Patrice Bergeron has announced his retirement from professional hockey after 19 seasons spanning 20 years (yes, he was playing back during the 05 lockout), 1200 games, 1000 points, and fewer than 500 penalty minutes. Patrice Bergeron redefined the Selke Trophy for Best Defensive Forward, winning it even in his final season in the league.
In scoring 25+ goals a season and roasting his competition with 60%+ at the faceoff dot in his final years, Bergeron definitely chose to make the league an easier one to play in than having retirement handed to him.
Happy retirement, Patrice, I hope you have a full life with your four kids and your wife can unpause the career she chose. I will always hate how good you were against my teams, but that’s the only bad word I could say.
The Billionaire owner of the Chicago NHL team, Rocky Wirtz, has died. Rocky Wirtz and his family have a net worth of $4.4 billion, according to Forbes. His son, Danny Wirtz is now the head of the franchise and the wealthy family. Wirtz’s last public NHL appearance was in 2022 when he berated a reporter and gave the infamous line “we’re not going to talk about Kyle Beach.”
You got something on your face, Stevie!
This is an interesting story. The BCHL left Hockey Canada in order to create better opportunities and pathways for its players to go to college hockey and other pathways blocked by major junior. As a result, the BC Hockey organization have promoted their three Junior-B leagues to Junior-A (replacing the BCHL) as the tier below the major junior WHL. The Kootenay International Junior Hockey League, the Pacific Junior Hockey League, and the Vancouver Island Junior Hockey League will now be feeder leagues for the WHL. [TSN]
Eetu Luostarinen and the Florida Panthers agreed to a three-year contract extension worth $3 million starting the year after next. Oddly early extension for a player with a year still left on his contract. [NHL]
Here is a documentary on the now-defunct NWHL.
