Night after night, Todd Ewen made his living when the gloves came off and the fists went up. From 1986 to 1997, he was an enforcer in the NHL. He was never a star, but his nickname, “The Animal,” was a testament to his ferocity on the ice. Early in his career, he shocked the league when he came to blows with Bob Probert — the Detroit Red Wings enforcer widely regarded as hockey’s heavyweight champ — and dropped the veteran with just one punch.
Ewen played with the St. Louis Blues, San Jose Sharks, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, and Montreal Canadiens — where he won the Stanley Cup in 1993. He retired after a knee injury in 1997, ending his career with 36 goals and 1,911 penalty minutes over the course of 518 regular season games.
After Ewen’s hockey career ended, he ran a successful real estate business with his wife and eventually served as head coach for the Saint Louis University hockey team. By all accounts, he enjoyed good relationships with his wife, his children, and his grandson, and he had a supportive network of friends.
But he also had his demons. He knew that he’d taken a lot of hits to the head during his time on the ice and as he heard story after story about chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the crippling brain disease better known as CTE, Ewen worried more and more about the long-term effects of all his concussions. He saw reports that fearsome ex-hockey players like Derek Boogaard and Bob Probert — the enforcer he’d gained notoriety for fighting — had been posthumously diagnosed with CTE.
Ewen suspected he might have it, too. It wasn’t just that he’d been hit so often when he played. He was also struggling with memory loss and depression, two symptoms often linked to brain injury.
He decided he didn’t want to face a future of the dementia associated with CTE, and he refused to be a burden to his family. So, on Sept. 19, 2015, Ewen went down to the basement of his Missouri home and shot himself in the head. He was 49 years old. Soon after, a Toronto neuropathologist convinced Ewen’s family to donate his brain for study. The family agreed — and the results of the tests surprised them. Ewen may have suffered from depression, but he didn’t have CTE.
These are the kinds of stories that bother Dr. Munro Cullum more than anything.
