POSTED: Friday August 13th 2010
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Chris "Peg Leg" Pronger Looks to Rehabilitating Knee Following Painful Playoffs

Chris Pronger recently made public a knee injury that had ailed him over the final three series of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, prompting the question: just how tough are hockey players?

There are two ways to look at Chris Pronger’s knee injury, apparently sustained early on in the Philadelphia Flyers’ series against the Boston Bruins during the spring:

1) It’s a bad break for the Flyers, seeing as Pronger won’t be ready by the start of training camp and who knows if he will be 100% by the time the regular season starts, and

2) Holy Mother of G-d, he played three playoff series AFTER getting injured????? And was still a candidate for the Conn Smythe Trophy when it was all said and done????? Wow. Just wow.

One need only watch games one through four of the Stanley Cup Final between the Flyers and the Chicago Blackhawks this past year to witness Pronger’s dominance. Forget game five, in which he was a career-worst +/- -5, but up until that point he really was the best player on the ice, on either team.

Each year these playoff injuries revealed after the fact never cease to amaze and it really does go to show that hockey players are a different breed of athlete. Just read what Pronger had to say, talking to NHL.com:

“A lot of times when you hurt your knee you walk different and you hurt your back or you hurt your other knee because you are loading that up more. It really is about your body becoming symmetrical again and you’re not over taxing any one part of your body.”

Funny… I didn’t know Pronger had a master’s degree in physiotherapy. Because it sure sounds like it, or rather it sounds a little too much like he knows exactly what he’s talking about. Just how many times has he played on one leg???

Pronger needn’t look very far to bear witness to a similar story that played itself out this past year. Boston defenseman Zdeno Chara suffered a broken finger in a game against the Buffalo Sabres in late November. It was just the 22nd of 82 regular-season games for the Bruins. Chara played through the remainder of the regular-season schedule, broken finger and all… and then through the Bruins’ complete 13-game post-season. He ended up with 44 points during the season, a +/- rating of +19, and an all-around very good season for any other defenseman… except himself.

Hockey lore is filled with similar stories of players battling through pain, bruises, and worse. Their response when they get asked why they remain in a game despite losing seven teeth thanks to a puck to the mouth, as Blackhawks defenseman Duncan Keith did this past playoffs? The mouth (or whatever body part) is a long way from the heart. Of course, if, G-d forbid, a player has a harpoon shot through his chest, would you really put him pulling it out and going out the very next shift past him (until he inevitably collapsed from having just had a harpoon shot through his chest; I mean, c’mon… it’s a friggin’ harpoon through the chest!)?

Chara, Keith, and Pronger personify the toughness needed to make it as a hockey player, making it one of the toughest sports to play. For all of the Prongers in the world, there are also the players whose injuries don’t become known, yet are still played through. It’s too commonplace a situation in the sport to worry about Pronger. He’ll get healthy and to 100%. After all, he’s been there before. In more ways than one.

So, are the Flyers the favourites to win the Stanley Cup next year?

I would say that the Flyers, who have become serious contenders this past off-season through a slew of impressive roster moves made by general manager Paul Holmgren, can rally around Pronger’s sacrifice and propel themselves to a good position come the playoffs, but the truth of the matter is that the Flyers are made up of 23 Chris Prongers (maybe not so much in the case of Nikolai “what is this word defense I’ve heard so much about” Zherdev).

No, maybe each doesn’t have the same skill set or ceiling, but they most certainly have the same drive, and, after coming so close last season, the same ultimate goal. All things taken into consideration, yes the Flyers are the team to beat. Barring any injuries - or maybe not - they should have no problem making it back to the finals.

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Keywords · Chris Pronger · Philadelphia Flyers · Zdeno Chara · Boston Bruins · Duncan Keith · Chicago Blackhawks · NHL · hockey players · tough

Name: John Waverly
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