NHL hockey great Theo Fleury passes through Sharbot Lake on his “Victor Walk”

May 22, 2013

Former NHL Hockey great, Theo Fleury, passed through Sharbot Lake on his “Victor Walk”, an effort to bring attention to the issues surrounding childhood sexual abuse.

Fleury, 44 years old, wrote about his own experience of childhood sexual abuse in his 2009 autobiography titled Playing with Fire in which he wrote of the sexual abuse he experienced by his former junior hockey coach Graham James, who is currently serving jail time for abusing Fleury and also former junior player Sheldon Kennedy (who also went on to play in the NHL). James recently had his sentence increased from two to five years by an appeals court in February 2013.

Fleury, who since writing his book has become a vocal advocate for childhood sexual abuse survivors, believes that awareness is critical to promoting healing.

Fleury last played in the NHL with the Chicago Blackhawks in the 2002/2003 season and he is best known for his career with the Calgary Flames where he played on and off for 11 seasons. It was with the Flames that Fleury won the Stanley Cup in 1989. He also played with the Colorado Avalanche and the New York Rangers and he was part of the Canadian team that won the gold medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

Fleury's Victor Walk began in Toronto at the Child Abuse Monument there on May 13 and it will end at Parliament Hill in Ottawa on May 23 where he said he aims to get the attention of politicians there and in doing so, hopes to see stricter child sexual abuse laws passed in this country. “When it comes to childhood sexual abuse, we have been sweeping it under the carpet for 100,000 years. In this country alone there are eight million survivors of childhood sexual abuse, 63 million in the U.S. and almost one billion world wide,” Fleury said when I spoke to him by the side of Highway 7 on May 20 near Sharbot Lake Provincial Park. “The system in Canada is backwards. It protects the perpetrators and re-victimizes the survivors. The reason we are calling this walk the ‘Victor Movement’ is because it's the opposite of victim. The experience that happened to me occurred when I was young and innocent and I now consider myself a victor over it.”

Upon his arrival in Ottawa Fleury will be reading his Victor Impact Statement along with others. When I came across him on Victoria Day, Fleury was flanked by a large Winnebago, a jeep and by fellow walkers, best friend Zoran Zelic of Calgary and Los Angeles film maker Michael Lynch. Lynch is shooting a documentary film about the walk. Fleury, who has been walking 50-60km a day since the walk began, said that some of the best conversations he has had in his life have happened while walking and that that is what inspired him to hit the highway with his cause.

“I thought, ‘Let's just go for a walk and see what happens', and it's really been life changing. People all along the way are seeking us out and are telling us their own personal stories.” Asked why it is so important to get these stories out, Fleury said, “It's part of the healing process. It gets rid of the shame, shame that we have been carrying around for years and that really is not our shame to bear. The shame belongs to the people that abused us and to the politicians in Ottawa for not doing enough and to the judges who give out lenient sentences.”

Proceeds raised from Fleury's Victor Walk will go to supporting an expansion at Siksika Health Services in the Siksika Nation in Alberta, who have partnered with Fleury on the walk, as well as to Edmonton’s Little Warriors Foundation and the Sexual Assault Centre for Quinte and District in Belleville, Ont. For more information or to donate to the cause visit www.victorwalk.com.