Hall of Famer Pronger is still having an impact
TORONTO — Chris Pronger took more than a few physical liberties with opponents during his playing career. Intimidation was part of what made the big defenceman a Hockey Hall of Famer.
On the wrong side of the law eight times, Pronger had an “openended budget” for fines and suspensions.
That’s his past. Now years removed from it, the bespectacled Pronger gives off the aura of a studious executive as he continues his work in the NHL’s department of player safety.
Being an executive is Pronger’s future, just as it was for previous Hall of Fame inductees Brendan Shanahan and Rob Blake. Pronger was once the subject of trouble and now joked that he’s the “hall monitor.”
“I’m learning an awful lot not only on the player safety side — I get to go to the GM’s meetings and the board of governors meetings and kind of be a fly on the wall,” Pronger said. “It’s been a great opportunity to kind of learn the business side of the game.”
Post-concussion syndrome ended Pronger’s career in the fall of 2011 after he took a stick in the eye. He’s still under contract through the end of the 2016-17 season and is on the Arizona Coyotes’ roster after the Philadelphia Flyers traded his contract last summer.
Because it has been more than three years since his final game, the Hall of Fame clarified its bylaws to make Pronger eligible in 2015. He went in with fellow defencemen Nicklas Lidstrom, Phil Housley and Angela Ruggiero, forward Sergei Fedorov and builders Peter Karmanos Jr. and Bill Hay on what commissioner Gary Bettman called “a special night for hockey.”
Fedorov thanked Wayne Gretzky for letting him stay at his house in his early days in North America, and his wife, who is expected to give birth to the couple’s first child. Ruggiero recalled long drives across California to play hockey when few girls were across the United States.
After handing out 61 plaques during his time working for the Hall of Fame, Hay read his own plaque with pride. Housley, after years of waiting, didn’t miss his opportunity to bring his old Jofa helmet on stage with him.
Karmanos recalled the minor teams he dedicated his hockey career to, an impact that’ll last longer than his Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes. As expected, Lidstrom delivered a perfect speech to go along with his near perfect career, dusting off the Swedish phrase that: “Things never turn out the way you imagine.”
That’s certainly true for Pronger, whose career was cut short.
Even though Pronger is now 41, Flyers president Paul Holmgren hoped he’d still be playing.
“In my opinion if he’s still healthy today, he could still be a good player because when he had the puck, when he didn’t have the puck, he could slow the game down,” Holmgren said.