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00:01Five seconds left in the game. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!
00:06He is moving like a tremendous machine. Secretariat by 12.
00:19Kerry Strzok has won the gold medal for the United States team.
00:24The greatest goal scorer in National Hockey League history.
00:27Michael Johnson's playing to the bottom.
00:30That is the Olympic history. He destroys his world record.
00:50Hello, I'm Chris Fowler for SportsCentury.
00:52Eric Lindros looked like something the hockey gods had assembled with great care.
00:58But with all that ability came vulnerability as well.
01:01There were concussions to go with the hat tricks.
01:04And there was unending controversy to accompany the splattering checks.
01:08Most of his still young life was spent in a fishbowl.
01:12And over the next 30 minutes, we'll take you there.
01:21From the very earliest part of his life, people have always wanted a piece of him.
01:25And I think that that's made him suspicious and it's made him draw into himself and draw very close to
01:30his family.
01:31What he needs to do more than anything is to jettison that image of the pampered daddy and mommy's boy.
01:37And then when he steps out of that shadow, that's when he will have completely won the battle.
01:42He's been handed a package of gifts so profound and has made decisions that are so far reaching, he can't
01:48outrun his past.
01:50He's Shakespearean.
01:51From the start, Eric Lindros was marked as a prodigy.
01:55He stood out because of his size, his skill, and his parents.
01:59His father, Carl, is his agent.
02:01His mother, Bonnie, was a vocal and visible presence.
02:05I wouldn't call it his career.
02:08I'd call it their career.
02:10Had they been able to lace it up and go out on the ice and play wings with him, I
02:14think they would have done that.
02:15I think they felt because they put so much time and energy into his career that they deserve to be
02:22part of it.
02:22You remember Nixon had an enemies list.
02:24Well, I think Bonnie Lindros had an enemies list as well about who she saw had mistreated her son.
02:29Bobby Clark is usually able to intimidate every agent that he deals with.
02:33Carl Lindros is a very confident, self-assured man.
02:36He's unflappable.
02:37So Clark's act of yelling and screaming never worked.
02:40After talking to people in the Flyers organization, you're saying, you know, you can't believe what this guy's asking.
02:45You know, he's telling us who we should trade for and who should be on the same line with Eric
02:49Lindros.
02:49Who is this guy?
02:50I feel for Bob Clark, too, as a GM, going through all that.
02:53I mean, you want some guy's dad calling you up all the time saying, well, you better trade this guy
02:57and get this guy.
02:58Bob Clark couldn't stand his mom and dad.
03:01He has his first concussion and he gets the phone call on his cell as he's in the ambulance.
03:07It's his mother.
03:09And Bob Clark later tells people, oh, isn't that nice?
03:11Mommy called.
03:12It was as ugly as I've seen a relationship between a general manager and a player.
03:17Here at this organization, I could care less about him.
03:19The Flyers were downright vindictive.
03:21They began to develop such a hatred toward the Eric Lindros persona, where his parents controlled his actions.
03:30I thought it was disgraceful the way the Flyers not only publicly attacked Eric, but the way the Flyers attacked
03:36Eric's parents.
03:38Once we made up our minds that we weren't going to allow him and his dad to abuse people who
03:43work here any more than we were finding.
03:45Is Bob Clark telling the truth?
03:47Does the Lindros family tell the truth?
03:49Is there any player in professional sports that has this kind of baggage that surrounds him?
03:56On April 1st, 1999 in Nashville, Lindros suffered an injury first believed to be bruised ribs.
04:02Within hours, there was hemorrhaging, first in Lindros' chest and then in his relationship with the Flyers.
04:08How many did he get an injury?
04:09I just fell asleep in the tub.
04:11It was more comfortable to be in there.
04:13I couldn't really lay down, so I went into the tub and just fell asleep there.
04:15He had gotten out of the bathtub and started walking towards the bed and was very white.
04:21And I kind of looked at him and said, man, you don't look too good.
04:24And he goes, yeah, I don't feel too good.
04:27And I said, oh, we'll call the trainer.
04:28There's a three-hour gap here before Eric Lindros is actually hospitalized.
04:33And I think the Flyers would agree now that that shouldn't have happened.
04:37Discussions begin that they're going to send Lindros back to Philadelphia to be examined by Philadelphia doctors.
04:46Keith Jones says, no, you're not.
04:49He steps in and says, this guy needs to go to the hospital right now.
04:53He did have a life-threatening injury to his right chest with the loss of three liters of blood into
05:01the chest.
05:02He had a punctured lung.
05:04Had he got on that flight to go back to Philadelphia, doctors say, without a doubt, he would have died.
05:10If you ask the players, they will tell you today, yeah, the Flyers probably should have done something more quickly
05:16if they had known about it.
05:17But how dumb are you?
05:19I mean, you've got a punctured lung.
05:22You can barely breathe.
05:24You've turned a cadaver white.
05:28And you don't think to go to the hospital?
05:31Lindros's parents wrote Ed Snyder, the longtime chairman of the Flyers,
05:35raising serious questions about the care or lack of it their son had received.
05:40Snyder retaliated.
05:42Snyder told me, you might want to look into a rumor that I hear that Eric wasn't really injured that
05:47night on the ice.
05:48He was drunk and in a car accident and it's all been covered up.
05:52Well, now here you have the owner directing a reporter to investigate an ugly, unsubstantiated rumor about his star player.
05:59Somehow he was a magnet for the most bizarre, controversial incidents of the past 10 years in Philadelphia.
06:07It's that relationship between Eric and his meddlesome parent that has been the albatross around his neck since the day
06:14he started playing hockey.
06:16It has no bearing.
06:17It's just trash.
06:18Who would be better equipped to be your agent than someone who's got a master's in business?
06:22Who's your father?
06:23He's always got your best interests at heart.
06:27Eric doesn't see any problem with being close to his parents.
06:31Everybody wants him to break away from the parents.
06:33Why should he break away?
06:33That's how he sees it.
06:35He's my dad.
06:35What am I going to fire my dad as my agent?
06:48Eric was born on February 28, 1978.
07:08By the time he was nine, his parents realized they had a phenom on their hands.
07:13Carl and Bonnie regarded this as heavy-duty responsibility.
07:17They weren't just mom and dad.
07:19They were guardians of a gift.
07:21When they moved to Toronto, when Eric was nine or ten, they had a backyard swimming pool,
07:27and his father tore that up himself and built a hockey rink back there.
07:31What Carl and us would do is he would go down and get the Zamboni ice at the rink,
07:36and he'd put it at the fringe of their backyard, and he'd spray the hose and ice it down.
07:41So there'd be one layer of ice.
07:43The next morning, he'd go and spray another layer of water into this rink,
07:47and when they would get home from school, presto, they had maple leaf gardens.
07:50It was like your favorite toy.
07:54But it didn't matter how old you were.
07:56You didn't outgrow it.
07:59At 16, Lindros was drafted by a junior franchise 450 miles away.
08:04He refused to report, and the Ontario Hockey League later adopted the so-called Lindros rule,
08:09permitting him to play closer to home.
08:11That was seen as a double standard.
08:13It was a criticism that would follow him for years.
08:16It's okay to be exceptional, unfair to be granted exceptions.
08:20He's belted by Lindros.
08:22He has had preferential treatment, but the hockey world has given him preferential treatment.
08:28Not once did the hockey world say, no, we have rules, you obey the rules.
08:32That type of independence is something we generally tend to celebrate.
08:37Instead, Eric was seen as someone who wanted to destroy this great tradition.
08:42He was branded as a bad guy, and he received threatening letters.
08:48Baby bottles were thrown on the ice.
08:51Pacifiers were thrown on the ice.
08:53You were saying he was a baby.
08:55Signs to the effect that he was a big baby and a mama's boy.
08:59There was a fan that was heckling him, and when Eric left the arena after the game,
09:03the fan came up and asked him for an autograph.
09:05What?
09:06He graciously gave the autograph, and the fan spit at him.
09:10The Quebec Nordiques are very proud to select as first pick overall in the 1991 NHL annual draft,
09:18Eric Lindros.
09:21By refusing to play for the Nordiques, the bedraggled team,
09:27not only was he flouting NHL convention,
09:31the inference was, I don't like your province.
09:34And given the political dynamics of Quebec,
09:39it was absolute dynamite.
09:41That wasn't an insult to Quebec, that was an insult to the whole country.
09:45Everybody said, well, I'd kiss off.
09:46It really ticked off a lot of players when Eric took that stance.
09:49Nobody had ever really done that, and there was a lot of guys waiting to kick this kid's butt when
09:54he got into the league.
09:55It really hit Eric that night after the draft.
09:58He knew he was an object of vilification at the moment.
10:01It just kind of hit him like a ton of bricks, and he began sobbing on his brother's shoulder.
10:06On June 20th, 1992, Quebec traded Lindros, not just once, but twice, to both the Rangers and Flyers.
10:14An arbitrator was required to unravel the legal knots.
10:18He ruled in favor of Philadelphia.
10:21Yes, sir.
10:21Because we were going through a lot of labor problems ourselves,
10:25and players that went up to Eric in his first year and thanked him.
10:29And he stood out in the middle of all these controversies.
10:32Now he gets to Philadelphia, and he doesn't want to do separate interviews,
10:36because then he would stand out from his teammates.
10:39Well, that ship has sailed.
10:41You've already chosen by your actions to stand out.
10:45Sorry, but you are different.
10:47He could never just be one of the boys, because he was Eric Lindros, the next one,
10:52the player that we gave up six players and draft choices and cash to get,
10:55the one that will lead us to our next championship.
10:59He never let him go to a championship, but he got close.
11:05As the Flyers separated him from the team,
11:08I think the other players began to resent the fact that,
11:13all right, this guy better come through.
11:14He carried the burden probably more than any player that I've ever played with
11:18in order to send this team over the hump to make this Stanley Cup Finals
11:23and to win a Stanley Cup.
11:25Eric Lindros seemed to be climbing the mountain methodically.
11:29In 1994, the 21-year-old center was named captain.
11:33In 1995, league MVP.
11:35In 1996, he scored a career-high 115 points.
11:39And in 1997, Lindros powered the Flyers into the Stanley Cup Finals.
11:43The Flyers beat the Penguins in the first round of the playoffs.
11:47And Lemieux almost literally passed the torch to Lindros.
11:51Lemieux even talked about it.
11:53He was just an amazing talent.
11:55It's Michael Jordan on ice.
11:57There is no way he could come away from the game and not say,
12:00man, that guy is the best player I have ever seen.
12:03Getting in front, Lindros, and he's got a hat-trick!
12:06And he battled through Marc Messier!
12:10What had been so promising ended abruptly.
12:13The Flyers were swept by the Red Wings in the finals,
12:16and the damage extended far beyond the defeats.
12:20So what should have been a fabulous, fabulous season
12:24turned into a season that ended with just a terribly bitter taste.
12:27The coach being fired.
12:29Assertions that the star player, Lindros, had got the coach fired.
12:33He is right there, ready to jump over that ledge
12:36to be the most successful player of his era.
12:39And then it all falls apart when he doesn't win the cup.
12:41And when the Flyers then start to become thin-skinned
12:45about what he says and how he feels and about the family.
12:54Initially, Flyers General Manager Bobby Clark
12:56was ally and mentor for Lindros,
12:59seeing much of himself in the young star.
13:01But what was champagne would turn to vinegar.
13:05I remember Clarkie coming out on the ice,
13:07taking face off with us, putting the gear on.
13:09And, you know, he was practicing with us.
13:11I mean, they were, like, real good friends.
13:13I had never seen such a strong relationship
13:15between player and upper management.
13:19It's hard to see how that thing deteriorated as bad as it did.
13:23Bob Clark issued the challenge, which was,
13:25if you expect to be paid as the highest player in the game,
13:28then you have to perform as the highest paid player in the game.
13:32Bob Clark, fairly or unfairly,
13:34expects everyone who plays the game to be the same as he was.
13:39And the way he was, was a pit bull.
13:43Bobby Clark certainly created the impression
13:45that there were times when Eric Lindros wasn't hurt as badly
13:47as he said he was, and that he couldn't have played.
13:49And the Lindroses will tell you that under no circumstances
13:53he would be in any shape to go on the ice
13:55and that the Flyers were pressuring him.
13:57At 6'4 and 235 pounds,
14:01Lindros' style was that of a runaway locomotive.
14:04He dealt out fearsome punishment, but also absorbed it.
14:07In eight seasons with Philadelphia,
14:09Lindros missed 140 regular season games.
14:13He could run all over anybody,
14:15and nobody in junior hockey would even think of going near him.
14:18So he got in the habit of going up the ice with his head down
14:22and cutting into center, which is deadly.
14:28In March of 2000,
14:30Lindros was jolted by what eventually would be diagnosed
14:32as his fourth concussion in two years.
14:35But despite suffering headaches and forgetting shifts,
14:38he played the next four games
14:40and then blamed the Flyers for allowing him to do so.
14:43The Flyers say he didn't give them all the symptoms.
14:47However, Eric says he gave them enough of the symptoms
14:50that they should have taken them out of the lineup.
14:52John had a yellow tinge,
14:53and that I came in after the period,
14:55and that I had vomited.
14:57I was just hoping that the team would take me out,
15:00knowing what went on.
15:02I'm really, really unhappy about what's going on here.
15:06What Eric did that day was...
15:10publicly dismantle his relationship with the Flyers.
15:15And this was the captain,
15:16this was the most popular athlete in Philadelphia,
15:20saying,
15:20I don't trust the people that I work for.
15:24Four days later,
15:26Clark ordered Lindros stripped of his captaincy.
15:28It was like watching a statue brought crashing down in the town square.
15:33They actually invited television stations
15:36to come to watch the sewing of the sea
15:39on Eric Desjardins' jurors.
15:42That's how poisonous it got at the end,
15:44where the Flyers wanted to make a public spectacle
15:47of the toppling of Eric Lindros.
15:49Lindros criticized our trainers,
15:52criticized our doctors,
15:53criticized our organization.
15:54He shouldn't be captain of it.
15:56He's not unhappy with us all.
15:57He shouldn't be captain of us, our team.
15:59You would assume
16:00that even off the record,
16:03there would be howls from the locker room.
16:06There were none.
16:08For seven of the eight years,
16:10the organization did nothing
16:12but tell us how wonderful he was.
16:13And it just suddenly,
16:15it was like turning off the light.
16:17And one second,
16:18nobody liked him anymore.
16:19A lot of the sentiment towards Eric
16:22changed in the dressing room.
16:25All of a sudden,
16:26he was starting to get nicked up
16:27with some comments.
16:28He was starting to get nicked up
16:30with some animosity from player to player.
16:33Without Lindros,
16:34his teammates mounted an unexpected charge
16:36through the playoffs,
16:37drawing within one win of the finals.
16:39Against the Devils,
16:41Lindros returned for game six,
16:43a Philadelphia loss.
16:44Game seven,
16:45what would be his last appearance as a Flyer,
16:48another loss.
16:48And a shattering hit.
16:50Here's 88.
16:51Lindros makes the rules.
16:52Oh!
16:53Lindros is powered down to the ice
16:55by Scott Stevens.
16:57Oh.
16:57As a player,
16:58you felt sick to your stomach.
17:00Oh.
17:00I thought,
17:01is he going to dance?
17:01It was probably one of the scariest
17:03on-ice things that I had seen
17:04in my career.
17:06And he stunned.
17:07Sources close to Lindros say
17:08following the Stevens hit,
17:10the Flyers initially refused
17:12to pay for his medical expenses.
17:13The team has declined comment.
17:15The Lindros-Flyers divorce
17:17was punctuated by a statement
17:19from team chairman Ed Snyder
17:21that the player
17:22for whom they had mortgaged so much
17:23had damned the entire organization.
17:27I'm out with a couple of concussions.
17:28I come back and play
17:29with one practice on your boat.
17:31Yeah, so I really turned on the team.
17:32You know,
17:33I really turned on Ed Snyder.
17:34I really didn't give it my all.
17:35And game seven,
17:36yeah,
17:37I guess I,
17:37being knocked out,
17:38that was really damning to the team.
17:40One year,
17:40he was going to lead the Flyers
17:42to the cup
17:43and be the hero.
17:44Two years later,
17:44he was a bum
17:45and kick them out.
17:55On the ice,
17:56he's turned to people
17:57and he said,
17:58listen for me,
17:59I sound different.
18:00You will hear me coming.
18:01Which, of course,
18:01is a frightening scenario.
18:03You go back to get a puck,
18:04and if his intent
18:06was for nothing
18:06other than to
18:08physically damage you,
18:10you'd get squished up
18:11against the boards
18:12and go,
18:12ugh.
18:13Once things didn't go Eric's way,
18:15Eric's just going to be a bully
18:16and run around
18:17and make everybody scared.
18:18You know what?
18:19I'll get the room I want
18:20and then I'll go out and score.
18:22I don't think Eric
18:23has ever wanted to be perceived
18:25as a Darth Vader type,
18:27as being the ruthless force,
18:29as being a mean player.
18:31He's actually a gentle guy.
18:33He's a bit of an iceberg.
18:34What you get
18:35and what you see
18:36is probably 3%
18:37of what the entire person is.
18:40And only in rare moments
18:41does he really express himself.
18:45Thank you to the fans of Philadelphia
18:47who've supported us
18:49when we weren't so good.
18:51We're getting better
18:53and we're going to do it.
18:54This is a guy
18:55that once called me at home
18:57and said,
18:58hey, can you put your wife
18:59on the phone?
18:59I'm having trouble
19:00with this chicken I'm cooking.
19:01I want to ask her some questions.
19:03That shows you
19:04how human he was.
19:05When he started
19:05doing charity work,
19:07most of it was
19:08with the Children's Miracle Network
19:09and he would go over
19:11to players' houses
19:12that had kids
19:13and play with their kids
19:15because that was the part
19:16of his life he missed.
19:18He was really deeply affected.
19:20My son had his accident
19:21fell out of the window
19:22in Philadelphia.
19:23He'd installed bars
19:24on all the top-level windows
19:26and stuff like that
19:28to make sure
19:28that wasn't going to happen again.
19:30I'd love to have Eric
19:31as a neighbor.
19:32I would trust him.
19:33He is completely misunderstood
19:35by the majority of people
19:37that are on the outside
19:38looking in.
19:40Following his falling out
19:41with the Flyers,
19:42Eric Lindros
19:43spent his season
19:44in limbo,
19:45hoping Philadelphia
19:46would trade him,
19:47preferably to his hometown
19:48Maple Leafs.
19:49I don't know
19:50if I've ever seen
19:52a player
19:53get so much attention
19:55for not playing.
19:57He's never scored 50 goals.
19:58He's never won a Stanley Cup.
20:00He's never had a full season.
20:02And yet,
20:03this is the second Gretzky.
20:04This ain't even
20:05the first Lindros.
20:07In August of 2001,
20:09New York acquired Lindros
20:11and promptly sewed
20:12the Scarlet A
20:13for alternate captain
20:14on his jersey.
20:15While Clark continued
20:16to snipe,
20:17Lindros chose
20:18to skate on.
20:19There was a lot
20:20of misconception
20:21of things that were
20:21going on off the ice.
20:23And the focus wasn't
20:24on what was going on
20:26on the ice.
20:26And there was a couple
20:27of years where it really slid.
20:29I'm happy that it's over.
20:33But Lindros was hardly
20:35the savior
20:35as he was unable
20:36to deliver the Rangers
20:37to the playoffs.
20:39After a solid first season,
20:41he slipped in 2003,
20:43scoring just 53 points.
20:44Then, in January of 2004,
20:46he suffered still
20:48another setback.
20:49Oh!
20:50You can see that coming.
20:52Yeah, you can see
20:53that coming.
20:54Well, Eric Lindros
20:55is out of the Rangers lineup
20:56and it could be a while
20:57following another concussion
20:59at least the eighth
21:00of his pro career.
21:02The fact that his own brother,
21:03younger than him,
21:05had to retire
21:05because of concussions,
21:08this guy's not in the dark.
21:09This is something
21:10that's, you know,
21:12hit home to me
21:13when my brother
21:15can't play hockey anymore.
21:21Another significant head injury
21:22could turn him
21:23into a vegetable.
21:24So for all intents
21:25and purposes,
21:26I mean,
21:26he is putting his life
21:27on the line
21:28and yet people
21:30don't see him that way.
21:32A month later,
21:34Lindros was cleared to play,
21:35but not five days passed
21:37when soreness developed
21:38in his shoulder
21:39during practice.
21:41After undergoing surgery
21:42for a torn labrum,
21:44he became a free agent
21:45and in 2005,
21:47signed a one-year deal
21:48with his hometown,
21:49Maple Leafs.
21:50But a wrist injury
21:52kept him off the ice
21:53for more than half the season.
21:55Lindros,
21:56a free agent again,
21:57moved in the summer
21:58of 2006 to Dallas
22:00where more injuries
22:01plagued him.
22:02Just retire.
22:03Here's this guy,
22:04the biggest,
22:05most powerful figure
22:06on the rink
22:06who's at the same time
22:08the most vulnerable
22:09and potentially tragic figure.
22:11We're going to look back
22:12and say,
22:13wow,
22:13what could have been
22:14with this guy?
22:16And what still could be?
22:18Now,
22:19I haven't closed the book
22:20on Eric
22:20because this one's going to have
22:22more pages
22:22than War and Peace.
22:31All he ever wanted to do,
22:33Eric Lindros said,
22:34was play the game
22:35for which he seemed
22:36to have been born.
22:37But it hasn't been that simple.
22:39Because of holdouts
22:40and injuries,
22:41he missed almost 40%
22:42of his team's games
22:44in the decades
22:44since he was drafted
22:45by Quebec.
22:46While still a teenager,
22:48Lindros said,
22:49I believe every person
22:50was put on earth
22:51for some reason.
22:52Mine was to sell newspapers.
22:55Time would show
22:56the wisdom
22:56of that statement.
22:57For SportsCentury,
22:59I'm Chris Fowler.
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