Primeau wants to return to hockey

[brelic]

This was a nice read. Man, that Cup should have been ours. Our defense was the walking wounded!

 

From CSN Philly

http://www.csnphilly.com/hockey-philadelphia-flyers/finally-healthy-primeau-longs-return-hockey

 

It will be two years this June.

 

Two years of complete health for Keith Primeau.

 

Two years during which his post-concussion syndrome is far, far behind.

 

“I’m very lucky,” the former Flyers captain said. “I knew what normal felt like and I am lucky to have gotten back to there. I worked toward that goal. A lot of guys can’t do it. It spirals out of control.”

 

Primeau retired in September 2006 after playing just nine games the previous season because of a blind elbow to the head from Alexander Perezhogin on Oct. 25, 2005 in Montreal.

 

From that day through much of 2012, Primeau suffered terribly from post-concussion syndrome, yet tried to live a normal life coaching his sons, dabbling on the business side of minor-league and junior hockey, and even putting himself through college.

 

Now, he’s fully healthy and wants to get back into the pro side of things off the ice.

 

“I’m feeling good and consistently good, which is the biggest thing,” Primeau said. “I didn’t want to get myself into a [job] situation that I could not get myself out of if I didn’t feel well. Since June 2012, I’ve been feeling good.

 

“It’s time to get back. I’m OK to start at the bottom and roll my sleeves up. There’s a lot of clubs out there that don’t know that I am healthy now or even available. I want to get back involved in the league.”

 

During his absence from the game, Primeau coached locally and held two front office positions with the ECHL’s Las Vegas Wranglers.

 

Truth be told, he’s been in the shadows for the past several years -- still living in Voorhees, N.J. -- trying to get healthy before committing to a full-time job.

 

Just getting through college –- he has a degree, earned in 2011, from Neumann University -- was a difficult chore in itself, yet it’s something the 42-year-old is proud of. He may not have won a Stanley Cup, but he’s got a degree in liberal studies.

 

“Our belief as a family was, get your education and neither my wife [Lisa] nor I had our college degrees,” Primeau said. “We tried to get our [four] kids to understand the importance and they’d look at us without a degree and that is the biggest reason why I went to school.

 

“Got my liberal studies degree from Neumann. I wanted to go back and get it, let my kids see it, and know it would help me in the business world.”

 

His oldest daughter, Kylie, attends Villanova.

 

This is an odd time for Primeau, who played six of his 15 NHL seasons in Philadelphia. He’s been away from the NHL side for almost a decade, and yet he’s had an impact from afar that people don’t know about.

 

He provided input for club chairman Ed Snider a few years ago for work on the NHL competition committee with regard to player safety. Even more important, he sat down with former NHL director of player safety Brendan Shanahan to assist him on safety as it pertains to head shots, concussions and punishment.

 

“When Brendan got the job, I was still very frustrated with what I saw at the NHL level,” Primeau recalled. “I didn’t think there was much going on. I went up there and he showed me the documentation, which indicated they were taking it very seriously.

 

“That offered some comfort. Brendan asked me if I could change part of the game for head contact and player punishment, what it would be? I did in document form and sent it to him. I look at the [rules] now and feel there are parts of my thoughts in there in the end result, for sure.

 

“My position was there is always a consequence for your action, whether intentional or unintentional. Doesn’t matter ... the other thing was we have to protect the player’s head. Head contact can’t be part of the game. Protect the player’s head, which wasn’t the case before, and you have to be as objective as possible. Take the human element out of it.

 

“You can’t be biased because this team is a good team that is supposed to win the Stanley Cup and this is their best player or this is the worst team in the league and he’s their worst player. You have to be able to say it’s apples to apples.”

 

Primeau captained the Flyers from 2001 until Derian Hatcher replaced him in late January 2006 when it became apparent Primeau wasn’t coming back that season. Turned out, he never came back.

 

“Keith has a lot of assets that a head coach would like in the NHL,” former Flyers head coach Ken Hitchcock said. “A lot of things that a head coach would find appealing. He’s been a captain. He has a player’s mind still. He thinks like a player.

 

“He’s had to change and learn to adapt his role from young to older player. He could talk to players and has experiences that would help a player. Selfishly, he would really help a head coach somewhere.”

 

Primeau captained one of the best, star-filled Flyers clubs in the past two decades that almost reached the Stanley Cup Final in 2003-04.

 

The roster was amazing and varied: Mark Recchi, John LeClair, Jeremy Roenick, Tony Amonte, Eric Desjardins, Simon Gagne, Michal Handzus, Kim Johnsson, Danny Markov, Todd Fedoruk, Marcus Ragnarsson, Sami Kapanen, Patrick Sharp, Dennis Seidenberg, Robert Esche, Alexei Zhamnov ...

 

It was a team that should have beaten Tampa Bay in the seven-game Eastern Conference finals series, yet was so banged up on defense, Kapanen was back there playing with a concussion. Lightning exec Phil Esposito would later say that Primeau was the most dominant player in that series. 

 

“Keith was a very good captain on a very challenging team,” Hitchcock recalled. “There were a lot of veteran players set in their ways. He had to captain that group. I felt he managed that group really well. ... The team he captained before the lockout, had we been remotely healthy, that would have been a championship team.”

 

This is what Primeau feels he can bring. Hitchcock was a tyrant with a veteran group of players that were part of their last hurrah as Flyers. Primeau became Hitch’s voice in the dressing room. No easy task.

 

“I tell my kids stories about Hitch all the time,” Primeau said. “He was tough. I know it happened in Dallas the first year until the lightbulb went out. The first three or four months I could not stand Hitch because of his delivery.

 

“Then I finally got past the delivery and listened to the message and 99.9 percent of the time, Hitch was bang-on. That is why we had such a good relationship. I became the conduit to the locker room.

 

“J.R. was always saying, ‘Hitch is always yelling at me.’ I said to J.R., ‘He yells at everyone. Get past that. Listen to what he is saying. He is saying the right thing.' That is the hardest adjustment for a professional athlete.”

 

Even though that Flyers team did not win the Cup, Primeau remains one of the all-time Flyer captains for handling a group that was mutinous, at times, given its difficult cast of personalities.

 

“Yeah, we should have won,” Primeau said. “If we only had some healthy defensemen. And we would have won the Cup if we had gotten by Tampa in Game 7. No question in my mind.”

 

A decade later, Primeau has moved on, but what follows next for him remains uncertain.

 

“What is it that I want to do and that’s part of the conflict because I am not entirely sure,” Primeau said. “I love coaching, which is teaching, but I have an interest on the management side.

 

“Ultimately, I want to move forward on the coaching side and being involved in player development from the mindset and approach to the game. Being on the bench side for seven years at different levels, I appreciate the coach's position a lot more than I did as a player.”

[OccamsRazor]

“It’s time to get back. I’m OK to start at the bottom and roll my sleeves up. There’s a lot of clubs out there that don’t know that I am healthy now or even available. I want to get back involved in the league.”

 

HAHA he has his eyes on the vacant Assistant GM job...and he is a X-Flyer he is a shoe in.......

[Bertmega]

great, just what we need, another center!!!!

[murraycraven]

great, just what we need, another center!!!!

 

great stuff there Bert!  LOL!

[flyercanuck]

Well, since he did have that one great playoff, he'd probably be the best gm the Flyers ever had.

[jammer2]

  I'll never forget that wicked scrap between Probert and Primeau, when they were both on the Wings. Needless to say, not much love lost there.

[Vanflyer]

I'll never forget that wicked scrap between Probert and Primeau,

 

Was it a "dust" up? :-P

[The Quigster]

I wonder if Billy Barber would give him a endorsement?

[King Knut]

Why? 

 

Did Primeau tell him to give the keys to Roman?

 

Did Primeau tell him, "go ahead, let's go into the playoffs without a transition game, those aren't important in the clutch and grab trap era of the early 2000's?"

 

Did Primeau tell him, "Look, forget about watching game tape...we'll just figure out how to shut down the Sens trap game on the fly next game?"

 

Did Primeau tell him, "I know you just had a family tragedy and there's no way your mind is thinking straight right now, but no matter what you do, don't take any time off to cope with your pain or be there for your family, just stick with the team and try to overcome the horrors of such a loss during the NHL playoffs... because that'll work out real well."

 

Mostly I just found it funny that any players were upset that Hitchcock was yelling at them.  How could you get upset or offended by that guy yelling at you?  What's he gonna do not let Mr. Greenjeans visit next episode?

 

Come on, he's a 400lb cartoon character!

 

 

 

 

I wonder if Billy Barber would give him a endorsement?

[BobbyClarkeFan16]

Keith Primeau was nothing but a locker room rat. When Mark Recchi and that loser Brian Boucher went public with their comments about Barber, Primeau did the most uncaptain like thing and threw his coach under a bus. Rather than do the right thing and say that there are things in the locker room that should remain in the locker room, he ended up blasting Barber in public (let's not forgot that it wasn't even a year when Barber lost his wife to lung cancer). Then, when Hitchcock came onboard, Primeau became a locker room rat for Hitch and would often go to Hitch and tell him about how some of the young guys were complaining and Hitch would drive the young players even harder. Primeau wasn't a leader at all and I wouldn't want that piece of human garbage anywhere near this club. Look at his career and Primeau has only been about one person - himself.

[flyercanuck]

Keith Primeau was nothing but a locker room rat. When Mark Recchi and that loser Brian Boucher went public with their comments about Barber, Primeau did the most uncaptain like thing and threw his coach under a bus. Rather than do the right thing and say that there are things in the locker room that should remain in the locker room, he ended up blasting Barber in public (let's not forgot that it wasn't even a year when Barber lost his wife to lung cancer). Then, when Hitchcock came onboard, Primeau became a locker room rat for Hitch and would often go to Hitch and tell him about how some of the young guys were complaining and Hitch would drive the young players even harder. Primeau wasn't a leader at all and I wouldn't want that piece of human garbage anywhere near this club. Look at his career and Primeau has only been about one person - himself.

 

Ya but there was that one playoff run that made him a legend.

[hf101]

Keith Primeau was nothing but a locker room rat. When Mark Recchi and that loser Brian Boucher went public with their comments about Barber, Primeau did the most uncaptain like thing and threw his coach under a bus. Rather than do the right thing and say that there are things in the locker room that should remain in the locker room, he ended up blasting Barber in public (let's not forgot that it wasn't even a year when Barber lost his wife to lung cancer). Then, when Hitchcock came onboard, Primeau became a locker room rat for Hitch and would often go to Hitch and tell him about how some of the young guys were complaining and Hitch would drive the young players even harder. Primeau wasn't a leader at all and I wouldn't want that piece of human garbage anywhere near this club. Look at his career and Primeau has only been about one person - himself.

 

Welcome btw, interesting comment.  Personally I like it when someone provides a point of view which may differ from the norm.  How Primeau acted on the ice certainly can differ from the way he acted in the lockerroom behind the scenes.  Honestly it is the Captain's job to interact with management on the good and the bad, so I do have a hard time calling him a rat if Barber wasn't coaching the team to where it needed to go.  Barber hasn't had another coaching job since so if he really was "good" a few years down the road he could have landed another opportunity.  Hitchcock is an intelligent yet  demanding coach and has moved on to two other locations since leaving the Flyers without winning another cup so maybe he really doesn't have the right strategy in place with rosters filled with youth.

 

I do have to dispute the point about Primeau only concerned with "one person - himself" and that is he has been an advocate to minimize the number of concussions in hockey, participating in events and concussion awareness -- and at some point donating his brain for science.