Source: csnphilly.com
Flyers fans will remember Riley Cote as the tattoo-covered heavyweight enforcer who would drop the gloves to protect a teammate. His last fight on the ice took place April 1, 2010, but look at Cote now, and he resembles nothing of the guy who could spar with the toughest men in the NHL.
The stress and pressure of his next fight created an unhealthy lifestyle and Cote was left looking for an alternative – not just professionally, but personally.
That next season, Cote joined the Adirondack Phantoms as an assistant coach, and in the process, he remarkably knocked off around 20 pounds from his bulky 6-foot-2 frame. He looked more equipped to run a 5k than serve five minutes for fighting.
“I wanted to change the way I was eating, change the way I was feeling,” Cote said. “It was an evolution for me. My version of health and fitness is completely different from my version today. I've tried every protein on the market and every vitamin to help my performance to being an athlete. That's what athletes do. They try and find an edge and try to eat the right stuff. For me, a lot of things I use to eat, I don't eat anymore. Plus now, I don't have to train the way I did when I played because I'm not an athlete anymore. I'm just trying to pass on the knowledge I have to a player or two on our team to get them to eat the right way, trim up and be lean. Name of the game is speed and you have to be lean."
Cote’s revolutionary health kick has also helped educate him on the uses of hemp, the world’s most perfect plant from seed to leaf, according to his website, hemphealsphilly.com.
For those not as familiar with the plant, hemp probably equates to marijuana and the notion of smoking pot. That’s one illegal use, but odds are you probably come across hemp every single day. Since 2002, major automobile manufacturers, who build or assemble their vehicles overseas, have been using hemp in their composite door panels. Indeed, it’s possible you are opening the door to hemp and you had no idea. Paper has been created from hemp. The fiber is the most valuable part of the actual hemp plant and those properties are capable of producing clothing, bedding and upholstery.
But Riley is more concerned in the nutritional derivative of hemp -- one he believes is capable of even curing disease.
“My mission is to encourage healthy eating, nutrition, holistic living, and I'm trying to really promote the hemp seed and hemp plant because its a very useful resource -- a resource not used in America,” Cote said.
The Phantoms coach became a firm believer last summer when his sister Jaime needed a drastic change in her fight against Multiple Sclerosis. Jaime’s body was breaking down and in February of 2011, her leg had developed an infection to the point where she could barely walk.
“It was the worst pain I have ever felt,” she said.
Jaime claims it was a result of getting sick compounded with the scar tissue of countless injections. Her symptoms from the prescribed medication included fever, fatigue, dizziness and even vertigo.
Jaime believes it all changed with a 95 percent vegan diet and the addition of hemp seeds and oils that provide essential omega-3, omega-6 fatty acids.
Riley feels the addition of hemp to Jaime’s revamped healthy diet and overall lifestyle change has served as the difference maker.
“I preached the whole health and nutrition thing for a while, and she thought I was crazy, but she started seeing a holistic doctor," Cote said. "Jaime was eating very clean, eating for her blood type and within weeks, she started seeing results. She has more energy than she ever has. She's busier than she ever was. She works in a daycare. She plays sports and she claims to feel as best as she's ever felt in her life. I believe it. I see it. She looks amazing. She's healthy looking and she's healthy minded, too.”
In fact, Riley will talk hemp to anyone willing to listen even if he has to utilize music to get his message across. So Cote, in conjunction with Live Nation, has organized the Hemp Heals Music Festival at Penn’s Landing. The event, scheduled for Aug. 25, will feature the musical performances of Sublime, Cypress Hill and Pepper to name a few, but more importantly, the festival will also feature a vendor area for local businesses promoting “healthy, sustainable, organic and hemp products.”
The sale of hemp is legal anywhere in the United States. What’s illegal is the cultivation of the hemp plant. The U.S. is currently the world’s largest importer of hemp to which Cote, a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, simply can’t understand.
“It's a health food -- a very healthy food -- and you're paying top dollar for it and people can't afford to eat that," Cote said. "You're putting one of the healthiest foods on earth at a price people can't really afford and it just doesn't make much sense. There's no question why people don't know that much about it. The information isn't really out there. People hear hemp, they hear marijuana, and they're scared off. People see the cannabis leaf and they're feared by it, and they shouldn't be. It's nature. The thing has been growing since the start of time.”
Then again, Cote is pairing hemp with rock music, a combination suggesting he’s organizing a 2012 version of the Woodstock festival from the 1970s.
“People will hear the word hemp and right away they're scared off because they're not educated," Cote said. "We'll have speakers talking about the nutritional profile of hemp seeds. We'll have different speakers talking about the uses of hemp plants. All of that kind of stuff, and people leave and say that's not what I thought it was. That's the whole mission and the purpose of this event -- to create and promote a separation between industrial hemp and other cannabis uses."
As you might expect, not everyone will be listening to the music or Cote’s message. The Multiple Sclerosis Association of America, headquartered in Cherry Hill, N.J., has already tuned him out. They refused to endorse Cote’s Hemp Heals Festival even though his Cote Carnival in two years raised $42,000 for the organization.
After contacting the MSAA, they released the following statement: “In terms of rigorous clinical trials and peer-reviewed published data, we do not know of any scientific research using hemp seeds in the treatment of MS. Hemp seeds have no known active effect on MS.”
Cote couldn’t disagree more after watching his sister’s health drastically improve over the past 17 months.
“I guess their (MSAA) version of helping people out and my version of helping people out might be different," Cote said. "I guess we're on different paths. Everyone has their opinions. They do what they do and that's fine. I appreciate what they did. They probably helped a lot of people, but for me, after seeing my sister go through all of that and it not working, and within weeks of eating the right way with healing foods and treating your body the way you're suppose to treat it, I'm sold. I have to tell the story."
It’s all part of Cote's determination and his willingness to stand up for what he believes, something he’s done from the day he stepped foot in Philadelphia as a member of the Phantoms in 2004. Instead of exchanging blows with guys like Colton Orr, he’s now preaching and promoting healthy living.
“The medical system and the health system don't run parallel,” Cote said. “Most doctors you see aren't going to talk about health and nutrition as a treatment. The medical community is pills, needles and surgeries. I don't think they run parallel. You see a holistic doctor, and they treat you as a whole. Treat your body like a temple and your body treats you back the same way. You eat the right foods and your body runs the way it’s supposed to.”
And he’s still not afraid of leaving a black eye if it gets the message across.
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