Sheldon Souray blasts Oilers: “I told them all to go f*** themselves.”

Former National Hockey League defenseman Sheldon Souray has just opened up about one of the most harrowing experiences you could imagine a professional athlete going through, and he has pointed the finger of blame squarely at the Edmonton Oilers organization while doing so.

Souray was a recent guest on the Unhammered podcast with former NHL enforcer Brantt Myhres, and it was during his appearance on that podcast that he discussed a catastrophic wrist injury that forever changed his perception of the Edmonton Oilers organization.

Souray began by revealing that he suffered the injury after he was goaded into fighting Calgary Flames forward Jarome Iginla at the insistence of Oilers head coach Tom Renney.

"I'm walking out to go play and Tom Renney gives my jersey a tug and says 'Hey if you wanna get someone back now is the time' and no one had ever done that in my career," revealed Souray. "I know what my job is and that made me mad, at this time I was putting up points and someone telling me to fight didn't make sense to me."

After suffering the injury in the fight against Iginla, Souray wanted to travel back to Los Angeles to have the surgery required to repair his wrist. According to the former NHL defenseman, the Oilers refused to let him do so.

"I wanted to go to L.A. and get the surgery, and they said no," said Souray.

Souray then reveals that the Oilers put forward their own plan for his surgery, one that would end in disaster.

"So they say 'No you're going to have the surgery here in Edmonton,'" revealed Souray. "They actually changed the rules after all this stuff."

Souray would concede and follow the Oilers' plan instead of his own, a plan that would eventually result in a life threatening infection spreading through his arm. Souray, several days after the surgery, would eventually have to be transported to hospital and was placed in intensive care.

"About 10 o'clock that night I called an ambulance... I was so sick," said Souray. "I had this old heater, I had a blanket over my head, I'm sweating, I'm starting to get a little delirious, it was like nothing I had never experienced before."

Once Souray arrived at the hospital the realization of just how sick he truly was started to set in.

"I have a major infection, I have a blood and bone infection," revealed Souray.

"3 days in ICU."

Souray feared for his hand and his arm, but the sobering reality of his condition truly hit him when a nurse informed him of the healthcare professionals' concerns.

"She said 'Honey we're not worried about your hand, we're worried about this getting in your heart and killing you' and she said it and I knew she was serious," said Souray.

It sounds like losing the limb was also a very real possibility.

"They were gonna amputate my hand," said Souray. "It was on the table as an option."

While Souray was going through this ordeal in intensive care, he claims he was visited by an assistant trainer that informed him that the Oilers believed he was faking his injury and/or illness to force a trade out of Edmonton.

"He said 'Just so you know the management thinks you're faking this injury because you don't want to play for the Oilers,'" claimed Souray.

As you might expect in such a scenario, Souray responded with a great deal of anger.

"So I picked up my phone and I called [Steve] Tambellini and I called Kevin [Lowe] and I told him what I thought of him and I think I left a message for Daryl too, Daryl Katz who is the owner, and I just told them all to go f*** themselves," admitted Souray.

As you might expect, this didn't exactly leave Souray with the best impression of the way things were run and operated within the Oilers organization.

"It was f***ed up, from the top to the bottom it was so dysfunctional," said Souray of the Oilers organization at the time. "It was a circus."