{"id":824,"date":"2026-05-30T16:09:36","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T16:09:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=824"},"modified":"2026-05-30T16:09:36","modified_gmt":"2026-05-30T16:09:36","slug":"nhl-star-claude-lemieux-died-of-a-broken-heart-for-two-deeply-painful-reasons-close-pals-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=824","title":{"rendered":"NHL star Claude Lemieux died of a broken heart \u2014 for two deeply painful reasons, close pals say"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Retired NHL star Claude Lemieux died of a broken heart, according to people who knew him.<\/p>\n

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During his two-decade career, he led the Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils and Colorado Avalanche to a total of four Stanley Cups and was the ninth best playoff scorer of all time \u2014 but he was never inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame after he hung up his skates in 2009.<\/p>\n

Lemieux, a \u201ctough guy\u201d on the ice who was known to be deeply sensitive to rejection, never got over being passed over for the top honor, according to his pals.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe always lived this as an injustice, a heavy burden to bear,\u201d Rejean Tremblay, a longtime Montreal hockey columnist and insider who knew Lemieux for 30 years, told The Post.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sense of rejection ran deeper than one might have imagined. He took it very hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hockey legend hanged himself in the warehouse of his family\u2019s furniture business in Palm Beach, FL. His body was found shortly after 3:30 a.m. Thursday.<\/p>\n

The iconic hockey team where he broke in as an 18-year-old rookie from Gatineau, Quebec, brought him back this past Monday to carry the torch at the Bell Centre \u2013 a team tradition \u2013 before Game 3 of the NHL conference finals against the Carolina Hurricanes. He was all smiles, as an adoring crowd of 21,000 people cheered him on.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible that surge of love, that wave of love on Monday evening, triggered an emotion that was too intense,\u201d Tremblay said, citing NHL friends close to Lemieux.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt might have reawakened old pains, old suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lemieux, who died at 60, also went some 10 years without speaking to his children, according to sources \u2014 another emotional load that weighed heavy on his heart in the years after his retirement.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt hurt him tremendously,\u201d said Tremblay.<\/p>\n

He had been depressed leading up to his suicide, according to his family, but they had no idea he was planning to take his own life. <\/p>\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t expect that at all, they never saw it coming\u201d Colombe Lacroix, a close family friend who was at the scene with the family Thursday, told The Post. \u201cHe\u2019s been going through a difficult time, he was depressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so devastating, everyone is upside down,\u201d she said in tears. \u201cBrendan is completely destroyed,\u201d she said of Lemieux\u2019s 30-year-old hockey player son who found his dad\u2019s body.<\/p>\n

She said Claude Lemieux saw his own parents for the last time when he was in Montreal this week, and also made a point of bringing his two oldest sons from his first marriage, Michael and Christopher, on the trip.<\/p>\n

Lacroix, the widow of former Colorado Avalanche general manager and hockey legend Pierre Lacroix, became close with Lemieux and his wife Deborah when Lemieux played for the team between 1995 and 1999. The two couples lived in the same Denver suburb of Columbine, made infamous by the 1999 high school massacre.<\/p>\n

She had just moved to Florida, and lived 40 minutes away from the Lemieuxs.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI held Claude in my arms, and I said thank you for being there for me,\u201d she recounted of the last time she saw her good friend.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe left our world too soon and I hope he\u2019s in a better place and that he\u2019s happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Being passed over for the Hall of Fame after he hung his skates in 2009 affected Lemieux, a “tough guy” on the ice who was known to be deeply sensitive to rejection, more than people realized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-824","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nhl"],"yoast_head":"\nNHL star Claude Lemieux died of a broken heart \u2014 for two deeply painful reasons, close pals say - Metro Transit Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/metrotransitreview.com\/?p=824\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"NHL star Claude Lemieux died of a broken heart \u2014 for two deeply painful reasons, close pals say - 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