{"id":587971,"date":"2026-05-31T17:45:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T17:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/587971\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T17:45:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T17:45:26","slug":"claude-lemieuxs-friend-says-he-carried-injustice-before-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/587971\/","title":{"rendered":"Claude Lemieux’s Friend Says He Carried Injustice Before Death"},"content":{"rendered":"

A close friend of Claude Lemieux <\/a>claims the late NHL legend carried an alleged \u201cinjustice\u201d prior to his untimely death<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always lived this as an injustice, a heavy burden to bear,\u201d R\u00e9jean Tremblay<\/a>, Montreal hockey columnist and friend who knew Lemieux for 30 years, told The New York Post<\/a> in an interview published on Saturday, May 30, claiming that the late hockey star was \u201cdeeply sensitive to rejection\u201d and, as a result, never got over the fact that he wasn\u2019t inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame following his 2009 retirement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sense of rejection ran deeper than one might have imagined,\u201d Tremblay further claimed. \u201cHe took it very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NHL legend was found dead<\/a> on Thursday, May 28, by one of his three sons. He was 60. His death was later ruled a suicide<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe National Hockey League mourns the passing of Claude Lemieux, a four-time Stanley Cup champion and one of the greatest big-game Players in hockey history,\u201d NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said in a statement. Lemieux \u2014 who played for 21 seasons in the NHL between 1983 and 2009 \u2014 is survived by his wife, Deborah, daughter Claudia, and sons Brendan, Christopher and Michael.<\/p>\n

\"GettyImages-465631232claudelemieuxcarriedburden.jpg\"Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI love you dad! My son [Luc\u2019s] favorite person is going to watch from above for a while,\u201d Lemieux\u2019s son Brendan wrote via Instagram, breaking his silence<\/a> in the wake of his father\u2019s shocking death. \u201cWe will see you.\u201d<\/p>\n

The NHL star\u2019s death came just three days after he made an emotional appearance at Game 3 of the NHL\u2019s Eastern Conference Finals between the Montreal Canadiens and the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday, May 25. Lemieux acted as a torchbearer prior to the game. (Lemieux played for the Canadiens from 1983 to 1990.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible that surge of love, that wave of love on Monday evening, triggered an emotion that was too intense,\u201d Tremblay claimed to The New York Post, citing other friends of Lemieux, per the outlet. \u201cIt might have reawakened old pains, old suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colombe Lacroix, another close friend of the hockey star who was reportedly at the scene with the surviving family on Thursday, per The New York Post, told the outlet that Lemieux had been \u201cgoing through a difficult time\u201d and was allegedly \u201cdepressed\u201d prior to his death.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t expect that at all,\u201d she added of the player\u2019s death by suicide. \u201cThey never saw it coming. It\u2019s so devastating, everyone is upside down.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The widow of former Colorado Avalanche general manager Pierre Lacroix, who became close with Lemieux and his wife when Lemieux played for the Avalanche from 1995 to 1999, then recalled the last time she visited with the famed hockey player.<\/p>\n

\u201cI held Claude in my arms, and I said thank you for being there for me,\u201d she told The New York Post on Saturday. \u201cHe left our world too soon and I hope he\u2019s in a better palace and that he\u2019s happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or chat at 988lifeline.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A close friend of Claude Lemieux claims the late NHL legend carried an alleged \u201cinjustice\u201d prior to his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587972,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[18397,3063,20222,5,40,4,43],"class_list":["post-587971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-celebrity-deaths","tag-celebrity-news","tag-deaths","tag-hockey","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116670439487377901","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587971\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}