Simon passed away this week in his hometown at the age of 52.

In a statement released Tuesday night, the family confirmed that he died by suicide, and also added:

“The family strongly believes and witnessed firsthand that Chris struggled immensely from with CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a degenerative brain disease), which unfortunately resulted in his death. We are grieving with the loss of our son, brother, father, partner, teammate and friend. The entire Wawa community is sharing in our grief.”

Yes, another athlete, another fighter who took too many shots to the head, gone far too soon.

“Chris’ passing is tragic, it’s sad,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said when asked for a comment at the GM meetings in Florida, per Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff. “We extend our deepest condolences to his family and friends. And, you know, on all of these matters, we wait to see what the medical experts tell us. Having said that, I think it’s well documented with all of the progress that we’ve made over the last couple of decades to make the game as safe as possible.”

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A second-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers in 1990, Simon scored 144 goals and 161 assists in 782 games with the Quebec Nordiques, Colorado Avalanche, Washington Capitals, Chicago Blackhawks, New York Rangers, Calgary Flames, New York Islanders and Minnesota Wild.

He also played five seasons in the KHL before retiring in 2013.

Simon had 115 fights (regular season and post-season combined) and racked up 1,824 penalty minutes, which currently has him 67th on the all-time list, as well as eight suspensions totalling 65 games, including a 25-game ban for cross-checking the Rangers’ Ryan Holleweg in the face in March 2007 and a 30-game sentence for stomping on the leg of Pittsburgh’s Jarkko Ruutu three months into the following season.

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“He was competitive,” said Kilrea. “He just hated to lose, and I think that drove him.

“He will always be remembered, because as good as he was and as tough as he was, he was just a gentle giant.”

Away from the game, the soft-spoken Simon had his struggles.

Married twice and with five children, he filed for bankruptcy in 2017, saying he was unable to work due to what he believed were symptoms of CTE attributable to significant brain trauma during his hockey career.

A doctor confirmed that he had anxiety and depression, which were among the symptoms in those who had been found to have suffered from CTE.

“Sad to hear of the passing of my former teammate and roommate,” Theo Fleury wrote on X. “RIP big man.”

Simon was very raw as a 16-year old with the 67’s, but it was clear from the outset he had a bright future in the game.

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“For a big, tough player, he was also a very kind, caring individual who was always respectful and grateful for advice,” his former agent, Larry Kelly, said on DailyMail.com.

When Simon strayed off course with the 67’s, before he quit drinking, Kilrea traded him closer to home as a favour to the family.

The move might have saved Simon’s career.

“His dad, John Simon, was a super gentleman,” said Kilrea. “When Chris was having a little bit of trouble here in Ottawa, his dad asked me if I could trade him to the Soo, closer to Wawa, where it would be possible for him to go down and maybe help him. He also had Teddy Nolan (Greyhounds coach, who is also from the Ojibwe tribe) there, and maybe he could help Chris. I said to the dad, ‘Gee,’ I said, ‘it’s tough for me to trade a guy as good as he was and also probably the toughest guy in the league.’  But anyway, I did trade him to Teddy Nolan and the dad made his visits to try to help Chris along.”

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The Greyhounds went on to play for the Memorial Cup in Seattle, and in the final against Kamloops Simon scored with just under four minutes left to tie the game. Overtime was narrowly avoided when Zack Boyer’s goal with 14.6 seconds gave the Blazers the championship.

Simon did go on to win the Stanley Cup with the the Avalanche in 1996, and also helped Washington and Calgary get to the final in 1998 and 2004.

“When he first joined us, we weren’t sure if he’d make the team or not,” said Kilrea. “But he could give and take a pass, and with his shooting, you could see he had talent. So we kept him and he developed into a pretty good hockey player.”

Simon very much appreciated the impact his first junior coach had on his career.  When he was in the NHL, he always asked Ottawa reporters how Killer was doing. After one game, the two met up at a local bar at the suggestion of Simon, who said he would not be tempted to fall off the wagon.

He didn’t.

Simon is the second big-personality 67’s player to die in the last two years. Lance Galbraith was killed in a car accident 23 months ago.

“Two guys who were different in size, but had the the same desire,” said Kilrea. “They put winning first and did everything to help us win.”

dbrennan@postmedia.com

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