{"id":42370,"date":"2019-02-24T22:03:54","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T03:03:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/?p=42370"},"modified":"2020-05-13T13:31:49","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T17:31:49","slug":"what-happened-to-ray-emery-on-the-night-he-tragically-drowned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/2019\/02\/24\/what-happened-to-ray-emery-on-the-night-he-tragically-drowned\/","title":{"rendered":"What happened to Ray Emery on the night he tragically drowned?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the news broke in the early hours of July 15, 2018 that former NHL goaltender and Stanley Cup champion Ray Emery had died, the hockey world was stunned. Emery was just 35 years old\u2026 how could this happen?!<\/span><\/p>\n

Early details were fuzzy but it was <\/span>reported by Hamilton, Ontario police<\/span><\/a> that Emery had tragically drowned during a late night swim in Lake Ontario. Once this news hit social media it was awash with speculation about the circumstances surrounding his death. Was he drunk? On drugs? Was there foul play involved? For over half a year these are the questions that hockey fans have been asking themselves. What really happened to Ray Emery?<\/span><\/p>\n

In a riveting long-form article for<\/span> The Athletic<\/span><\/a>, award winning journalist <\/span>Dan Robson<\/span><\/a> profiles the life and times of Emery from his earliest days on the ice, to his Stanley Cup championship, to his sudden departure from the game to, ultimately, his tragic demise. It\u2019s a true \u201cbehind the scenes\u201d look at one of the game\u2019s most intriguing characters and goes into the roots of Emery\u2019s off-ice issues. After all, this is a man who had been suspended multiple times throughout his career, was banished to the KHL over perceived attitude problems and was <\/span>arrested for assault with a deadly weapon<\/span><\/a>. There\u2019s a LOT to unpack when talking about the life and times of Ray Emery, but Robson does an excellent job in telling the whole story.<\/span><\/p>\n

Let\u2019s begin though on the night of July 15th, 2018, the night that Emery tragically died. What happened? <\/span><\/p>\n

In the words of Robson himself:<\/span><\/p>\n

A full-moon night had become dawn and soft light fell across the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club on Hamilton Harbour, a bay off the western end of Lake Ontario. The surface was still, but the water beneath was murky, tinged by the nearby steel mills.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

He slipped off his Stanley Cup ring, engraved with the<\/span><\/i> Chicago Blackhawks<\/span><\/i><\/a> logo, and placed it next to his Louis Vuitton wallet on a table at the stern of the boat where he\u2019d spent the early hours laughing and drinking with friends.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The other dock was at least 100 feet away. He told a friend wading in the water to move to the left, marking the spot where he\u2019d angle his path beneath the surface.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m coming for you,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

On a full day without sleep, after playing his first hockey game in more than a year and a night out that hit the morning, he took a breath and dove out.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Emery drowned on July 15, 2018, at 35-years-old. <\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

Emery never emerged from the water that night and was pronounced dead by Ontario police the next morning when they discovered his lifeless body floating in the water, not far from where he jumped in. <\/span><\/p>\n

This begs the question\u2026 again\u2026 \u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Again from Robson\u2019s article, in the words of Mark Nicholson, one of Emery\u2019s best friends and the individual who witnessed Emery\u2019s final moments alive:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cRay!\u201d Nicholson yelled. \u201cRay?\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The water was calm.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Nicholson returned to the spot where Emery had gone under. He pushed himself beneath the water, kicking and swinging his arms. He couldn\u2019t see anything in the darkness. He swam back to the surface, gasped for another breath and went back under, flailing in the water trying to find Emery. He came up, coughing.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Nicholson put his jeans on and ran down the dock, looking between the boats, thinking Emery might have been playing a joke.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u201cHe just dove in the water, three feet beside me,\u201d Nicholson says. \u201cAnd he never came up.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

A few hours Hamilton\u2019s marine search crew located Emery\u2019s body just 68 feet from where Nicholson claimed the pair had jumped in. Police ruled out foul play after a brief investigation and Emery\u2019s death was officially ruled a <\/span>case of \u201cmisadventure<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a tragic and ultimately end to one of hockey<\/a>\u2019s truly unique characters. There weren\u2019t and still aren\u2019t many people like Ray Emery in the NHL. A bi-racial goaltender who loved to play the \u201cbad boy\u201d role and backed up his words with his actions? That\u2019s something that had never existed in the NHL before Emery and probably never will ever again. <\/span><\/p>\n

If Emery\u2019s NHL career, which ran from 2002 until 2015, were to start today there\u2019s no doubt that he\u2019d be one of the NHL\u2019s biggest stars. With the NHL finally opening up and embracing things like <\/span>social media<\/span><\/a>, <\/span>online sports betting<\/span><\/a> and <\/span>diversity<\/span><\/a> within the sport, there\u2019s no doubt that Emery would be a superstar.<\/span><\/p>\n

RIP, Ray Emery. Gone, but never forgotten.<\/span><\/p>\n

For the full article on the circumstances regarding Emery\u2019s life, death and everything in between be sure to check out Dan Robson\u2019s incredible long-form article for The Athletic.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the news broke in the early hours of July 15, 2018 that former NHL goaltender and Stanley Cup champion Ray Emery had died, the hockey world was stunned. Emery was just 35 years old\u2026 how could this happen?! Early details were fuzzy but it was reported by Hamilton, Ontario police that Emery had tragically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1675,"featured_media":42372,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[118,246,70,126,3501],"class_list":["post-42370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-anaheim-ducks","tag-chicago-blackhawks","tag-ottawa-senators","tag-philadelphia-flyers","tag-ray-emery"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1675"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/hockey\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}