North Stars’ Coach Has Fought His Way Back Into the NHL, a Sober Alcoholic : Sonmor Takes Life as It Comes: a Day at a Time

Coach Glen Sonmor of the Minnesota North Stars hit bottom on Jan. 12, 1983, in a Pittsburgh bar. After a game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, Sonmor reportedly was involved in a drunken brawl with a Penguin fan. He was left with a broken nose and a black eye. Sonmor coached the next night in Minnesota, then resigned on Jan. 14 and entered an alcohol treatment center, the CareUnit, in Orange County. “Something had to be done,” he said. “I finally realized that I had a problem with drinking. I learned that I wasn’t going to handle it by pretending that it didn’t exist. . . . Thank goodness the organization (North Stars) handled it the way they did. They could have fired me.” When Sonmor was released from the hospital, he returned to the North Stars as director of player development. He held that job for 22 months until he was reinstated as coach last November. Sonmor said he hasn’t had a drink since he was released from the hospital. His friends say that he has never looked better. “He’s in the best shape he’s been in in 10 years,” said Lou Nanne, the North Stars’ general manager. Sonmor began running and lifting weights while he was in the hospital, although an arthritic condition has since forced him to quit. The only exercise he gets now is riding an Exercycle and skating during practice. He wears a red lapel pin shaped like a camel with the number 24. “It means I have been dry as a camel for 24 hours.” Sonmor said. “I’m not a spokesman for anything. I haven’t had a drink today and hopefully I won’t have one tomorrow. I have an illness that they call alcoholism that I deal with every day. It is a progressive, insidious disease and unfortunately it is a relapsing disease. “It will be two years next week that I haven’t found it necessary to take a drink, thank goodness. I’ve found a much better way to live. I don’t want to sound egotistical, but I’m proud of what I’ve accomplished. “I feel good about myself. When I was drinking, I had a low self-esteem. “I don’t expect the whole world to stop drinking because I did. I don’t go to places where I’m surrounded with drinking. If you don’t want to slip, don’t go to slippery places. “But if I have to go to a team party or something where liquor is served, I’ll walk around with a glass of soda and a twist of lime.” Sonmor said he wanted to make it clear that he didn’t have a drug problem. “My problem was with alcohol, not drugs,” he said. “My generation didn’t deal with drugs.” He said he never drank before or during games. “I never came to the rink drunk,” he said. “I was a spree drinker. I had to do it secretly because the people I was with knew I couldn’t drink.” On the day he was rehired as coach, he said at a press conference: “I feel ready. I’m not going to dwell on what has happened. I quit coaching but I never left the organization. I’m proud that they saw fit to take me back.” He replaced Bill Mahoney, who was in his second season as coach. The North Stars got off to a horrible start this season, winning just three of their first 11 games under Mahoney. The North Stars say they checked with Sonmor’s doctor before rehiring him to see if he was fit to coach again. “We asked his doctor and he said that Glen was fine,” Nanne said. “We didn’t want him to be under any pressure that would cause him to start drinking again. We didn’t want to hurt him. “He’s a good, solid hockey man and we’re happy to have him back. When he left two years ago he had lost his enthusiasm for the game, but he has gotten it back. This is one great guy and he’s doing a hell of a job.” If there was any doubt whether the North Star fans would understand, it was settled the night he went back behind the bench. Sonmor got two standing ovations from the fans at the Met Center in Bloomington. He has also received strong support from his players. “The players have been fine to me,” Sonmor said. “They know what’s happened to me. When I came back I made a simple statement in the locker room to them about it.” Said left wing Tom McCarthy: “If anything, the guys on the team have a great respect for him. We stand right behind him. I think he’s changed for the better.” Said North Star center Keith Acton: “I don’t think it has anything to do with the team. Glen has been great. I was here before when he was coaching, so I know.” Said goalie Gilles Meloche: “Glen has brought the team closer together.” Center Dennis Maruk told a Minneapolis reporter: “I don’t know Glen that well, but I’ve found him to be a relaxed individual. He commands respect and attention and gets his strategy across to the players. Bill Mahoney was uptight about mistakes and I think that affected us on the ice.” The North Stars are in third place in the Norris Division at the halfway point of the season, but Sonmor said the team has a chance to defend its division title. “We’re better off than I thought we would be,” he said. “With 41 games left, I think we have a chance to win our division.” There has been speculation that Sonmor will step aside at the end of the season and that the North Stars will hire Herb Brooks, coach of the New York Rangers. Brooks’ family lives in St. Paul, and he coached at the University of Minnesota before guiding the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team to a gold medal at Lake Placid. Sonmor would not talk about that rumor, however. The fans in other cities haven’t been as kind to Sonmor as the fans in Minnesota. More than one heckler has yelled about Sonmor’s problem. Sonmor said the Canadian press has made a big deal of his return to the NHL. “My story has been embellished in Canada, where hockey is big,” Sonmor said. “I’ve gotten tired of talking about it. I’ve said what I have to say about it.

“It wasn’t the pressure of coaching that led me to drink,” he said. “That’s just an excuse people use. A lot of people have more pressure in their jobs than I do. Coaching is simple. “I think I’m a little more relaxed. I’m not as impatient as I used to be. I’ve learned that I can’t solve my problems by taking a drink.” Sonmor said his doctor, Joseph Pursch of CareUnit, has been very helpful. A nationally recognized expert in drug and alcohol rehabilitation, Pursch has treated the problems of other celebrities. Sonmor said he has stayed in contact with Pursch. Said Pursch: “We have made a number of contacts with Glen. We talk all the time and we meet in different cities. There are a lot of people in this world who have a lot more pressure in their jobs than coaches. I teach my alcohol patients that the pressures are usually of their own making. They take on a need for fixing the pressure and alcohol is probably the most accepted. When you have an inclination to drink over stress, then you develop alcoholism. “Glen learned that is a disease, just like diabetes. A diabetic is never cured, only controlled. You learn to live from day to day. He lives one day at a time now.” Alcoholism isn’t the only handicap that Sonmor has had to live with. His dream was to play in the NHL, and he did, briefly, for the New York Rangers. Sonmor lost an eye, however, when he was hit by a puck while playing in the minors in 1955. “It was devastating,” he said. “I was 25 and had been to the majors and was hoping to go back up. My daughter was born four days afterward and it was a traumatic time.” But Sonmor got into coaching. He worked at the University of Minnesota and at Ohio State. In 1972 he was named coach and general manager of the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the now-defunct World Hockey Assn. He went to Birmingham when the Fighting Saints folded, and was named the head scout for the North Stars in 1978. After becoming coach of the team, he led the North Stars to the Stanley Cup final in 1981, where they lost to the New York Islanders.