The story takes place in the summer of 2006 in the city of Edmonton where it seems the often rabid Oiler fans were found to have broken into Christopher Pronger’s home and set fire to his cherished rental furniture.

Weeks after losing there bid for a sixth Stanley Cup Oiler fans were stabbed once more in the mid section upon hearing news that Pronger wanted out of Edmonton.  At first wild speculation spread through the internet as blowhard Al Strachan broke the story that Prongers time in Edmonton was all but done and the former Hart trophy winner wanted a clean start in a new city.  “Ridiculous” many said, but as we found out Strachan was bang on and days later it was all over the media and quite apparent that our supposed franchise player was a soon to be memory.

It definitely was a shock to most Oil fans but really who cares, this crap happens all the time.  I’ll repeat one of the most frequently used phrases regarding this situation, “forget about it and move on”.  I, like most, would say the majority of us have but yet here it seems the media outside of Edmonton continue to make a story out of this situation.

We get it, Chris Pronger didn’t want to be an Oiler anymore but give it a rest already, that was over a year ago and people are still talking about it because it seems every other week some baboon in the media brings it up again. How come we aren’t talking about how Oli Jokinen wants out of Florida? It is a similar situation with absolutely no press. Funny how people in the media tell Oiler fans to “let it go” and they’re the ones ALWAYS bringing it up reporting on it.

Cue Chris Pronger on Jim Rome the other day.  Over a year after the turmoil Rome’s brilliant investigating brought up the whole urban legend that people broke into Prongers house and burnt his rental furniture, even going as far to say that his baby crib was torched.  Did Pronger set the record straight? Of course not, instead he went on believing the rumours he heard which begs the question, where exactly did this ridiculous rumour get started?

Cue St. Louis Blues commentator Andy Strickland who broke the story that a radio station in Edmonton bought Prongers rental furniture and had a bonfire raising money for charity.  “A radio station in Edmonton recently purchased the furniture Chris Pronger had rented from the company that rented Pronger the furniture,” Strickland wrote. “The radio station then set the furniture on fire while Oilers fans looked on and cheered. I guess that’s the respect you get when you take the team to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup Finals.”

Funny how no local media or radio stations confirmed the story.  Turns out that it was nothing more then a moment on air where a disc jockey was making a joke.  I guess when you’re a sports writer investigating isn’t part of your job description, heaven forbid you go to the source of the story…either Pronger himself or the actual Rental Company.  Ken King, the former VP of that rental company has been on record as saying “It never happened, we got it back in immaculate condition.”

Thus the Urband Legend is born.  Will Strickland,Jim Rome, TSN, Sportsnet, or any who have reported on this story set the record straight?  Probably not, after all the truth never seems to make a good story these days.  Sadly it’s this irresponsible journalism that continues to cloud Edmonton in such a negative light and every other day there seems to be some shot at the city or its hockey team.  How come no one talks about players signing here because they love it or when they do get here they want to stay?  Oh right, I already said…it doesn’t make a good story.

The reality of it all is that players ask for trades all the god damn time but it seems North American media wants to hop on the bandwagon of “bash Edmonton” with no factual proof.  Yes it is cold, yes there is a lot of travel, and yes some players cant handle the fishbowl lifestyle but this continuous dogging of the city from people who base there reports on rumours and not facts need to go back to school.

Despite there hatred for the Oilers and all the negative press on the city all one has to do is look at guys like Garon, Reasoner, Moreau, and even the late Ryan Smyth for proof on how much players actually appreciate not only the team but the city of Edmonton as well.

Oh right, it doesn’t make a good story.

Walks
www.hotstickybun.com

WHY LAUREN PRONGER WAS NEVER GOING TO ACCEPT EDMONTON
By David Staple – The Cult of Hockey

* ITEM: EDMONTON SIMPLY HAD WRONG KIND OF PUCK FOR LAUREN PRONGER, AMERICAN SOCIALITE AND THE 49th MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSON IN PRO HOCKEY.

In Edmonton, all our pucks are hard, frozen and black.

But in Los Angeles, the new home of Chris and Lauren Pronger, there’s a different kind of puck, famous restaurateur Wolfgang Puck, who has just opened a new restaurant, CUT, which helped stage a fabulous charity event recently for L.A. stars such as Hillary Duff, Kate Beckinsale, Chris Klein, Kerry Washington, Rachel Bilson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Chris Klein and Lauren Pronger.

Yes, Lauren Pronger (pictured above, left, at the gala function).

The same Lauren Pronger who was just ranked #49 on The Hockey News’ 9th annual ranking of the Top 100 People of Power and Influence in hockey. The Hockey News selected Pronger as the representative of hockey wives. “More than ever, wives have a major say in where their husbands sign. Lauren Pronger, for example, did not want to be in Edmonton and her husband had to ask for a trade. Would Anaheim have won the Cup if she liked Edmonton?”

Lauren Pronger does appear to be digging the Tinsel Town-scene. Along with a group of her socialite friends from Newport Beach in Orange Country, she snagged an invite to the recent grand opening of the new Chanel Boutique on Rodeo Drive and to the following bash at Puck’s restaurant, L.A. Social Diary reports.

If you ever wondered why Edmonton just wasn’t going to do it for Mrs. Pronger, the gossipy report on the Chanel event on the L.A. Social Diary website tells some of the tale.

There we see a photo of Lauren in the same spread as Duff, Gellar, Klein, Bilson and numerous L.A. big wigs and high-profile fine artists, who created site-specific works for the Chanel boutique.

Pretty head stuff, even for a woman who was once queen of the St. Louis social scene.

“The host committee was filled with society leaders, celebrities, and the movers and shakers of the city,” reports L.A. Social Diary.

“The guests were beautiful, chic and soignée, and classically clad in vintage and contemporary Chanel designs, while carrying those signature handbags.”

At Puck’s restaurant, they dined on “Kobe-style beef” and “line-caught salmon.”

Pronger and her group all chose to wear white J12 watches by Chanel.

“Any Chanel is timeless . . . who can disagree with that?” Pronger told the Diary.

What to make of all this?

Well, a woman who enjoys this kind of night out will never be happy in a provincial town like Edmonton.

It brought to mind another night out for Lauren Pronger (a night that was first written about in a Journal story last spring about why the Prongers wanted out of Edmonton).

This particular night out came after Lauren’s superstar hockey player husband Chris had rashly signed a five-year deal with the Oilers in the summer of 2005.

After introducing Pronger to Oilers fans in Edmonton, EIG chairman Cal Nichols and a group of Oilers insiders invited out the Prongers to the Century Grill for a celebratory dinner. Now, the Century Grill is a fine restaurant, but it’s not exactly Rodeo Drive, is it?

But the evening went well, and it seemed to Nichols as if all were on the same page, all of them talking, dreaming and planning, agreeing that they would all work together — owners, managers, coaches, office staff, players, wives, agents — for the good of Oilers hockey.

“There wasn’t one person in that room who wasn’t excited and upbeat, including Mrs. Pronger, who said it was a great opportunity, a new beginning,” Nichols has said.

But here’s the rub.

Pronger signed with Edmonton only after he realized St. Louis was not going to have a place for him and his massive contract. He only had a few days to mull over the Edmonton bid, and when it came, he has said it was a quick decision: “It was a ten-minute talk with my wife, and we were onto a new team and a new beginning.”

Lauren herself once described the process to Edmonton gossip columnist Graham Hicks: “It all happened suddenly. It was a bit of a shock. . . ”

So that was it.

A ten-minute talk, and Lauren Pronger’s life in St. Louis was history.

Yet she was caring for two toddlers, three-year-old Jack and one-year-old George. She and Chris had a mansion on the Mississippi next door to the home of St. Louis Cardinals baseball star Jim Edmonds. They were regulars on the charity and social circuit, appearing often on the pages of www.blacktie-stlouis.com. Lauren herself was old St. Louis, the granddaughter of a prominent local dentist, the daughter of a wealthy local lawyer and investment banker.

It’s evident now that Chris Pronger himself, a good old Canadian boy from Dryden, Ontario, never saw anything wrong with the move to Edmonton, but that he didn’t take nearly long enough to consider what the move would mean for his American socialite wife.

“I was joking with people when I heard Pronger went there that summer,” Al Strachan, a Hockey Hall of Fame TV and print commentator based in Toronto has said. “I said the over-under for his wife is about Nov. 1. And, actually, they lasted a full season, which was a bit remarkable for her … . It was never any secret when Prongs went there that this was going to happen.

“It wasn’t Pronger’s problem adjusting to the city. It was his wife.”

In Edmonton, the Prongers bought a 2,000-square-foot house in one of the city’s far-flung southwest suburbs, but it’s not clear if Lauren ever spent much time there. By January 2006, things were falling apart and Pronger’s agent, Pat Morris, communicated to Lowe that there was trouble brewing.

If the old collective bargaining agreement had been in place, Lowe would have thought Pronger and Morris were just agitating to renegotiate for more money, but the new CBA didn’t allow for that. If Pronger was traded, he and his new team would have to abide by his contract with the Oilers. Lowe realized this was truly a pressing family issue, but he still felt it could be resolved.

“I was thinking at the time, ‘When the hockey gets good and the weather gets better, and we have what we ended up having (a Stanley Cup run), that will alleviate things.’

But it didn’t alleviate things, not the good weather, not the great Stanley Cup run. Lauren Pronger refused to live here, staying in St. Louis with the couples’ children. “His wife really just kept living in St. Louis with the kids. They would come up here on a homestand and would go to their 2,000-foot (home), hating every minute of it probably,” Nichols has said.

On June 19, 2006, the Oilers lost Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Two day later, the Pronger rumour mill shot into high gear, with Strachan writing that no one should be surprised if the Oilers traded Pronger to free up space under the salary cap (which made no sense, as Pronger’s contract was a bargain for such a superstar). One day later, Strachan wrote that Pronger had done his time in Edmonton and wanted out.That same day, Lowe got the bad news. Pronger wanted an immediate trade.

So that’s how it all went down.

In the end, I don’t blame Pronger for forcing a move. Family comes first, and if you’re a married man, you will know the truth of the following saying: Happy wife, happy life.

If this is the kind of Los Angeles party that makes a woman like Lauren Pronger happy, then Edmonton wasn’t going to do cut it. Pronger could either get himself traded out of Edmonton to some major American city like New York or Los Angeles, as Lauren evidently desired, or he could split up his marriage and his family.

Now, some people, including Nichols, believe the Oilers should have played hardball with Pronger and forced him to honour his contract here, as a matter of business principle.
I understand the principle, but I don’t see how it works in today’s NHL. With the power that superstar players have these days to play in whatever city they so desire, there’s simply no forcing NHL superstars to do anything, at least not something as big as force their wife to stay in a city she doesn’t like.

And Lauren Pronger, it would appear, was never going to enjoy Edmonton. Even if the Oilers had had a concierge on hand — as they now do to help players and their families adapt to life in Edmonton — it would not have helped.

You can’t keep a Chanel boutique girl in a Superstore town.

As the L.A. Diary story and photo spread attest, Rodeo Drive is where Lauren Pronger belongs.

P.S. For the record, none of this excuses Chris Pronger, the 30th most influential person in hockey, for not coming clean with Edmonton fans about his real reasons for leaving, for hiding behind the “private and personal” line. When you sign a five-year contract, when you make that kind of commitment, an explanation is necessary. If Pronger was a stand-up guy at all times, he would have explained himself at that time. He did not do so, so it’s little wonder Edmontonians are unimpressed with the guy.

——————————————————

So after reading that does anyone blame him for leaving? They shouldn’t but the reality still remains that I think he’s still a douche.

Walks
www.hotstickybun.com