When you can reference the move “Youngblood;” tell an amazing true story of an NHL hero who would go on to form a seven member country-and-western band; include a vast number of obscenities unprintable on FrazerRice.com (a family website); muse philosophically on the complex intersections between fame and self-destruction; discuss why one of the greatest athletes in the world was once asked to stand on a phonebook to seem taller (he refused); and finally explain both the downfall and ultimate redemption of genuine athletic hero, you KNOW you’ve really written something good. Also we get the following details (among many) . . .

[Fleury] also wrote: “I just stayed in that room and let my brain go swimming in Paxil, coke, two six-packs and a twenty-sixer of Grey Goose” . . . And: “I was torn between Drea, the New York stripper I had been seeing at the end of my marriage, and Steph, the stripper in Albuquerque” . . . His relationship with other teams’ fans was such that one night, as the crowd at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum chanted “Crackhead! Crackhead!” at him, he slapped his bicep in vulgar salute after scoring the game-winning goal.

And that’s just the beginning – Read on, good friends, READ ON . . .

[“Napoleon Dynamite: The Rise and Fall of Theo Fleury,” Grantland.com, 6/28/2013]