TORONTO – Filmmaker Adam Scorgie knew making a documentary on the life and career of Grant Fuhr would require him to delve into the details of the goaltender’s drug use and subsequent suspension by the National Hockey League.
The resulting 90-minute film titled, ‘Making Coco’, sees the generally reserved hall of famer go into detail about the incident, which forced him to miss the first half of the 1990-91 NHL season.
“We were like, ‘Look, we can’t make this film, and not talk about the suspension or else every critic is going to rip us apart’,’ said Scorgie, whose film-making resume includes the 2016 documentary ‘Ice Guardians’. “We were all like, ‘How do we approach this with Grant?’ and Grant was like, ‘I’ve already lived through it, it’s much easier to live through it the second time.’”
The documentary, which had its world premiere on Tuesday at The Royal Cinema in Toronto, includes interviews with Fuhr’s former agent, Ritch Winter, former Oilers general manager Glen Sather and several former teammates, including Wayne Gretzky, Paul Coffey and Mark Messier.
Details of Fuhr's drug use was leaked to the Edmonton media by his ex-wife Corrine in the summer of 1990. He admitted to using in the past, but that he’d sought help and moved on. Following an investigation by the NHL, and then president John Ziegler, Fuhr was initially suspended for the entire 1990-91 season, but reinstated after missing 59 games.
“He didn’t think of it as drug abuse, he thought of it as drug use, casual, recreation, not a problem,” Winter says at one point in the film. “Maybe it wasn’t a problem. Grant didn’t seem to use it all the time. I think he had it more under control than we thought.”
Fuhr felt the league, which didn’t have a drug policy at the time, was out to make an example of him.
“They weren’t sure what to do,” he says during the documentary. “I think they determined, ‘OK, well we’re here to punish, we’re not here to help anybody’. So they decided before I ever got to Toronto [for the hearing].”
The official trailer for @MakingCoco The Grant Fuhr Story is now LIVE!
— Adam Scorgie (@AdamScoreG) August 28, 2018
TRAILER: https://t.co/ctl6mvRdRV pic.twitter.com/aIz93wA8sw
The Spruce Grove, Alberta native won five Stanley Cups over parts of 10 seasons in Edmonton and had stops in Toronto, Buffalo, Los Angeles, St. Louis and Calgary before retiring in September of 2000.
Fuhr holds or shares five goaltending records, including the most games played by a goaltender in a single season (79) set during the 1995-96 season – the record he’s proudest of.
The first black player inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame, Fuhr hopes people can learn from the mistakes he’s made in life.
“I think that’s part of it, you can learn from that,” Fuhr told Sporting News Canada. “You make bad choices and you can still succeed in life even if you make bad choices. You have to live and learn.”
Outside of hockey Fuhr has always been known for his love for golf. The documentary includes the netminder’s decision to play 54 holes the day before Game 7 of the 1987 Stanley Cup Final - which the Oilers did win - and the shock the media was in upon learning of his off-day activity.
“Why did you play 54 holes?’ Gretzky recalls the media asking. “And Grant said ‘It got dark, I couldn’t play 72.'”
Fuhr, now the Director of Golf at Desert Dunes Golf in Desert Hot Springs, California, says he would like to get back into a teaching capacity within hockey. He served as the goaltending coach of the Phoenix Coyotes from 2004-09 and held a similar role with the Calgary Flames from 2000-02.
Convinced by the film’s director Don Metz, co-producer Shane Fennessey and Scorgie to participate in the documentary, Fuhr hopes hockey fans who see ‘Making Coco’ will realize that he enjoys life.
"Did I run it properly? Probably not, but you learn life by living it,” Fuhr said. “That’s the biggest thing. So, I think you’ll understand that maybe I didn’t do things perfectly right, but at the same time, you can always have a successful ending.”