Former NHL Fighter Donald Brashear Is Still Playing Hockey At 52 And Doing It His Way – News18

Donald Brashear fought within the NHL as a result of that was his job, not as a result of he needed to drop the gloves — which he did greater than all however seven gamers to ever play within the league.

“Fighting was never the most important thing in my life,” Brashear stated. “But I did it anyway and I found a role in that.”

Brashear picked the combat that began the 2004 brawl between the Philadelphia Flyers and the Ottawa Senators, which nonetheless holds the NHL document for probably the most penalty minutes in a recreation (419). A technology later, Brashear remains to be enjoying hockey at 52 and doing it his approach due to a love of the sport that goes past the fisticuffs he was as soon as well-known for.

“A ton of people ask me, but I just love it,” Brashear stated final month earlier than a Flyers alumni recreation in Philadelphia. “Hockey was really my passion at a young age, and it’s still my passion. I’m still so passionate about it. I’ll play till I can’t, you know? But I’m having so much fun playing it, too, because I can play the way I want it.”

Brashear fought 277 occasions in his greater than 1,000-recreation profession with Philadelphia, Montreal, Vancouver, Washington and the New York Rangers from 1993-2010. He was a part of an period when enforcers have been prized by groups.

“Guys used to fight to present themselves and make a presence known,” former defenseman Steve Oleksy stated. “Trevor Gillies, Tom Sestito, Brashear, Chris Simon — you knew you couldn’t do anything out of line, or there was going to be consequences.”

Brashear’s 2,634 penalty minutes rank fifteenth all time, and he took satisfaction in standing up for teammates as a technique to pave the way in which to victories.

“To me, even when I played, the goal of hockey was the team that scores more goals than the other that wins the game,” stated Brashear, who scored 88 of them over his lengthy NHL profession. “(Fighting) helps sometimes to gain respect. It doesn’t make you score goals or it doesn’t make you make passes or stuff like that.”

Brashear in 2011, at age 39, even tried his hand at blended martial arts at Ringside MMA on the Quebec Coliseum, preventing Mathieu Bergeron and knocking him out in 21 seconds.

More latest years have introduced him again to hockey, enjoying within the Ligue Nord-Americaine de Hockey and senior Ligue de hockey Senior Lac au Fleuve in his native Canadian province of Quebec. He’s nonetheless preventing, however what retains him in hockey is the possibility to deal with the puck, shoot and attempt to rating greater than he was ever permitted earlier in his life.

“Back then, when you played, they gave us roles and when you pass the red line, I had to dump it in,” Brashear stated. “I love playing the game now to try to be the player I wanted to be.”

Have many years of expertise helped make him a greater participant?

“Better player but a little slower,” he stated. “But I can still play.”

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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

(This story has not been edited by News18 employees and is revealed from a syndicated information company feed – Associated Press)