ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Blues plan to retire the No. 44 jersey of hall-of-fame defenceman Chris Pronger.
The Dryden, Ont. native will be the eighth player in franchise history to have his number hanging from the rafters, a group that includes Al MacInnis, Bob Gassoff, Bob and Barclay Plager, Brian Sutter, Bernie Federko and Brett Hull.
"You look at the names that are up there, the Blues greats - from Bobby (Plager and Gassoff) to Bernie (Federko) to Brian Sutter to Hullie to Al - you look at the names up there and they are synonymous with the St. Louis Blues, and to be up there is very special," Pronger told the team's website, stlouisblues.com.
The team will determine the date for the jersey retirment once the 2020-21 schedule has been released in the summer.
Pronger was named an all-star four times with the Blues, was a top-five vote-getter in the Norris Trophy race five times and in 1999-00 won both the Norris and the Hart trophies, just the second player in league history to win both awards in the same season.
Pronger, taken No. 2 overall by the Hartford Whalers in 1993, played in 598 games with the Blues, collecting 356 points and 931 penalty minutes.
He won a Stanley Cup championship in 2007 with Anaheim and played in four Olympics, winning gold in 2002 and 2010.
