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On Wednesday, the one-time NHL tough made it official, announcing his retirement in an article published online in The Players' Tribune.
“It has been a hell of a ride. But I'm done,” wrote Scott, whose roller-coaster ride to the NHL’s all-star weekend was a major storyline of the 2015-16 season
Scott made news when he was voted into the NHL all-star tournament even though he was a journeyman enforcer. He played for the Arizona Coyotes for part of the season and still served as Pacific Division captain despite being traded to the Montreal Canadiens and demoted to the AHL’s IceCaps.
Scott had two goals during the mid-season showcase in Nashville and was named MVP of the three-on-three tournament.
The NHL has since taken steps to avoid a similar situation with new fan voting rules.
Scott, an Edmonton native, played over 10 seasons with Minnesota, Chicago, the New York Rangers, Buffalo, San Jose, Arizona and Montreal.
In 285 career NHL games, he had 544 penalty minutes and 16 points, including five goals.
The title of his piece in the Players Tribune was ‘Five Goals, Four Kids, One Hell of a Good Time.’
In it, he wrote that he pretty much made his decision to leave the game while playing for the IceCaps, when he was far-removed from his wife in Michigan — who at the time was pregnant with twins — and his two daughters.
“I lived by myself. I’d go to practice, do my thing and then go eat by myself and head back to my little apartment. It was a very lonely existence. My teammates were in their early 20s, and their free time was pretty much dedicated to Call of Duty. All of a sudden, I was the grizzled old guy complaining about the weird electronic music in the locker room,” Scott wrote.
He then later added: “My daughters were halfway across the country. My poor wife probably wanted to kill me. One night, I was sitting all alone in a dark hotel room and my wife was too exhausted to put the girls on FaceTime, and I just couldn’t deal with it anymore.
“That’s when I knew.”
With files from The Canadian Press
