Bob Probert is one of the hockey world’s all-time greats. Perhaps not for his goalscoring abilities or his flashy stickwork, but for his fighting.
Probert was a true enforcer who always had his teammate’s back. He was one half of the” Bruise Brothers” with Joey Kocur, and when his career ended, he was fourth on the NHL’s all-time list with 3,300 penalty minutes.
Bob Probert’s teammates loved him, and he was a great leader to the young guys in his teams. But he actually threatened to beat up one of his teammates one time.
” Probert was the heavyweight champ back in those days, and everybody was scared of him. He was so intimidating, not only to his opposition but even to his teammates,” says Basil McRae in the book” The Code – The unwritten rules of fighting and retaliation in the NHL.”
” I remember once before a game with Chicago that he came up to me and told me that he didn’t want me to fight Al Secord that night. He said that he had a score to settle with him and under no circumstances did he want me to mess it up. I looked at him and just told him I would try not to, but that if he started something with me that I was going to have to answer the bell.”
” Probert just looked at me and said,’ If you fight Secord tonight, you are fighting me tomorrow in practice,’ and he just walked away. I was like, holy shit, this guy is seriously crazy.”
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