He was a key player on the Canadiens 1986 Stanley Cup team. Chris Nilan’s career was marked by physicality and controversy.
In his new one-man stage show, Nilan talks about his battles with addiction and mental health.
“It really takes a deep dive into my past and how knuckles became “Knuckles!” he said.
He was a notorious enforcer on the Habs and had battles on and off the ice.
“I wasn’t fearless. I was driven by fear of losing a fight,” Nilan said. He added that his biggest fight was battling addiction.
“Alcohol and drugs helped me survive for a while until it almost killed me. Actually, it did. I had to be brought back to life in 2015 because I made a bad choice in my life,” he explained.
Nilan said it’s very hard to put his trauma into a one-man show but he’s doing it to help others.
Award-winning playwright Vittorio Rossi is helping Nilan craft his life story for the stage.
“It’s a miracle that he’s even alive. So, it’s an incredible story of endurance, of determination and ultimately of triumph.” Rossi said.
Executive producer Barry F. Lorenzetti said all the proceeds will go to the Lorenzetti Foundation to help finance mental health initiatives.
“The idea behind the foundation came really by my uncle, who was in the second World War, and he used to come over for dinner to our place,” Lorenzetti said.
“My mom used to cook them a meal every Friday night, and we noticed that uncle Arthur was a little different. In those days, of course, they called it “shell shock”, but it was really post-traumatic stress disorder,” he added.
Some of Nilan’s former teammates were in the crowd at the launch, like Bob Gainey and Serge Savard who said, “He has the best quality a man can have. He’s a good person. He’s an honest person.”
“Knuckles” The Chris Nilan Story, opens in May on stage as a one man show at Maison Principale in Montreal.
