Mike Levine wrote a feature story on Theo Fleury for ESPN The Magazine in 1999, before Fleury's first season with the Rangers. This morning, Levine e-mailed some thoughts on No. 14's latest struggle.

The scene flashed before me the minute I heard Theo Fleury had gone into rehab.

We're in Rye Playland, the ancient rink where the New York Rangers practice. There's a row of big men waiting for a puck. At the end of the line is a grumpy runt. His face is curled up, like he's got a bad headache. His eyes are shot, his shoulders tense, his mouth annoyed. If he were someone at the office or on a subway, I would have said this guy had a wicked hangover.

But what the hell do I know about hockey greatness? Theo Fleury had just signed a killer contract. If he appeared out-of-it at a dumb pre-season drill, well, it was just a millionaire's boredom. And if the puck bounced off his stick sloppily, shoot, he'd be ready when the season opened.

So I went up to the rickety balcony and stood with Fleury's old man. Wally Fleury was the oldest 59-year-old I ever saw. He remembered his first pair of skates. His grandfather had bought them for a dollar off a guy who needed a drink. "That's all I'm going to do for you," said grandpa, peering down from his horse on a frozen Manitoba river. And when little Wally fell, his grandfather offered his only advice: "Get up."

Wally was small and fast and chippy. He broke his leg when he was about to become a New York Ranger. He drank his way to fatherhood. When his dirt-poor kid, Theo, starred in local hockey, Wally would make it only through the first period before he'd head for the Queen's Hotel and drink up a storm. Wally was sober now. Theo, it was known, could drink pretty good too, but that's hockey, eh? And when Theo gave me his national-magazine-grade charm after practice, I walked with him and his father out to a beautiful car, and we rolled toward his new home in posh Greenwich, Conn. I wrote a story with a millionaire's happy ending.

Theo stunk up the joint that year for the Rangers and I kicked myself for not trusting my instincts. When he roared back this year, I figured he'd faced his demons. Then he tailed off, and everyone must have known what was going on and maybe nobody said a word. That's hockey.

This is addiction. Drunks drink when life's crapped out. Drunks drink when they've got a winning hand. The world's as lousy with shrink sportswriters as with rich athletes in rehab, so I offer Theo Fleury neither sanctimony or excuses.

But I'll always remember the hollow eyes of the rich young man. I see him still that morning in Rye, tumbling on thin ice. And I remind him now what his great grandfather told his father: "Get up."

Mike Levine is an occasional contributor to ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at melevine@frontiernet.net.