Oh yes, Chris Pronger did it all. And more.
He swung his stick at opponents heads. Used his elbows in that way, too. He kicked, clawed, scratched and chopped his way through a long, successful NHL career in which he ran afoul of NHL authorities many, many times.
Eight times the powers-that-be had to tell Pronger to go sit in a corner and think about what he’d done. Heck, during one playoff season alone in 2007, Pronger was suspended twice, once for ramming Tomas Holmstrom’s head into the glass, once for nearly decapitating Dean McAmmond with a completely unnecessary and gratuitous head shot in the Stanley Cup final.
Skill? For sure, Pronger had tonnes of it. Poise? That too. All in all, he was one of the best big men ever to roam an NHL blue line, smooth and possessed of a brilliant first pass out of the zone, and a likely Hockey Hall of Fame inductee some day.
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But let’s not forget the rap sheet.
He stomped on Ryan Kesler’s leg, getting eight games for that indiscretion. That was in 2008, a full decade after he was suspended for swinging his stick at Jeremy Roenick’s head in an “extremely reckless and dangerous manner.”
So these were crimes against the game committed over a long period of time. Recidivism was a Pronger speciality.
So one’s initial response to the news that Pronger, not yet retired but unable to play again, has been hired for a position with the NHL’s Department of Player Safety is to say, “Seriously?”
Gales of laughter have ensued since it was confirmed that, yes, he’ll fill a position in the department.
So what, was Todd Bertuzzi not interested? Were Bryan Marchment, Chris Simon and Dave (The Hammer) Schultz otherwise engaged?
If Dan Carcillo, Matt Cooke, Steve Ott and Maxim Lapierre weren’t still playing would they be getting interviews, too?
I mean, we’re talking a real life version of Tim (Dr. Hook) McCracken here.
McCracken with a mean streak.
Pronger terrorized opponents throughout his career, using his willingness to employ his stick and elbows as weapons to earn himself the kind of room any player would dearly love to have.
The rules were optional, really, for Pronger. If we played a parlour game and you were to respond with your first thought to any NHL name, to Bobby Orr you might say “knees.” To Guy Lafleur, “speed.” To Wayne Gretzky, “99.” To Dominik Hasek, “unconventional.”
But it seems highly doubtful that to Chris Pronger, you’d say “safety.” Or “regard for the health of his fellow NHLPA members.”
It would be this element of the Pronger resume I would find highly unusual – bizarre, really – rather than the fact he’s still getting paid by the Philadelphia Flyers. Some suggest this would make his opinions biased, that this would be Ed Snider’s way of sneaking a Trojan Horse inside NHL headquarters.
Maybe. The conspiratorially-minded might think so, but I wouldn’t. All the people who assume these important hockey positions played for somebody, or ran somebody’s team, and my preference is to assume they have integrity until proven otherwise.
I never bought the notion for a second that Colin Campbell was biased in favour of the Boston Bruins because his son, Gregory, played in The Hub, but Gary Bettman made that a moot point anyway by removing Campbell from decisions involving the Bruins.
Quintal played for St. Louis, Winnipeg, Montreal and Chicago, but mostly for the Habs. Should he recuse himself from questions of justice involving Les Habitants?
No, to me it’s more of a red flag that a player who played the game as Pronger did, with great skill and intelligence and complete disregard for the health and welfare of his opponents, qualifies for this job.
All players have their strengths and weaknesses, right? You wouldn’t have Phil Kessel teach the slapshot. Not really sure he knows how to take one, and that wrist shot does him just fine.
Ditto with Tyler Seguin on the art of body checking. You might not put a microphone on Corey Perry or Claude Giroux and then play it back uncensored to impressionable tyke players to explain how to speak to opponents in a sportsmanlike manner.
An instructional video on the rebirth of the little man in the NHL wouldn’t use Zdeno Chara and John Scott as demonstration models.
Pronger on player safety has the same feel. You wouldn’t make him a goodwill ambassador for the City of Edmonton, either.
But that’s why you do the interviews, I guess. Maybe he feels remorse, thinks now he did what he had to do at the time but shouldn’t have hacked and slashed quite the way he did.
Anybody who has ever spoken to Pronger knows he’s highly intelligent, and funny as hell, to boot. He’s no dumb hockey player, and independent minded, as well. Moreover, he was a player who could play the game any way you wanted to play, with creativity or, if necessary, violence.
He also wouldn’t be in charge of player safety, but a voice to be heard as he learned the ropes. But one day he might succeed Quintal and follow in the footsteps of Brendan Shanahan, Campbell and Brian Burke as the NHL’s hanging judge.
Me, I’ve always seen Pronger as a future GM, and maybe this is one way of getting started on a second career.
It’s just hard to imagine him doing a Shanahan-like video explaining why he was suspending a player. Would he do it with a smirk? Could he deliver the proper tut-tut demeanor?
He sure wouldn’t be able to say “thou shalt not intend to injure.”
Worked pretty well for him, after all.