Chris Pronger on the 'Fat Club', Fishing in Dryden and Wayne Gretzky

On Tuesday, former NHL all-star defenceman and current financial entrepreneur produced his fourth Twitter thread in as many weeks, highlighting one of the less talked about topics of conversation surrounding professional athletes - that of trades. https://twitter.com/chrispronger/status/1525595027077902336 The bulk of Pronger's message is listed below: "Have you ever wanted to know what a trade is like from a player’s perspective? Here is how my first one went down. Well, here it is… In 1993 I was drafted 2nd overall to the Hartford Whalers. I thought I was in a pretty good position. Little did I know what was a head of me! After 2 years in Hartford and having just gone through my first NHL Lockout in 1994 (my 2nd season in the NHL). I talked with then GM Jim Rutherford in Hartford during our post-season interview. We discussed summer plans and what I/we needed to do to improve our team next season. He told me I was the franchise player and someone the team is going to build around. How many times have you heard that in the media. It is a kiss of death of sorts for many athletes. As we went through my season and what I needed to do to improve on and off the ice, I began to get excited about the next season. But, I was becoming disillusioned with the prospect of spending my whole summer in Hartford. I had a clause in my contract that I was supposed to train in Hartford for the bulk of the summer. I had zero plans to do so. We discussed this and I was given the green light to go home for the summer. Why not? They were going to build around me right! Better to be up front. Having missed the playoffs, I had been home for a couple months when our head coach, Paul Holmgren, flew up to my hometown of Dryden to check in. Back then GM’s and Coaches would often go to visit players at their summer homes. Homer wanted to see how I was doing mentally and physically. ie. Was I in shape? Had I been working out? Was my mind ready to take the next step? We fished, we talked and we fished some more, mainly for Muskie. I had a good rapport with Homer and I think he liked me as well. We had a great visit and I thought it went well. I dropped Homer off at the airport, reinvigorated and excited for the season. Little did I know what was about to happen … I got a call from my agent, Pat Morris, around 6pm as I was sitting in my living room with a friend of mine: You’ve been traded to the St. Louis Blues. WOW! I was fired up and excited for this new opportunity! However this was also the beginning of my understanding that professional sports is 100% a business! From this point in time on, I always understood the business side of the NHL and also the toll it can take. From leaving friends and teammates to learning a new city. For those athletes that have been traded from a meddling bottom tier franchise to a team on the rise that always had high expectations, it is like being reborn! I was elated and excited to be going to a team like the St Louis Blues that had the likes of Brett Hull, Al MacInnis, etc. You get giddy thinking about what your team will look like, who your teammates are, and who your defense partner would be in my case. Back to what happened with Homer. Apparently Homer checked in with GM Jim Rutherford once he landed in Thunder Bay for his connection to Toronto-Hartford to fill him in on how I was doing. Jimmy stopped him mid sentence and told him he had just traded me to St Louis for Brendan Shanahan. At the time of the trade I did not realize that Shanny was a fan favorite, even with the likes of Brett Hull on the team. My entry into the St Louis Blues stratosphere did not start well. I was scolded by GM/Coach Mike Keenan for not being in good enough shape. I was banished to the "fat" club during training camp with my new buddy and starting goalie Grant Fuhr. While this was a good way to get some good one on one time with Grant, it definitely didn’t sit well with the fans or my teammates. I was keenly aware of who I was traded for and was told as such on all too many occasions. I have always put pressure on myself to perform but I was not prepared for the start of that season nor did I handle the pressure of living up to filling the shoes of a fan favorite my first season in St Louis. Adversity comes in many forms and this situation was no different. I needed to find my game, my attitude and my presence back on the ice. I was uncertain and questioning everything I did. I simply was not reading and reacting to the play as I had throughout my hockey career. I was thinking negatively and thinking through even the simplest of plays. By the middle of that 1st season in St Louis I was a wreck. Beaten down by our GM/Coach, the fans and most importantly by myself. Always being my own worst critic at this point in time was not good. I began to go out less and isolate more than normal. During the season I was always a homebody but by this point I was becoming a hermit. It took a lot of cajoling just to get me to want to go out in public. Around the same time we made the trade with LA to acquire Wayne Gretzky, I was introduced to a sports psychologist to see if he could help me find the way back to MY game! The trade did wonders for me in the fact that it took the spotlight off of me and directly where it should be on Gretz. Being able to see how he handled the fandom, the media, the scrutiny and all that being “The Great One” encompassed was a sight to see. With the media and more importantly, the fans eyes off of me I was able to focus on my game and started to show signs of the player that I could be. In the end, after many hours of discussing visualization skills and internalizing who I was and what I wanted to do with this opportunity, it really all boiled down to one thing… Sometimes you gotta say “F#$k It” and throw caution to the wind. If you make mistakes, make them playing all out. I needed to get back to playing on the edge and with the passion I had for so many years prior. Once I did that, the fans started to come around and see my passion for the game, as did the media, my teammates, my coaches and most importantly I had the confidence to be the best CP I could be. All this adversity during this stage of my career helped me on a couple of fronts: First it made me a much better player and person. Second, it really helped me to toughen up mentally to prepare for what was to come later in my career. If you liked this thread give me a follow and retweet."