For the better part of 18 NHL seasons, Chris Pronger was RoboCop on skates.
He’s 6ft 6in, and with a pair of Bauers tied to his sequoia-like legs, Pronger had a larger-than-life presence over stints in Hartford, St Louis, Edmonton, Anaheim and, ultimately, Philadelphia.
Now 51 with a Stanley Cup ring and two Olympic gold medals, the hall-of-fame defenseman is still the same towering, broad-shouldered presence he’s always been. But in sitting down with the Daily Mail to promote his new memoir, Earned, Pronger readily admitted he’s all too human.
‘How much more do you want to withstand and push through to play?’ Pronger told the Daily Mail about his decision to retire in 2012. ‘And then, you know, the injuries and the concussions and all the rest of it.’
But Pronger’s story isn’t just the familiar tale of attrition. Rather, one gripping portion of the memoir centers on the moment his heart literally stopped during a 1998 playoff game in Detroit.
As was the case with Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin in 2023, Pronger was cut down by commotio cordis, a disruption in the heart’s rhythm that results in cardiac arrest. Only unlike Hamlin, who needed to be resuscitated after an awkward tackle, Pronger collapsed after taking a slap shot from Red Wings defenseman Dmitri Mironov directly to the chest – something he now admits ‘just kind of stung a little bit’ at the time.
Chris Pronger, 51, is pictured with his wife, Lauren, and their children Jack, Lilah and George
During a 1998 playoff series with Detroit, Blues defenseman Chris Pronger suffered cardiac arrest after being hit in the chest with a puck. The incident was blamed on commotio cordis
After taking a slap shot from Red Wings defenseman Dmitri Mironov directly to the chest, Pronger awoke to see concerned faces, crying teammates and his jersey sliced open
The initial impact of the puck didn’t seem so consequential. Pronger actually got to his feet and took a few strides toward the Blues’ bench before the lights went out.
‘I knew where I was on the ice,’ Pronger recalled to the Daily Mail. ‘Our bench was right there. You know, ‘Get to the bench. Don’t let these fans see you laying on the ice in distress or pain.”
In a scene seared into the collective memory of hockey fans, Pronger did not make it far before crumpling at the feet of an official.
‘I must have blacked out,’ he said. ‘And the next thing you know, I remember kind of waking up, I’m staring at all the banners in Joe Louis Arena kind of like: ‘What am I doing out in the middle of the ice?… What actually happened here? And why is everybody so concerned?”
The confusion didn’t end there.
With his teammate Brett Hull and others weeping nearby, Pronger slowly noticed his jersey had been ‘cut open’ exposing his chest.
Pronger sat down with the Daily Mail to discuss his newly released memoir, Earned
Although he later won a Stanley Cup with the Ducks, Pronger is best known as a Blues star
As the trainer soon explained, Pronger had been unconscious and not breathing for around 25 or 30 seconds. His lips had turned blue and emergency responders were preparing to do mouth-to-mouth resuscitation when the Blues star miraculously regained consciousness.
‘My parents were in the crowd,’ he said. ‘As I was getting carted off on the stretcher to the ambulance, I was telling our NHL security, like, ‘Can you please go tell my parents I’m fine?”
That ‘scary situation,’ as Pronger described it, gave way to a brief hospital stay, where players from both teams paid him a visit. Even rival Red Wings star Brendan Shanahan, for whom he’d been traded years earlier, took the time to check in on him.
Pronger’s story differs significantly from Hamlin’s in their recovery period, as well. Hamlin had to come back from emergency surgery, but Pronger avoided that entirely and was instead placed under immediate observation.
When he saw a heart specialist back in St Louis, where he still lives, Pronger was informed about the risks of commotio cordis.
‘This is what happened,’ Pronger recalled his doctor telling him. ‘A little short circuit [in your heart].’
Pronger began his career with the Hartford Whalers, who made him the second pick in 1993
Chris Pronger (back row, center right) with some members of his draft class including Paul Kariya (front row, far left) and first-overall pick Alexandre Daigle (front row, center)
Pronger was told the issue occurs more frequently in Little League baseball.
‘They either get hit with a line drive or a pitcher gets a comebacker and, unfortunately, a lot of Little Leaguers die from it because they’re not strong enough to have their heart restart,’ he said.
Commotio cordis, while rare, is a distinct danger for athletes – particularly younger ones.
A recent article published in the Journal of the American Heart Association cited 302 sports-related cases of commotio cordis between 1980 and 2022, with baseball (38 percent) the most common sport linked to the cardiac event. Only 17 cases of commotio cordis were found among hockey players, but regardless of the circumstances of the injury, athletes who suffer commotio cordis during play had a survival rate above 50 percent.
Around 15 to 25 deaths per year are blamed on commotio cordis, with victims typically between the ages of 12 to 15, according to the US Commotio Cordis Registry. Fortunately, survival rates have been improving in recent years thanks to the increasing presence of automated external defibrillators (AED).
And not every incidence of commotio cordis requires an AED. As was the case with Pronger, some individuals can be fine after having their heart’s rhythm disrupted by an impact to the chest.
‘In some nonfatal events, an individual struck in the chest may experience a loss of consciousness and a brief period without vital signs, followed by a full recovery with no subsequent diagnosis,’ read the article from the Journal of the American Heart Association.
Ontario’s Chris Pronger won two Olympic gold medals as a defenseman with Team Canada
That was the case with the 24-year-old Pronger, who was asked to undergo a battery of tests before his quick return to the ice.
‘I’m running on the treadmill, doing all this stuff, she’s trying to get my heart rate up,’ he recalled. ‘[The doctor showed] me that it was not anything related to my heart – more of just a freak occurrence.’
The last step was a 24-hour heart monitor, and without any arrhythmia, Pronger was back on the ice for Game 3 just two days after nearly dying on the ice.
‘Once I had my gear on, I’m like, ‘All right, well, I’m not taking it off now,” Pronger said.
The Blues lost the series, but Pronger’s career was just getting started.
He went on to win a Stanley Cup in Anaheim before being traded to Philadelphia, where he suffered the injury that ultimately did lead to the end of his brilliant career.
‘The doctor looked at me and was like, ‘This is not a good idea, and you should be done,” Pronger told the Daily Mail.
Pronger had taken a stick directly to his eye, resulting in hemorrhaging and some initial fears of partial blindness. Soon, post-concussion issues emerged, and by the end of the 2011-2012 season, Pronger was ready to hang up his skates.
Pronger took a stick to his eye, resulting in hemorrhaging and initial fears of partial blindness
His memoir gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at these moments, which should pique the interest of hockey fans. But it’s Pronger’s post-NHL life that may be most relevant to general audiences.
Years of headaches, nausea and blurred vision resulting from post-concussion syndrome made his day-to-day life unbearable. Simple things like riding a bike with his wife and children became impossible, and given his sensitivity to bright lights and noise, Pronger had taken to secluding himself in dark rooms.
The cure, Pronger explained in the book, was to challenge himself.
Rather than avoiding physical activity, he continuously pushed himself to do more, even when his post-concussion symptoms presented an obstacle.
And when he started noticing that alcohol was having a bigger impact on him than it once had, he quit drinking altogether.
‘I’ve talked to a lot of guys that I’ve played with or played against that have had a lot of concussion problems, and a lot of them have quit drinking,’ Pronger said. ‘And they felt 100 times better.’
Pronger is seen in Anaheim with his two sons (second and third from right) when he was playing for the Ducks
Pronger, too, has felt better. He told the Daily Mail the symptoms that once plagued his retirement have largely dissipated.
These days, Pronger helps with his wife’s travel agency, Well Inspired Travels, in addition to his role as an NHL announcer on Amazon Prime. But he is most active as a speaker addressing corporate audiences and other kinds of groups across North America.
Like his book, Pronger’s message is much more motivational than self-congratulatory, but he can take some pride in the safety measures that have been enacted since his 1998 incident.
When Red Wings defenseman Jiří Fischer suffered a cardiac arrest in 2005, the team doctor was already on the bench rather than up in a suite, which had been the case when Pronger went down in ’98.
‘You don’t know what would have happened had he come from the top [suites] where [the doctor] was when I got hurt,’ Pronger said of Fischer’s cardiac arrest – the event ultimately ended his career but, thankfully, not his life.
A young Pronger laughs with former Hartford Whalers star Gordie ‘Mr Hockey’ Howe
Chris Pronger is seen with his friend, Herbie, after winning the Stanley Cup in 2007
In 2000, Pronger was awarded the Hart and Norris memorial trophies as MVP and top defenseman
And Pronger couldn’t help but marvel at the emergency responders who saved Hamlin’s life in 2023 on a Monday night in Cincinnati.
‘Just to see how the training staff kicked into gear, their training took over and how quickly they got to work,’ he said. ‘The fact that they did practice that and how quickly they went into action and got to [Hamlin] and started the protocol was very impressive.’
What’s more, after Pronger’s near-death experience, equipment makers began adding a heart guard to all shoulder pads to disperse the impact of a puck.
These developments aren’t awards on Pronger’s mantle, like the Hart and Norris trophies he won as NHL MVP and the league’s best defenseman in 2000.
Rather, they are tangible pieces of a legacy that serves as a tremendous source of pride for someone who has helped to make the sport safer.
‘I think it all kind of allowed me to really think deeper about what kind of impact I wanted to have, what legacy I wanted to leave outside of Chris, the hockey player,’ he told the Daily Mail. ‘What were you able to do with your life?’