NHL star Metropolit skates way out of Canada's slums

0 Comments | AFP, March, 2008

LOS ANGELES (AFP) — Glen Metropolit has scored over 100 points in six seasons in the National Hockey League but no amount of success will erase the memories of the gangs, pimps and crackheads of his youth.

Raised in poverty by a single mother and shuffled in and out of foster homes, hockey became an escape for Metropolit and a way out of one of Canada's most violent and drug-ridden inner city slums.

Metropolit estimates he moved 20 times within Toronto's Regent Park as a youngster and the Boston Bruins forward's hockey career has been just as nomadic.

"Hockey was my escape," Metropolit said. "It was my outlet. I had a group of about five friends and we would play any kind of hockey. Ball hockey in the summer and ice hockey in the winter. It was always...