The St. Louis Blues were thrilled to raise the Stanley Cup Championship banner to the rafters at the beginning of the season to comemmorate the organization's first championship in its 53-year history. Now, it looks as though there will be another banner in the rafters at the Enterprise Center as the team has announced its intention to officially retire Chris Pronger's #44.
Pronger, a native of Dryden, Ontario, played in 598 career regular season games for the Blues, recording 356 points and adding a staggering 931 PIMs during his 9 seasons in St. Louis.
"You look at the names that are up there, the Blues greats - from Bobby (Plager and Gassoff) to Bernie (Federko) to Brian Sutter to Hullie to Al - you look at the names up there and they are synonymous with the St. Louis Blues, and to be up there is very special." Pronger said of the honor.
Pronger is just the eighth player in franchise history to have his number retired, joining MacInnis (2), Bob Gassoff (3), Bob Plager (5), Barclay Plager (8), Brian Sutter (11), Brett Hull (16) and Bernie Federko (24), and you'd hard-pressed to find anyone who would argue that Pronger doesn't deserve to be there.
The official ceremony will take place at some point next season. Congratulations to Chris and his family on this great honor.
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