Jim Kelley

Jim Kelley writes regularly on the NHL for Sportsnet.ca and can be heard on Primetime Sports on the FAN590.

There's a tragedy in the fact that Bob Probert chose not to try and be the best he could be.

Friday, after morning church services and a trip to the cemetery, the family and friends of Bob Probert will carry him to his final resting place.

One can only hope he will also be at peace.

For many, perhaps most of his 45 years on earth, the former Detroit Red Wings winger and enforcer never could seem to find what most of us truly seek. His life was troubled by drugs and alcohol. His career was troubled by the same elements and, according to some who knew him better than me, by expectations that he had the talent, but not quite the will to be what the Red Wings and others envisioned.

Even in his post-hockey life, a period when he discovered the joys of family and the rewards of a solid marriage and a network of caring friends, one got the sense that Probert, a near perfect blend of size, speed, gifted touch and physical ability to play the game anyway you wanted to play it, was still mentally tortured by the conflict of who he was when measured against what others expected him to be.

It's understandable. If one were looking for an appropriate inscription for the stone that should forever mark his spot it could easily be: "Peace at Last."

But it could also be “He Could Have Been…”

And there lies both the tragedy and the reality of the life of Robert A. Probert.

It's not nice nor considered proper to speak ill of the dead, especially in the days they are being mourned and sent to their eternal rest. I could easily make this a column all about how Probert "wrestled with his demons" and was "taken from us much too soon." That's true, on both counts. Bob Probert in his life after hockey did seem to find happiness with his children and his extended family. He seemed to have something of a handle, or at the very least, some measure of control over the "demons" that led him to places no father, frankly no sensible person, would ever want to visit.

He was good to children and his charity work, while both a hockey player and a "regular guy", is the stuff not of the false legend we see so often from athletes who make "donations" that are little more than tax adjustments for their substantial income. Probert's contributions in that regard were real. They were done in a way that allowed him to avoid the spotlight and they came about for the best reason of all; because he cared.

A one-hour special on ESPN to announce what he might do with the next few years of his life AND benefit a children's charity that just might help him avoid being booed in his home town a la LeBron "The King" James was not his style.

Probert eventually found the joy of family and helped kids anytime and in any way he could. He visited troops in the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan not because the cameras were there and it would "extend the brand," but because the NHL asked him and because he thought it might help them even more than him.

That's all part of a life well lived and the fact that Probert came to that realization somewhat late in what proved to be a life too short, well, I and countless others should commend him for it.

But it also must be said that in a life where lessons learned came hard and at a gut-wrenching cost, Probert missed a true opportunity: He could have been great but he chose to go in another direction.

You can argue that he didn't have a choice, that he was a victim of chemical abuse and that the abuse turned to addiction and the addiction left him helpless. I can accept a part of that; addiction can have that kind of impact on one's life. You can state with some certainty that his "demons" led him to do real time for his real crimes and I'll buy part of that argument as well. Addiction is real and once down that path, even with the best intentions of not going far or not going so far as to hurt oneself or others, at some point it becomes damn near impossible to turn around.

But there is a point in time, usually fairly early in the journey, when the abuser has a choice and Probert made the wrong one.

Probert wasn't just big and tough, he was good. He had talent and those who know talent will tell you that he could have been more than an enforcer or even a protector of Red Wings like Steve Yzerman and company. In all honesty he could have been Detroit's version of Cam Neely, the prototypical power forward in the game. He had the size to play that way and he had the speed to get to the net with the best the Red Wings could put on the ice. Fifty goals, at least 50 goals in 50 games might have been a stretch, but 40 goals would not have been beyond his reach and 40 goals from a player who could also control the corners and the front of the net and cause fear in opponents merely by stepping on the ice is a rare thing in the NHL.

Neely had a game like that and he was smaller. Clark Gillies had a game like that and he's in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Tim Kerr didn't have anywhere near the skating ability that Probert had and he did all right in his time with the Philadelphia Flyers. So too did John Leclair.

There was a time, early in his career, when Probert could have chosen a different path. He could have accepted the help the Red Wings so often offered. He could have listened to the professionals they put in front of him, both on the hockey side and on the medical and psychiatric side. He could have come to grips with his known problems before they consumed him and set both his career and his life off in a different direction.

It wouldn't have been easy, but it could have been possible. Unlike the brown-bag homeless man on the corner or the crack-addled smoker whose life consists of finding cash for another rock and not much else, Probert had help if he wanted it. He had people who cared and who could provide whatever resources necessary to turn both his career and his life around.

Probert chose not to go there. He chose not to pay that price.

He fought for others, but not for himself.

Usually there is something noble in that but in this case I don't see it.

In this case there's a tragedy in the fact that Probert - at a point in his life where real change was possible - chose not to try and be the best he could be. I suspect he knew it every day of his hockey and post-hockey life.

That's not a burden one carries lightly: It's one most men would carry to their grave.

With that in mind, one can only hope Bob Probert truly does have peace at last.