Benjamin Hochman | Post-Dispatch

Sports columnist

The quiet can be piercing. The loneliness can be suffocating.

“That last nine months before I crashed and burned and hit rock bottom, the isolation started,” said Jim Montgomery, St. Louis Blues head coach. “Because I didn’t want to affect anybody else. And then when (the isolation) happened, it bottomed out. Because that’s not the kind of person I am. I’m a people person, I’m not an isolation person.”

Alcoholism doesn’t discriminate. At a hockey game, it could be someone in the top row or someone in the front row. It could be the person driving the ice resurfacing machine or, in this case, the successful, celebrity head coach.

In Montgomery’s first season with Dallas, the Stars went 43-32-7. They won a playoff round. And then, perhaps

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