Bobby Robins, who believes his three-game tour with the Bruins nearly cost him his life, was a hockey coach in Spain this past season. He is a retired fighter, and in some ways he is a retired Bobby Robins, a man redefined and recreated, his hands now devoted mainly to prayer.

“Looking back on it now,’’ he said the other day, reached by telephone while on vacation in the Canary Islands, “I realize the Lord made me for more than just going on the ice and punching people in the face.’’

Now 36 years old, Robins did plenty of fighting, bouts that added to a career line of 1,807 penalty minutes (including 316 one season in AHL Providence) that helped him finally get his shot in the show in October 2014.

But he says his biggest fight, the one he finally surrendered in despair, was one that had him contemplating suicide as he soaked in the bathtub at his Wisconsin home.

Robins, a 2006 graduate of UMass Lowell, hadn’t worked in two years. His head still hurt, he said, from the knocks he suffered in his three NHL games with the Bruins. In his despair, he pictured himself rising out of the tub and reaching for the gun that surely would end his pain.

“I’m there with my wife and child in the other room, and I am like, ‘This is probably the day I am going to do it, this is the day it’s going to happen,’ ’’ recalled Robins. “We had a revolver in the house, and just every thought I had, metaphorically, I was inching closer and closer to where that revolver was on a shelf in the bedroom.’’

All part of the confusion. All part of the pain. All part of a time, said Robins, when he was using marijuana, tequila, and red wine to numb his concussion-addled brain.

“I’d say that was my lowest point,’’ he said.

The turnaround, which today has Robins “all in on the Lord,’’ was both abrupt and dramatic. In early October 2016, after setting out alone to collect his thoughts on a three-day camping trip, Robins found himself lost, dehydrated, and confused in the Colorado mountains.

“I was as good as gone,’’ he said. “I didn’t know where I was. I was hallucinating. I couldn’t walk. I kept passing out. Eventually I got to the point that spiritually I didn’t have anything left in me. And physically I couldn’t take one more step — I just dropped down to my knees.’’

Convinced he was going to die, Robins prayed for help.

“I put my hands in the air, and I called out to the Lord,’’ he recalled. “I called upon the name of the Lord, and incredibly he heard me. And I said, ‘Lord, if you let me live, if you let me see my daughter again, I will give my life to you.’ ’’

As those words rolled off his tongue, said Robins, a ray of light appeared.

“From above the tree line,’’ he said. “And it illuminated a tree, a giant tree at the bottom of this mountain that I was lost on, and all I knew at that point was that I had to get to that tree. I somehow followed that light and it led me back to the path that led to my tent.’’

Soon after, with wife Samantha at his side, Robins built a fire in the backyard of his home north of Green Bay. He tossed in books, magazines, and tapes. He wanted it to burn. All of it. A self-identified born-again Christian from that moment on the mountain, he wanted a clean break from a past life that, he says, included years of addiction to drugs and alcohol.

“Music, movies, magazines,’’ said Robins, who grew up in the Lutheran church. “All the things that represented my old wicked life.’’

Disillusioned over how his playing career ended, he also reached for his hockey gear, intending to toss it into the inferno. Samantha wasn’t having it.

“She said, ‘No, you’re not going to burn it, just put it in storage,’ ’’ he said. “Glad I listened to her.’’

Less than a year later, Bobby, Samantha, and daughter Libby, now 4 years old, were vacationing in Mexico. After praying at opposite ends of the beach, said Robins, he and Samantha were about to return to their digs when a text appeared on his cellphone.

“That was kind of weird,’’ he said, “because where we were in Mexico, I hadn’t been able to get calls or texts. But there it was.’’

It was an old pal from Providence, Toby O’Brien, once a scout with the Buffalo Sabres, asking, “Do you want to coach in Spain?’’

“And I said to Sam, ‘You know, I think this is an answer to this prayer,’ ’’ recalled Robins. “And it turned out to be just that.’’

By September of last year, Robins took over as “el entrenador’’ of Club Hielo Jaca, one of five teams in the Liga Nacional de Hockey Hielo. With a record of 15-4 or 14-5 (el entrenador wasn’t sure), Jaca made the playoffs and knocked off a club from Barcelona before being swept by Txuri in the best-of-five final.

“It’s probably the equivalent of junior hockey,’’ said Robins, who considers himself now nearly fluent in Spanish. “My old college team at Lowell would probably have their way with us. But it’s a really good bunch of guys. We played one game a week, and the guys all had jobs outside of hockey.’’

The Jaca captain and cocaptain are brothers, noted Robins, and run one of the biggest chicken and egg farms in the Aragon region of Spain. The home rink sits at the edge of the Pyrenees and is the pride of the community.

Robins, fighter turned man of faith, is now looking for his next career gig. For a few more days, while vacationing in the Canary Islands, he is reading the Bible every day. He reads it via online video, and all are welcome to join him by connecting through his website: bobbyrobins.com.

“I promised myself, and the Lord, that I’d read the entire Bible in 2018,’’ said Robins, who typically wears a Bruins ball cap as he reads. “I kind of looked at it like not having read the whole Bible is like showing up at training camp without knowing the playbook.’’

Where this all leads, he’s not certain. Once lost in his head, he’s waiting for God to tell him. If it’s hockey, great. If not, then that’s fine. He’s happy. He’s in the moment. Best of all, he’s alive.

“You should see this view I’m looking at right now,’’ said Robins, an English writing major at Lowell. “I’m on a balcony, looking at an endless ocean horizon right now. Perfect weather. Pretty incredible. The sun is setting right now and life is good.’’

Kevin Paul Dupont’s “On Second Thought’’ appears regularly in the Sunday Globe Sports section. He can be reached at dupont@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeKPD.