Chris Pronger and culpability
What’s this button up here to the left… oh, hey! I have a blog! Maybe I should post something on it.
Chris Pronger is one of the top three defensemen in the National Hockey League. Last summer, he signed a five-year contract in Edmonton after playing eight seasons in St. Louis, and marrying a St. Louis native during that time. After leading the Oilers to within a game of the Stanley Cup with nary a hint of discontent, Pronger requested a trade for “personal reasons” and explained no more; the most credible sources available suggested that his wife didn’t take well to moving 350 miles north of Montana. Edmonton fans reacted viscerally to this news, suggesting marital infidelity all the way up to a rumor Pronger had impregnated a local TV reporter that she was eventually forced to denounce on her own website. Pronger eventually got his trade to the Anaheim Ducks, but Edmonton didn’t do badly on the deal, pulling in rising star forward — and hometown boy — Joffrey Lupul.
In an interview with the Edmonton Journal this week, Pronger expressed for the first time his anger at the insinuations spread about him and his family. SI.com’s Allan Muir, in turn, reviewed the situation, considered it carefully, and blamed Pronger for the rumors:
All right, on one hand, you can see where he’s coming from. The talk, particularly about his wife, hasn’t been flattering. But what did he expect? He made the curious decision to leave Edmonton less than a year after inking a five-year contract. […]
If family was the issue behind his trade request — and no one is suggesting otherwise — why even bring them into it? Instead of using them as a scapegoat, why not protect them by leaving them out of it completely? Why wouldn’t Pronger simply say he was the one who wanted/needed to get out of town?
Sure, he would have taken more heat from the fans, but so what? It’s not like they were planning on renaming Rexall Place in his honor anyway. Not only would he have spared his wife from the ugliness that ensued, but also the others who were dragged into this mess.
And that element of this whole affair was noticeably missing from his session with the Journal. Apparently it never crossed his mind to apologize to those in Edmonton — including TV reporter Christie Chorley — whose names were unfairly dragged into this whole mess by his evasiveness.
So if a player decides he wants to leave a team for the sake of his family, angry fans have the right to make up any sort of nasty rumor they want, pull in anyone else they want, and it’s the player’s fault for giving them the opening? I can’t even begin to describe how morally obtuse this is. Congratulations, Allan Muir; in just one article, you’ve earned yourself a solid number-two spot on my list of idiot hockey journalists, just behind America-hating clown Jack Todd of the Montreal Gazette.
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22 September 2006 / 0 Comments / Tags: hockey, media