Chris Pronger is, in all likelihood, going to win his first Stanley Cup tonight. So why's he so dadgummed peevish? He's had two single-game suspensions in as many playoff series for dangerous hitting, and hasn't been too concerned with contrition. (Of course he nailed Tomas Holmstrom in the head, he told reporters — he's taller than Holmstrom; it's simple physics!)
The Globe and Mail says Pronger is subject to a "temper that he can't always keep under control, especially if things don't go his way." What's a three-time all-star in the Stanley Cup finals got to be so pissed off about? Well...
01. On the night the Blues honored Pronger's longtime defensive colleague Al MacInnis, Pronger was in town with the visiting Oilers. Pronger says he taped a video tribute to Chopper, but it never played on the big screen. Talking with reporters about the snub later, Pronger asked "did they lose it? I think they lost it."
02. If this off-key video parody was about you, you'd be annoyed, too.
03. Pronger arrived in Anaheim to find his number since always — number 44 — already in use by Rob Niedermayer. So now he's number 25. Did he make a stink about the switch? No, "I really haven't thought about it, the whole number deal," he said. "Im far enough along in my career that numbers don't really matter." Sure, Chris, just bottle that rage. It will burst free in a terrible explosion of wrath at some later time.
04. During the 1998 Stanley Cup Playoffs, facing Detroit, Pronger took a puck to the chest which briefly stopped his heartbeat. He recovered, but there are those who say his undead heart has lacked the capacity for compassion toward other humans ever since.
05. Growing up with the last name "Pronger" can't have been easy, even in Canada, land of many hilarious surnames. In 1984, Gedde Watanabe's unforgettable performance in
Sixteen Candles made Long Duk Dong a household name. Pronger was just ten years old then, and you know there must have been kids in his fourth-grade class who called him "the Donger." Children can be so cruel.
06. After 13 years in the NHL, Chris Pronger's won the Norris Trophy, the Hart and the Plus/Minus Award, but never the Stanley Cup. Maybe that's frustrating for a player as competitive as he. Maybe he seethes with covetous rancor over hockey's ultimate prize. If so, you can expect Chris Pronger to be a whole lot mellower tomorrow.