Music: {allcanada} Tough guy Chris Nilan bares all in 'Last Gladiators'

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The Chris Nilan fight you will remember from the Alex Gibney-directed documentary Last Gladiators is not one that earned him one of his 251 fighting majors from 1979-92.

It's the battle the famed Montreal Canadiens tough guy waged to overcome drug and alcohol addiction. How he fared against league's heavyweights doesn't seem quite as important as how he pulled himself off the canvas after being knocked out by painkillers and heroin. In the film, Nilan brings home the severity of his problem by revealing that he has awakened with his drug needle still in his arm, and that he has survived overdoses.

"(The documentary) was kind of an extension of my therapy to talk about all of this stuff," Nilan said. "It helped me get through some of the things I was trying to get through and helped me stay sober."

The Last Gladiators opens Friday in New York, and in Pittsburgh and Minnesota later in the month. It's available on Video On Demand, starting Feb. 8.

The film is billed as taking an "unprecedented look at the National Hockey League's most feared enforcers" and exploring the career of Chris "Knuckles" Nilan. It features insightful commentary from tough guys Terry O'Reilly, Tony Twist, Marty McSorley and Donald Brashear. Bob Probert also was interviewed before his death.

But the heart of the 90-minute film traces the rise of Boston-born Nilan to folk-hero status in Montreal through his downward spiral into addiction and his current fight to enjoy a productive, normal life.

The NHL's fighting culture has been under a microscope since tough guys Derek Boogaard, Rick Rypien and Wade Belak died away from the rink in 2011. This documentary, filmed before those deaths, doesn't address that issue. But Nilan, considered one of the tougher players in NHL history, has an opinion on the connection between fighting and his own demons.

"My addiction has as much to do with my role as an enforcer as it does the fact my mother stabbed me with a diaper pin when I was a month old," Nilan said. "I honestly don't feel the connection there with my addiction and my life as a fighter."

He said if you are going to look at his role in hockey as a contributor to his addiction then you also have blame the streets of Boston. "Because that's where I learned how to fight," he said. "Or may be it was playing baseball or football when I was a kid, or fighting in the school yard."

Nilan said his addiction has to do with his life, but not that aspect of his life.

"Some people want to believe it had something to do with my role as an enforcer, but I loved what I did," Nilan said.

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When Nilan's career was at his peak in the 1980s, he was as popular in Montreal as any star player. From 1983-84 through 1985-86, he averaged about 19 goals a season. The Canadiens' organization believed Nilan could be more than an enforcer, and coaches worked with him. And in return, Nilan watched over his Canadiens teammates like he was a Secret Service agent guarding the president.

"I loved my career," he said. "I think what I'm most proud of is becoming a hockey player, not just a fighter."

Nilan's hands have paid a price for his many NHL fights. They are featured in the opening of documentary, and to hear him describe the wounds is like listening to war stories.

"But most of the injuries I sustained in hockey, the injuries that have me gimping around, are not from fighting," Nilan said. "They are from playing physical, falling down on the ice and banging into the boards."

Nilan said he's often asked how many concussions he has suffered, and to his knowledge, he believes he hasn't suffered any.

"Have I been punched in the head? Yes," Nilan said. "I've had bumps in the head. But I've never had any symptoms of a concussion. No vicious headaches or sensitivity to light. I just don't believe I've ever had one."

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But that doesn't mean that he doesn't believe there could be long-term implications for enforcers. He is interested in the Boston University study of the brains of deceased athletes, and he has been thinking about willing his brain to the group.

Nilan is doing well now. He is living in Montreal, and he will reach three years of sobriety on May 5. He's working in radio, owns a clothing line of T-shirts and speaks in schools on the art of dealing with bullies in a non-physical manner. He tells children not to stand silent while someone is being bullied. He urges students to be vocal, and to notify school officials, to stop bullying.

That's essentially what he used to do for the Canadiens. He stopped everyone from bullying, although back then he wasn't preaching a non-violent method of accomplishing that.

"No regrets," Nilan said. "Wouldn't change a thing."