from Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun,

Has he stopped drinking, period?

“Yes,” he said. “Yes.

“The one thing they stressed to us was one day at a time. It’s kind of overwhelming for a 24-year-old to even think 20 or 30 years from now. But the answer is yes.

“I really want to turn my life around and I really want to make this home,” he said of Edmonton and the Oilers organization that took the considerable gamble on him.

A year later he looked back at the way it all went down.

“Peter called me. We had a very short conversation. I told Peter, ‘There are no words I could say. I have to put it into action. It’s about me showing you.’ Peter was happy to hear that. And basically the conversation ended.

“I felt like that day, all the way to today, a year later, I’ve held up on what I told him. Looking back, I think I took the right approach. That’s all I could handle.”

more