from Richard Deitsch of The Athletic,

Chances are you’ve never heard of Howie Young, even if you are a diehard NHL fan. Young was a hard-checking and harder-partying defenseman whose crunching checks and seat-of-the-pants style helped lead the Detroit Red Wings to the Stanley Cup finals in 1961.Two seasons later he shattered the league mark for penalty minutes, with 273 in just 64 games. Sports Illustrated called him a “one-man riot squad” and put him on the cover of its Jan. 28, 1963 issue.

The smiling visage that graced SI's cover, however, belied a tortured soul.

Young was an alcoholic. He said he drank nearly every day for 12 years until he bottomed out at age 27. Indeed, he was hung over when he posed for SI’s photographer after a morning practice. “On the bench I would say, 'Please God, just get me through this game,'” Young once said. “Then it was, 'Hey, God, just get me through this period.' Finally, it was, 'God, just get me through this shift.'”

continued and open to all...