Hockey Confidential

by Bob Mckenzie

  “The guys on that team are best friends to this day and always will be,” Prust said. “There’s such a tight bond. It was a fairy-tale season. We made a statement. No chance anyone was beating us. We were dominant. I got to hold up the OHL championship trophy and the Memorial Cup on home ice, right there in front of my family and friends, my Granda in his seats at the glass. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

  Nine years into his professional career, Prust was still looking for that elusive Stanley Cup championship, but simply forging that length of career was quite an accomplishment for someone who easily could’ve been a dead-end kid.

  In his first three years as a pro, in the Calgary system, he fought all comers, had decent offensive output for a fighter—12, 17 and 10 goals—in the AHL. He showed he could play some to go with the fighting.

  “I was trying to make an impression, trying to make a name for myself,” Prust said. “I was playing a lot, putting up some goals and points, and I wasn’t backing down from anybody. If I didn’t lead the league in fights, I was close to it. I fought anyone . . . John Scott, Rocky Thompson. I fought some scary dudes, but I was confident. I’d become a good fighter. I knew if I played well, did my job, any team [in the NHL] would need a guy like me.”

  By 2008–09, his fourth year as a pro, Prust was an NHLer, never to play another game in the minors. He was traded that season, from Calgary to Phoenix, but was immediately dealt back to Calgary in the summer of 2009.

  Prust liked playing for Flames coach Darryl Sutter in his first go-round in Cowtown; not so much in his second tour of duty, playing for Darryl’s brother Brent. So when Prust was traded from Calgary to the Rangers in the 2009–10 season, he welcomed the fresh start under hard-rock Blueshirt coach John Tortorella. Prust flourished there, providing abundant grit and even scored 13 goals—his NHL career high—in 2010–11 while becoming a fan and media favourite who hit, fought and cemented his reputation as the consummate tough-guy teammate, all heart and soul and nails.

  “I’ve yet to hit 20 goals,” Prust said, with a grin and a puncher’s lament. “I had 19 in my second year in the O, 17 [in his second year] in the AHL and 13 [in his second year] with the Rangers. Lot of good years, but I couldn’t quite get to 20.”

  Brandon Prust smiles easily and often, but his chipper demeanour can sometimes belie the brutal physical punishment that’s been inflicted on his body over a dozen seasons of high-level hockey. It’s not unique to him; every hockey player goes through to it to varying degrees, but the United Brotherhood of NHL Fighters and Tough Guys must withstand a level of searing pain that is almost obscene, difficult for an average man to even comprehend.

  It’s often said that professional athletes must understand the difference between being “hurt” and “injured.” You can play hurt, but not injured. For tough guys, though, in a world where a spot in the lineup isn’t as certain as it is for the goal-scoring winger or playmaking centre, the line between hurt and injured is more easily blurred, to the point where it’s often indistinguishable. It’s unimaginable pain, not to mention unspoken painkilling remedies, often game after game for the better part of a season.

  “It is a worry,” Prust conceded. “Some days, you feel like you’re 100 years old. You think about 20 years from now and how you’re going to feel. You want to be able to live, to play golf when you retire. I’m trying to take care of my body differently now. I train and stretch differently. I’d like to play 15 years in the NHL.”

  But fighters, and hitters, have no choice but to sacrifice themselves. It’s in their job description; it’s in their DNA.

  Prust underwent hip surgery after his second year of junior hockey. He had a hairline fracture of his jaw in his third year with the Knights. In his first real NHL season, in December 2008, the Flames winger paid the price for renewing acquaintances with old Windsor Spitfire OHL rival Cam Janssen of the St. Louis Blues. The two fought early in the game in St. Louis—that was the norm—but Janssen later lowered the boom with a violent hit to the head that smashed Prust’s jaw, badly fracturing it. His recounting of the incident is not for the faint of heart.

  “We were in St. Louis. The doctor gave me three Vicodin to get me through the night,” Prust said. “The team was going on to another game somewhere else, but I had to get back to Calgary the next day, on a commercial flight with a connection—I think it was from St. Louis to Denver to Calgary. I can honestly say it was one of the worst days of my life.”

  Prust said he couldn’t swallow, could barely breathe. The pain was excruciating, and he had no painkillers. He needed to have his jaw wired shut, but that wouldn’t happen until he got back home to the doctors in Calgary.

  “I literally had to hold my face together, like this,” Prust said, clamping one hand on one side on the top of his head and the other hand on the opposite side, along his jawline. “My face was so swollen, it was out to here . . . people in the airport were staring at me. I had to change planes. It was a long day. I was in so much pain.”

  Welcome to the NHL, kid.

  He missed three months because of that injury, and was back in the lineup for about three weeks when Minnesota’s six-foot-seven, 258-pound Derek Boogaard hit him with a forearm to the head. Prust was concussed, badly. Boogaard got a five-game suspension.

  “I didn’t get knocked [unconscious] but I didn’t know where I was for an hour,” Prust said. “I didn’t know where my stall was. I went into the change room; they asked me, ‘What day is it? Don’t know. Who did we play? Don’t know. What was the score? No clue.’ It all came back to me about an hour later.”

  Before he was healthy enough to return to the Flames’ lineup, Prust was traded to the Phoenix Coyotes.

  Good luck, kid.

  In his first full year with the Rangers, in November 2010, Prust tore up his shoulder in a fight with Pittsburgh’s Mike Rupp. Prust never missed a game that season—it was the year he had his NHL career-best 13 goals and 29 points—but he lost count of how many pain-numbing shots he took to make it through all 82 games.

  “I’d wake up in the morning and not be able to move my arm or shoulders and think there was no way I could play that night,” Prust said. “But by game time, I’d be lining up against [Montreal’s] Travis Moen on the opening faceoff and saying, ‘Hey Mo, you wanna go?’ You find a way, you have to find a way.”

  When the season ended, he had shoulder surgery.

  The next season, his last in New York, Prust fought Ottawa’s Zenon Konopka in mid-January. He snapped a tendon in his left ring finger. The doctor told him he could have it surgically repaired immediately, regaining full use of the finger, but would miss three months—the rest of the regular season—or he could wait until the off-season to have the tendon surgically removed.

  “They told me if I waited, and did it in the summer, I would never be able to bend [the top half of his ring finger] again,” Prust said. “I think it was [Ranger captain] Ryan Callahan who said to me, ‘Hey Prusty, it’s just a finger. You don’t need to ever bend it again.’ The guys were chirping me because they thought I should get it fixed [in-season], but it was a contract year. I wasn’t missing three months in a contract year.”

  Prust played with the pain, and the painkillers. Again. His whole left hand was a mess by the playoffs.

  “There was so much swelling and scar tissue,” he said. “I fought [Ottawa’s] Chris Neil in our playoff series and I was in agony. I couldn’t even grab onto his jersey; I just tried to hang on for dear life. He won that fight; I did all right. I had to do it. It helped change the series around for us.”

  Prust got the off-season surgery to remove the tendon. He can no longer bend his ring finger on his left hand, but he was able to sign his four-year, $10 million contract with Montreal that summer just fine.

  In his first two seasons with the Habs, he had a pair of shoulder separations—one left, one right, one each season. He had an ob
lique strain, which he came back from, only to aggravate it and miss the last month of the 2013–14 season. He was out of the lineup for a total of 40 of his first 130 regular-season games in Montreal.

  “The last couple of years in Montreal have been great years,” Prust said on the eve of the 2014 playoffs. “I’ve had great fun, the most fun I’ve had in [pro] hockey. I can’t imagine how much more fun it would be if I didn’t have the injuries.”

  Brandon Prust would never ask anyone to feel sorry for him. Quite the opposite, in fact. He chose the life he leads, and he embraces all the consequences and rewards that go with it. He couldn’t be happier. He’s living the dream. His Nonni Georgina passed away when Brandon was 22, in his second year as a pro. His Granda, Jimmy McQuillan, died in 2013, and lived to see Brandon establish himself as a full-fledged NHL player. Brandon knows if they’re looking down on him now, his Nonni would still be offering to pay him to not fight and his Granda would be sitting at the glass, exchanging high fives on Brandon’s way out to do battle as an NHL warrior. He still has his grandmother Lillian, his mom’s mom, who has made a point of trying to watch, on the internet or on TV, most every game Brandon has played since he was 18 years old

  His perspective on life has been shaped by a loving, close-knit family that instilled in him a sense of community and deep level of caring, evident by his charity work with cancer-stricken kids in London. The Kids Kicking Cancer program allows youngsters battling the disease to get instruction in the martial arts while they’re in the hospital, which in turn helps them to learn to breathe, manage pain, feel good about themselves, live for the moment and continue to fight the good fight.

  Which, in a manner of speaking, goes to the very core of who Brandon Prust is and the life he’s always felt he was meant to have, the one he’s living to the fullest.

  “All I know is when I’m 50 years old, no matter what,” Prust said, “I’m not going to say I would have done anything differently. You’ll never hear me say that.”

  • • •

  NHL forward Brooks Laich, in one of the great hockey quotes of all time, once said: “If you want money, go to the bank. If you want bread, go to the bakery. If you want goals, go to the net.” Well, borrowing a page from Brooks, if you want to talk fighting in the NHL, go to Brandon Prust. The Montreal Canadien forward is something of an expert, and over lunch on the final Tuesday of the 2013–14 NHL regular season, Prust talked candidly about all things fighting. Here’s the transcript of that interview.

  BM: This is probably a stupid question, but I’ll ask it anyway: What’s it like to get punched in the face?

  BP: It doesn’t feel good. [He laughs.] But you know, when we play with pain, it’s kind of a rush for us. If, after a game, I’ve got a sore leg from blocking a shot or a sore face from eating a punch, it’s actually a feeling of being proud of yourself, it’s the proof you battled that day. I don’t fight where I eat a lot of punches. I’m a smart fighter; I try to limit the number of punches I take. But, yeah, getting punched in the face is not something I look forward to.

  BM: I’m guessing it’s a better feeling to punch someone in the face than to get punched?

  BP: It feels a lot better. [He laughs.] I always try to punch someone in the face more than they punch me. [He laughs again.] When I fight, it’s not like I hate the guy or I’m mad. When I fight, I’m totally calm. It’s business. I’m trying to out-strategize the guy, wait for my openings. When you hit someone and connect, it’s like, “He felt that one.” That’s what you’re thinking.

  BM: Is being in a fight more exhilarating or scary?

  BP: It’s both. I’m nervous going into every fight, but it’s that fear that makes me a good fighter. I can admit it’s nerve-racking, especially some of the guys I fight. But once the gloves drop, my nerves go away. It’s just me and him; nothing else really matters except how I’m going to win that fight and not get beat up. My heart is beating like crazy when I ask someone to go, but once the gloves drop, I’m calm.

  BM: What’s the key to winning a fight?

  BP: I think you have to be in control of your aggression. I know that when I do badly in my fights, it’s when I really hate the guy—it’s when I really want to hurt him. That’s when I don’t fight so well. I fight better when I’m calm and in control. Fighting is about using your brain. You have to know what punches are coming, what hand he punches with, what hand he grabs on with.

  BM: Is it important to win a fight or more important to just show up?

  BP: Both. It’s important for me to win a fight. I hate losing fights. But it’s definitely more important to show up, to stand in there and stick up for teammates or your team. Show that courage, get your teammates going.

  BM: Do you study your own fights? Watch video?

  BP: Definitely. If I get in a fight, I’ll usually watch it right after the game, on the bus on the way to the airport. I watch it on YouTube or on HockeyFights.com.

  BM: What about before a game, preparing for a fight? Do you watch video of potential opponents?

  BP: Yes, I’ll watch, especially a young guy coming into the league, I may not know him. A lot of the older guys, I obviously know all about them. I don’t need to see video of them. But new guys, young guys, I need to know how they fight. I’ll strategize, go through in my head how I’m going to fight them. I’ll do that more than I will think about the game, because you just play the game. The fighting, though, is on your mind the most. I like to fight right away if I can, try to get it out of the way and focus on playing hockey. If you know a fight is coming, it’s harder to focus on playing. If the fight doesn’t come until the third period, I’m an awful hockey player for the first two periods, because it’s in the back of my mind. I’m thinking, “When’s he coming for me?” or “When am I going to go after him?”

  BM: So before a game, will you look at their lineup and say, “Okay, I am going to fight this guy or that guy?”

  BP: Yeah, a lot of times what I do is look at their lineup and say, “This guy might come after me, that guy might come after me.” Or I’ll say to myself, “I’m going after this guy tonight.” I may decide ahead of time I’m going after this guy on the first shift. I’ll do that more if we’ve lost a couple of games in a row, if I feel like I need to get the team going right away.

  BM: Have you ever arranged a fight ahead of time with the guy you’re going to fight?

  BP: No, but there are guys you’ve fought your whole career, you just know you’re going to fight them. You don’t have to arrange it. You both just know. Like if I’m playing Cam Janssen, we know we’re fighting. Now, I also know I can sometimes say no to him. Or he can say no to me. One of us is going to be looking for the other guy. That’s just the [unspoken] agreement we have. Nothing’s actually arranged, but it’s understood. We both have a lot of respect for each other and what we do. If he says, “No, I’m not fighting you now,” I’m fine with that. But there are games when I just know if I ask him, he’s going to say yes. Those are the games [when] I’m most nervous, because I know I’m going to ask him and I know he’s not going to say no.

  BM: There’s always been a lot of talk about “the Code” and what it is. Do you know what the Code is?

  BP: Yeah, for sure. I could write the Code. It’s all about respect and honour. I’m not sure in the old days, there was that amount of respect. They hated each other when they fought. I’m sure there was a Code back then, but it’s changed. It’s about respect now. If a guy falls down, you don’t hit him when he’s down. There are not that many rules to the Code, really. It’s just about not taking advantage of a guy when he’s down and out. You want to fight people, but you don’t want to seriously injury them.

  BM: A lot of people would say that doesn’t make sense. I mean, what’s the purpose of a fight besides punching them in the face and possibly hurting them?

  BP: For sure, you are trying to punch a guy in the face, and y
eah, it’s a war, but if the guy is laying there, you have to let up and not take advantage.

  BM: I think the confusion on the Code is that some will say if you’re asked to fight, you have to be honourable and accept, yet some guys refuse to accept the fight and they’ll have their reasons for doing that. It strikes me that there are a lot of provisions in the Code—when you have to fight, when you should fight, when you can turn down a fight—but it seems like a moving target sometimes.

  BP: I definitely agree that part of the Code is you should have to answer the bell sometimes. Not all the time, but sometimes you have to. If you’re a player who makes big hits—guys like [Dion] Phaneuf, even P.K. [Subban] on our team, there are guys who make big hits in hockey, and that’s great, that’s the way to play the game—I don’t think those guys have to answer the bell every time they make a hit, but they should answer once in a while. I mean, a guy like Brooks Orpik, he runs around out there, makes all these big hits, but doesn’t drop the gloves. I don’t respect that. If you’re going to try to injure our players [with big hits], you’ve got to be prepared sometime to face the music. That’s everybody’s call they have to make. You can’t do what [Boston’s] Shawn Thornton did [knock out a defenceless Orpik with a punch, for which Thornton was suspended 15 games], and I know Shawn feels bad about that, but you can’t really do anything about it if they don’t [want to fight] except maybe try to hit them even harder.

  BM: In your mind, what are the best and worst reasons for having a fight?

  BP: The best reason is sticking up for a teammate if it’s a vicious hit on your guy. The other best reason is to help your team if it’s down and needs a spark or you need to get the crowd going. Protecting a teammate or getting your team going, those are the best reasons. The worst reasons to fight . . . hmmm, I don’t think there is a worst reason to fight. [He laughs.] Obviously, if you’re down 5–1 and it’s the last five minutes of the game and you start a fight, it’s like, “Why are you acting like a hero now when you could have asked me to fight in the first period?”