NHL: The Second Acts Behind Mario Lemieux, Bobby Orr, Ed Belfour, Theo Fleury and P.K. Subban

Mario Lemieux

NHL Hall of Fame Forward & the Owner Who Saved the Pittsburgh Penguins — Pittsburgh, PA

Mario Lemieux played all 17 of his NHL seasons in Pittsburgh and became, simply, one of the greatest players the game has ever seen — two Stanley Cups as the Penguins' captain and a scoring touch that survived everything his body threw at it.

In 1993, in the middle of a season for the ages, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, underwent radiation treatment, came back the very day his treatment ended, and still won the scoring title. Then he pulled off the rescue no athlete had ever attempted.

The Penguins had filed for bankruptcy owing him $32.5 million in deferred salary; rather than join the line of creditors, Lemieux converted $20 million of what he was owed into equity, assembled an investor group, and bought the team himself in 1999 — specifically to keep it in Pittsburgh.

It worked, twice over. Under his ownership the Penguins won three more Stanley Cups, in 2009, 2016 and 2017, making Lemieux the only person with his name on the Cup as both a player and an owner.

His stake grew to roughly 40 percent before Fenway Sports Group acquired the team in 2021 at a $900 million valuation — and the franchise has since changed hands again at a reported $1.7 billion valuation — leaving Lemieux, whose net worth is estimated at about $300 million, as the rare superstar whose biggest win came in the boardroom.

The Mario Lemieux Foundation, born of his own cancer fight, has committed millions to cancer research and patient care — a comeback story that kept compounding long after the skates came off.

The Hockey News — “On This Day In Penguins' History: Lemieux's Purchase Of Penguins Approved”
Celebrity Net Worth — “In 1999, Mario Lemieux Traded $20 Million In Unpaid Salary For An Ownership Stake In The Penguins”
talkSPORT — “I'm a two-time Stanley Cup winner and world's richest NHL player worth $300 million”

More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list  ·  Gary Roberts  ·  Bobby Orr

Bobby Orr

NHL Hall of Fame Defenseman & Co-Founder, Orr Hockey Group — Boston, MA

Official links: Website

Bobby Orr, a small-town kid from Parry Sound, Ontario, reinvented his position — a defenseman who rushed the puck, won scoring titles and carried the Boston Bruins to Stanley Cups in 1970 and 1972, scoring the clinching goal both times. Ruined knees forced him to retire at 30.

Then came the crueller blow: Orr discovered that his trusted agent, Alan Eagleson, had left him essentially bankrupt — an independent accountant found his liabilities exceeded his assets, and he had to sell off most of what he owned.

Orr broke with Eagleson, went to work rebuilding his finances from Boston, and aided the investigations that ended with Eagleson's fraud convictions and disbarment.

"Skating was my game, and I just couldn't play the game that I used to play, and that was very difficult."

The rebuild became a second career with a point to prove. Orr entered the player-agent business in 1996, purchased the Woolf Associates agency and co-incorporated the Orr Hockey Group in February 2002, serving as its president until the agency was acquired by the Wasserman Media Group in 2018.

The firm that grew out of his own betrayal has represented stars including Connor McDavid — an agency built, pointedly, to protect young players from exactly the exploitation its founder suffered. Orr's net worth is estimated at about $35 million: not the fortune his playing genius should have produced, but one he earned back the honest way, twice.

Wikipedia — “Bobby Orr”
The Hockey News — “'Orr: My Story' is defenceman's mix of life experience and hockey advice”

More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list  ·  Mario Lemieux  ·  Ed Belfour

Ed Belfour

NHL Hall of Fame Goaltender & Founder, Belfour Spirits — Dallas, TX

Official links: Website

Every NHL team passed on Ed Belfour.

Undrafted out of the University of North Dakota — where he had just won an NCAA championship — the Carman, Manitoba goaltender signed with Chicago as a free agent and simply out-worked the verdict, becoming 'Eddie the Eagle': a Calder Trophy, Vezina Trophies, a Stanley Cup with the Dallas Stars in 1999, 484 career wins and induction into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2011, his first year of eligibility.

He is one of only two players to have won an NCAA championship, an Olympic gold medal and a Stanley Cup. A career that began with nobody calling his name ended with nobody able to leave it off a ballot.

"How I treated my hockey career was paying attention to the details and putting in the extra work to make myself better to help us win. We apply those same characteristics to our whiskey business."

Belfour's second act is a family business built the same way as the first: from the ground up.

He founded Belfour Spirits, the Dallas-based whiskey company he runs with his son and daughter, and learned distilling properly — schools in Kentucky and Canada, an internship that produced the company's first twelve barrels, and a bourbon finished with Texas pecan wood as a nod to his Stars years.

Launched in 2019, Belfour Spirits reported more than $1 million in revenue in 2022 with year-over-year growth, and its Special Edition Straight Rye took Double Gold at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition. Belfour's net worth is estimated at about $20 million — the undrafted goalie, still stopping everything they throw at him.

Whisky Advocate — “Ed Belfour: A Hockey Legend Enters the Whiskey World”
Belfour Spirits — “About Belfour Spirits”
All American Speakers — “Ed Belfour” (speaker biography)

More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list  ·  Bobby Orr  ·  Theo Fleury

Theo Fleury

NHL Stanley Cup Champion & Founder, Theo Fleury Enterprises — Calgary, AB

Official links: Website · LinkedIn · Facebook · Instagram · X

Theo Fleury stood five-foot-six in a league of giants and played like he had something to prove every single shift — more than 1,000 NHL games, a Stanley Cup with Calgary in 1989 and an Olympic gold medal with Canada. What nobody saw was what the game was costing him.

As a teenager, Fleury was sexually abused by his junior coach, Graham James; the trauma drove years of drug and alcohol addiction that forced him out of the NHL in 2003.

Sober since 2005, he told the truth in his bestselling 2009 memoir Playing With Fire, filed the criminal complaint that saw James plead guilty, and turned the worst thing that ever happened to him into the work of his life.

"It wasn't till I understood the science behind my behaviour that I made the greatest strides of my life,"

Through Theo Fleury Enterprises, his trauma-healing and speaking company, Fleury now works full-time for the people still living his old nightmare — advocating for abuse survivors, speaking on trauma and recovery, and teaching what he learned about the science of his own behaviour and the shame it lifted.

Diagnosed with Crohn's disease in 1995, he has also raised more than $1 million for the Crohn's and Colitis Foundation of Canada through his annual charity golf tournament.

His estimated net worth of about $3 million is the smallest fortune on this list and, pound for pound, maybe the hardest earned: Fleury's real second career is measured in survivors who decided, hearing him, to get help.

PressRelease.com — “Magellan Luxury Hotels Partner With NHL All-Star Theo Fleury”
Sportsnet — “Fleury: Abuse posterboy to spiritual healer”
Wikipedia — “Theoren Fleury”

More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list  ·  Ed Belfour  ·  P.K. Subban

P.K. Subban

NHL Norris Trophy Winner and ESPN Analyst · Founder, Ugly Duck Productions · Executive Producer and Star, 'Screech Owls' — Toronto, ON

Official links: Facebook · Instagram · X

Pernell-Karl Subban is the son of Caribbean immigrants — his father Karl came from Jamaica, his mother Maria from Montserrat — and was raised in Toronto's Rexdale neighborhood, one of five kids in a hockey-mad house.

In a league with very few Black stars, his flash, joy and volume made him impossible to ignore: drafted by Montreal in 2007, he won the Norris Trophy as the NHL's best defenseman in 2013, signed an eight-year, $72 million contract, helped Nashville reach the 2017 Stanley Cup Final, and won the King Clancy Trophy for leadership and humanitarian work in his final season with New Jersey.

Since retiring in 2022 he has become an ESPN NHL analyst and a producer: he founded PeeK Productions and Ugly Duck Productions — the company behind CBC's 'Black Life: Untold Stories' docuseries work — and the NHL and CBC announced he will executive-produce and star in 'Screech Owls,' a 26-episode animated series for young audiences.

"A major focus of my career has been finding new ways to grow the game and reach young, diverse audiences with positive role models and Screech Owls, a series I grew up reading, does both"

In 2015, still a Canadien, Subban pledged $10 million to the Montreal Children's Hospital — at the time the largest philanthropic commitment by a professional athlete in Canada. A year later Montreal traded him to Nashville.

He kept the promise anyway: the hospital's foundation has confirmed the $10 million was fully delivered, through a campaign that helped approximately 100,000 children, and the hospital's atrium bears his name.

His P.K. Subban Foundation and his 'Blueline Buddies' program, which brought police officers and young fans together at games, grew out of the same conviction — that a platform this loud should be spent on kids who rarely see themselves in the game. Across his career Subban earned $78.66 million in salary, with a net worth estimated at $35–50 million.

NHL.com — “Subban completes $10M donation pledge to Montreal Children's Hospital”
NHL.com — “Subban to star, executive producer new animated series for NHL, CBC”
Playback — “CBC teams with Leslie Norville, P.K. Subban and Sandy Hudson for docuseries”

More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list  ·  Theo Fleury  ·  Jarome Iginla

Jarome Iginla

Calgary Flames Captain and Hockey Hall of Famer · Co-owner, Kamloops Blazers (WHL) — St. Albert, AB / Kelowna, BC

Jarome Iginla was raised in St. Albert, Alberta, by his mother Susan, a massage therapist, after his parents divorced when he was about one; his father Elvis had immigrated from Nigeria (the family name means 'big tree' in Yoruba) and his mother came from Oregon.

Growing up near Edmonton in the Oilers dynasty years, Iginla loved Gretzky and Messier like every kid — but as a Black kid in a nearly all-white sport, it was goaltender Grant Fuhr who made the dream believable, and Iginla started out as a goalie himself because of him.

He became a power forward instead, and one of the game's greats: 20 NHL seasons, 16 as the Calgary Flames' captain, 625 goals, 1,300 points, the Art Ross and Rocket Richard trophies in 2002, and two Olympic gold medals with Canada — including the assist on Sidney Crosby's 'Golden Goal' in 2010.

In 2020 he became just the fourth Black player inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

"It was very, very important for me following my dream."

Iginla has owned a piece of his own junior team since October 2007, as co-owner of the WHL's Kamloops Blazers — the club where he won two Memorial Cups as a teenager — alongside Tom Gaglardi, Shane Doan, Mark Recchi and Darryl Sydor.

His community work was honored during his career with the NHL Foundation Player Award (2004), the King Clancy Award and the Mark Messier Leadership Award: he ran a Calgary hockey school with proceeds to diabetes research and donated up to $2,000 per goal he scored through KidSport, raising more than $700,000.

Since retiring he has coached youth hockey at the RINK Hockey Academy in Kelowna, British Columbia. He earned more than $95 million in career NHL salary, with an estimated net worth of about C$81.9 million.

NHL.com — “Jarome Iginla inspired by fellow Hockey Hall of Famer Grant Fuhr”
Kamloops Blazers / CHL — “Jarome Iginla Elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame”
Kamloops Blazers / CHL — “Calgary Flames to retire Jarome Iginla's jersey on March 2, 2019” (co-ownership since Oct. 2007)

More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list  ·  P.K. Subban  ·  Sheldon Kennedy

Sheldon Kennedy

NHL Winger & Co-Founder, Respect Group Inc. — Calgary, AB

Official links: Website · X

Sheldon Kennedy's playing career — 310 NHL games with Detroit, Calgary and Boston, a Memorial Cup as captain of the 1989 Swift Current Broncos and a world junior gold medal with Canada — is not what made him one of the most important figures in Canadian sport.

As a teenager, Kennedy was sexually abused for five years by his junior coach, Graham James. He also survived the 1986 Swift Current Broncos bus crash that killed four of his teammates. In 1996 he came forward, and James was charged and convicted.

Then, in 1998, Kennedy in-line skated across Canada and raised $1.2 million for abuse-prevention programs — turning a story he could have buried into a national conversation he refused to let end.

"It was a very special moment, I feel very honoured and very proud,"

In 2004 Kennedy co-founded Respect Group Inc., the online education company whose abuse, bullying and harassment prevention training has reached more than a million Canadians across sport, schools and the workplace — a business whose entire purpose is protecting kids.

He told his story in the 2006 autobiography Why I Didn't Say Anything, co-founded Calgary's child advocacy centre, and was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2014.

The quote above is Kennedy at the 2019 ceremony naming a Swift Current rink in his honour — twenty-three years, as he put it, after he told his story, in the town where both the triumph and the trauma happened. His net worth is estimated at about $5 million; what he built is worth a good deal more than that.

Manitoba Lieutenant Governor — “Sheldon Kennedy” (Order of Manitoba profile)
WHL / CHL — “WHL Alumni Spotlight: Sheldon Kennedy”
TSN — “Ken Dryden, Sheldon Kennedy and Dr. Charles Tator named to Order of Hockey in Canada”

More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list  ·  Jarome Iginla  ·  Gary Roberts

Gary Roberts

NHL Winger & Founder, Gary Roberts Performance — Vaughan, ON

Official links: Website

Gary Roberts won a Stanley Cup with Calgary in 1989 and scored 52 goals in a season — and then his body gave out. Nerve damage in his neck left him unable to lift a two-pound dumbbell above his shoulder with his left arm.

Two surgeries brought him back for one stirring half-season in 1996 — 22 goals in 35 games, and the Bill Masterton Trophy for perseverance — but the neck failed again, and at 30 Roberts announced his retirement. Most careers end there.

Roberts spent the lost season rebuilding himself with a new training regimen, returned with Carolina in 1997, and played eleven more NHL seasons, finishing with 1,224 games, 438 goals and 910 points across 21 seasons before retiring for good in 2009 at 42.

The reinvention that saved Roberts' career became his company. He founded Gary Roberts Performance in the Maple/Vaughan area of Ontario, an elite training and nutrition business built on exactly the methods — fitness, nutrition, recovery — that had brought him back from a neck that could not lift two pounds.

His programs now train elite NHL players and prospects, teaching the next generation the lesson his own career proved the hard way: that the comeback is a discipline, not a miracle.

His net worth is estimated at about $5 million — and the trophy case already held the one award that says it all, the Masterton, hockey's formal recognition of a man who would not stay retired.

Newswire.ca — “Honey and Barry Memorial Arena Teams Up With Hockey Stars Gary Roberts and Zach Hyman”
Wikipedia — “Gary Roberts (ice hockey)”
The Hockey Writers — “Gary Roberts: Bio, Stats, News & More”

More from The Bourgeois Society: The full list  ·  Sheldon Kennedy  ·  Mario Lemieux