If you're interested in getting to know more about new Canucks acquisition Brandon Prust, there's plenty of material available for your offseason consumption.
Prust has an active Twitter account which features plenty of summer charity appearances, as well as a cameo in the Goon movie sequel which was shot last week:
Prust also has an entire chapter dedicated to him in Bob McKenzie's recent book "Hockey Confidential." And, of course, he's a key figure in Season 1 of the reality show "Hockey Wives" alongside his now-fiancee Maripier Morin. The show is in summer reruns on the W Network and online.
I came across
this piece over at The Players' Tribune site yesterday, written by Prust in late February. The title: "Why We Fight."
In addition to giving some background on how he used fighting and a stubborn work ethic to make his way into the NHL, he also goes into some detail about the idea that "fighting keeps the game safe."
During a close game against Anaheim midway through last season, Prust had to decide whether or not to pick a fight after Max Pacioretty got pasted into the glass and was knocked out of the game.
Part of me wants to stay involved in the game, and part of me wants to get revenge. I’m sitting on the bench thinking, “Okay, I could let this go, but what happens when the rest of the league sees that hit and we don’t do anything about it?”
I couldn’t let it go. I went after the player who hit him and tried to get my fight. Now, I’m not a guy to chirp a lot. I mean, I’ll tell guys to shut the eff up and all that, but I’m not one to go after guys’ feelings and whatnot. My thing is, if you want to go, you want to go. There’s no point in making fun of each other’s moms out here. We can settle it a certain way. Luckily, I got my fight that night. I had to let the league know you can’t take runs at our best players.
There's a lot more in the story about Prust's fighting philosophy, "the code" and how enforcers treat each other on the ice. It's well worth a read.
But it's leaving me conflicted. On the weekend, I finished reading the Derek Boogaard biography "Boy on Ice," which paints a devastating picture of the consequences of fighting.
The overall structure of the book leaves a bit to be desired, but the author paints a vivid picture of the rough-and-tumble Western Hockey League in the first 100 pages and opens up a lot of questions about the effectiveness of the NHL's substance abuse program during the last quarter of the book. It's worth a read if you're interested in learning more about the inner workings of how teams deal with players' injuries and off-ice issues.
Also, for Canuck content: Boogaard's last coach in the WHL before he started his pro career was Willie Desjardins—he played a total of 73 games over two seasons with the Medicine Hat Tigers. And Boogaard's last coach in the NHL was John Tortorella. He managed just 22 games with the New York Rangers during the last season of his life; suffice to say, his time with Torts did not go well.
The more we learn about the consequences of brain trauma, the more I wonder whether there shouldn't be another way to police the game. Do players really pass up hits that could cause injury to their opponents because they fear potential repercussions?
If you look at the stats on
HockeyFights.com, you'll see a clear downward trend on fighting in the NHL, especially in recent years. The site has kept track of fights since the beginning of the millennium and shows that fighting peaked in 2001-02 when 348 players (roughly half the players in the league) fought 803 times.
Last season, fighting hit its lowest frequency yet, with just 276 players fighting 391 times—more than 50 percent of that peak number above. (And yes, it still makes me chuckle that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Dan Hamhuis have their names included on last year's fighting list.)
Last season, there were
eight fights in the entire playoffs. Five of them happened in Vancouver's powderkeg series with Calgary, and Prust was involved in one of the three others—squaring off against Braydon Coburn of the Tampa Bay Lightning at the end of Game 2 of the Canadiens' second-round playoff series after being challenged for running Lightning goalie Ben Bishop.
That's the incident where Prust accused referee Brad Watson of insulting him inappropriately and being overly heavy-handed in giving him 27 minutes in penalties.
Click here for a reminder of what went down that night, from Jen Neale at Yahoo's Puck Daddy.
Prust was ultimately fined $5,000 for that incident. I wonder whether it'll follow him among the officiating fraternity this season in the same way that Alex Burrows' reputation seemed to be affected after he called out referee Stephane Auger back in 2010. Burrows was fined $2,500 for that incident.
I'm interested to see if the tag team of Prust and Derek Dorsett will truly create the "safe working environment" for the Sedins and Vancouver's young players that Jim Benning is anticipating. I expect fighting to continue to drop around the league, yet somehow I think we'll still see plenty of guys square off at Canucks games next season.
Vancouver Canucks Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»