It seems almost funny to put Pronger and player safety in the same paragraph but get used to it folks now that Chris Pronger has been hired by the league.
Much has been written about this hire the last few days so I’m not going to delve into it a whole lot except to say he’s perfect for the job for one reason at least: Pronger doesn’t give a rat’s bottom if people don’t like him. And working in that department is not conducive to making friends. Many people already hate the guy so he’s got a jump on the job already.
Pronger says he did seek out Brian Burke to talk about the position as the two go way back (Burke drafted Pronger in Hartford) and Burke of course worked as the league disciplinarian at one time. Pronger also had several long conversations with Rob Blake as well before he accepted the job.
Pronger was no choir boy during his playing days. In fact he was one of the meanest, dirtiest guys out there. Trevor Linden once told me, “That guy takes a penalty every time he’s on the ice.” Pronger doesn’t think his history (eight total suspensions including two in the same playoff year) will bother the guys in the league now.
“I think even the skilled players want a tough game,” he told me by phone. “They just don’t want a stupid game. When I did something stupid on the ice I was held accountable for it.”
Well, most of the time at least.
Is he sorry for his indiscretions? Jump to the tail end of this sit down I did with him a couple years back for the answer to that:
One thing is for certain, Chris Pronger is very interested in learning what goes on in the “back of the house” as far as the NHL is concerned and this job is just a stepping stone to senior management with an NHL club one day.
John Scott’s Former Whip
Spoke a bit to John Scott on Saturday in San Jose. The big man definitely has taken note of what has happened to the role of the “enforcer” recently and isn’t delusional about his future.
He told me he realizes this could be his last year in the league and even if he doesn’t play a game this season (he was a healthy scratch the first two games but was expected to suit up on Tuesday night) he is going to try and enjoy every minute of it.
What he didn’t enjoy is what happened to his Range Rover prior to the season. Scott paid a towing company to ship his vehicle from Traverse City, Michigan to San Jose and his vehicle barely made it seven hours into the trip.
Scott got a call from the dude who was driving the flatbed with the Range Rover on it. The guy said that he has clipped an overpass and that he scraped the top of the vehicle and that the back window popped out. The guy told Scott that he had dropped the SUV at a repair shop to get it fixed.
Well, five days later the repair shop called Scott to ask what he wanted them to do with the Range Rover.
“I thought you were going to fix it?” Scott said.
The response?
“Fix it? No man, this thing is totalled.”
Taking a look at the pics, It’s clear the driver did a little more than scrape some paint off the top of the vehicle.
So what is the 6’9” Scott driving now? A Camero.
“You can fit in that?” I asked.
“For sure”, Scott said. “It’s a convertible and I just look over the wind shield.”
Clint Gresham’s Biggest Fan
Close to twenty members of the Vancouver Canucks made use of their day off Sunday to fly to Seattle in order to watch the Cowboys-Seahawks game at Century Link Field. Zack Kassian wore a Luke Wilson jersey, and for good reason, as the tight end trains with Kassian in the summer. As for Nick Bonino?
“I wore Clint Gresham’s jersey”, said Bonino. “He’s the long snapper and he was the only guy that said hi to us because he was so pumped someone had his jersey. I got a twitter follower out of it so that’s good.”
