Bob Probert 1965-2010

From the Toronto Star:

Bob Probert, perhaps the NHL's all-time heavyweight champion, is dead at 45.

The longtime Detroit Red Wing – who happens to have been the last player to have scored a goal at Maple Leaf Gardens -- collapsed on his boat on Monday afternoon on Lake St. Clair and was declared dead at hospital, a family spokesperson confirmed.

One of the toughest players and best fighters in NHL history, Probert amassed 163 goals and 221 assists, and a remarkable 3,300 penalty minutes in 935 career games.

“Probert was a guy respected throughout the league,” said former Leaf captain Wendel Clark, who had his run-ins with Probert through parallel careers. “It was how he played. The great thing about Bob is how he played, he improved his game. He became more than just a fighter. He scored. He played a regular shift. He did a lot of things.

“He was tough guy who played smart hockey.”

The Leafs and Wings were in same division for a time – the Norris Division, nicknamed the Chuck Norris Division – largely because of the exploits of Probert and Clark and others.

“In the old Chuck Norris days we had a lot of run-ins,” said Clark. “We played a lot of games against each other, Friday-Saturday home and home. It was very heated in the old days. There were a lot of good battles and a great rivalry.”

Probert battled drug and alcohol problems early in his career with the Red Wings. In 1989 he was arrested trying to bring cocaine across the Detroit-Windsor border. He served three months in a federal prison in Minnesota, three more months in a halfway house, and was indefinitely suspended from the NHL. The NHL lifted the suspension at the conclusion of his prison term.

Probert got into trouble again in 1994 when he suffered minor injuries when he crashed his motorcycle into a car in West Bloomfield Township, Mich. Police determined that his blood alcohol level was approximately triple the legal limit, and that there were also trace amounts of cocaine in his system.

Lawyer Patrick Ducharme represented him and would go on to be his friend and advisor.

“For the most part the demons that plagued him for his NHL career, he was able to deal with and put aside,” said Ducharme. “But the demons were still there and every once in a while they would rear up and he'd have trouble.

“But for the most part, things were good.”

Probert went overseas to support Canadian troops, played oldtimer hockey to raise money for worthy causes and did charitable work around Windsor. He is survived by his wife, Dani, and four children.