Apologies for beginning with inside information, but I’ve been planning a series for the summer where we’d remember and revisit some Caps players of the past. The very first player on my list was Chris Simon. Simon was a Washington Capital in the years when my fandom became radicalized, and he was the biggest reason why it happened.
Like other fans my age, I was exposed to hockey through the Mighty Ducks movies. I rollerbladed, I watched the glow puck, I admired Wayne Gretzky. But hockey was still a remote culture to me — I couldn’t play the game, and I didn’t have a nice enough TV to watch the games. I went to one Caps-Flyers game in Landover, but it didn’t stick.
Then, in 1999, my friend John and his father took me to see the home opener between the Capitals and Kings. It was a tie, which was a thing you could do back then, but I was not disappointed. Simon tied the game late in regulation, his first of a team-leading 29 goals that season. And he made a more lasting impression before the goal. Through good fortune, we had good seats along the glass near the ice resurfacer entrance, which meant lots of leg room and more importantly an intimate view of Simon’s violence.
In those days, most players wouldn’t necessarily finish every body check. It was an era of mostly restraining penalties, and when a hit into the boards meant gliding the target in front of you into a controlled collision. You let ’em know you were there, for sure, but you didn’t smear them into the glass. Chris Simon’s policy was different. He was full-force, full-speed, all the time. I was front row to Simon punishing any Kings player who had the puck near our corner. He also punished some Kings players who had already passed the puck. He also punished some Kings players who might not even have had the puck at all. He crushed guys, towards me, with alarming force. It was violent and exhilarating. I was transfixed. In that moment, I became a fan for life.
Simon played on the edge, but he was on the edge of everything. He was Ojibwe in a white sport. He feuded with his head coach, leading to a team suspension in 1998. He was striking, tall and imposing, with bright, piercing eyes and long hair that was unmistakable even from a distance — and even on my small TV screen. He was a forerunner of a more physical era of NHL hockey, the finish-every-check era, while also a member of an already diminishing class of fighting enforcers. Bruce Arthur writes that Simon fought 115 times in his 15-year career — one fight for every seven games he played.
Those fights and Simon’s physicality eventually eclipsed his scoring. After he got 16 assists from Adam Oates in 1999-2000, his scoring diminished in the next few seasons and fully crashed once he left the Caps in 2002. He became one-dimensional, and that dimension was hurting people.
In 2007, Simon swung his stick with both hands into the head of Ryan Hollweg.
That assault earned Simon a 25-game suspension and effectively ended his NHL career. He played part of the next season and then was done forever in the NHL.
By that time, fights were already on the decline in the NHL, but finishing every check had became the rule, not the exception. That is part of Simon’s legacy. Meanwhile, passions in Washington had recovered after Simon’s exit and the ensuing fire sale and found new purchase in Alex Ovechkin, who combined Simon’s big hits — more than 200 a season — with record-level scoring. Hard-hitting Tom Wilson joined the Caps years later, as the league began in earnest a long-overdue reckoning with its brutality. There are still those who play on the edge (two on the Rangers), but most like Wilson have moderated their styles, as discipline has – very slowly – grown more consistent.
Simon’s post-NHL career was sad. He was bankrupt and depressed, fighting chronic pain in his upper body and post-traumatic stress. He was alone in a practical sense, but he was not alone in that experience. Derek Boogaard, Steve Montador, and Simon’s one-time fighting partner Bob Probert were all confirmed to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, after their deaths. Wade Belak and Rick Rypien both died by suicide. Daniel Carcillo has dedicated his post-playing career to coping with head injuries.
Through a statement, Simon’s family says they “strongly [believe] and witnessed firsthand that Chris struggled immensely from CTE which unfortunately resulted in his death.”
“We are grieving with the loss of our son, brother, father, partner, teammate and friend.”
The very thing that drew me to hockey has killed lots of its players. It killed the person who first drew me to the sport. I don’t know how to feel about that, except sad. I loved Chris Simon. He was compelling and charismatic. He looked like a comic book antihero on the ice and played like one too. He was thrilling to watch, and he brought me happiness, and on a long time delay it cost him his life.
The sport has changed since those days, but not enough. Hockey as a culture, the NHL as a corporation, and even we as a fan community all bear some responsibility for the misery visited on these players and all the support they have been denied. I wish Simon had the same joy in his life that his playing brought me when I was young, but I guess those two things are not compatible. I’m heartbroken.
Rest in peace, Chris.
