Raleigh, N.C. – Edmonton Oilers defenseman Chris Pronger smiled wryly.
“Biggest thing that I remember,” the one-time member of the Hartford Whalers said Sunday afternoon, “is ‘Brass Bonanza.”‘
Like mutant monsters in Japanese-made horror movies, the Whalers’ old theme song won’t die.
“Can’t get out it out of my head,” Pronger said.
If opposing players heard it too much when playing against the Whalers, either in the World Hockey Association or, after 1979, in the NHL, that meant the road team was having a bad night in the Insurance Capital of the World.
The Whalers’ song didn’t spread to other sports franchises or become a ubiquitous anthem. For all intents and purposes, it left the NHL when the Whalers departed from Connecticut and became the Carolina Hurricanes.
In the 2006 playoffs, the ‘Canes did play it before one game of the Eastern Conference semifinals, and true Hartford hockey zealots still can download the Jack Say-written song at the brassbonanza.com website.
It’s symbolic as the 2006 Stanley Cup Finals open tonight, when the Oilers, who made it through the Western Conference playoff field as the No. 8 seed, face the Hurricanes at the RBC Center.
This is the first Finals matchup between former WHA franchises.
Perhaps the NHL could pay homage to the traditions and bring the Avco Cup, the WHA’s championship trophy now on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto, out of retirement – if only to display during the Hurricanes fans’ pregame tailgating in the parking lot between the arena and North Carolina State’s football stadium.
A stickler might point out that the Oilers are the only WHA franchise that made the jump to the NHL in 1979 and since has stayed put. The Quebec Nordiques moved to Denver in 1995, and the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in 1996 and 2001. The Winnipeg Jets flew to Phoenix in 1996. The Whalers fled to North Carolina in 1997 and made the Cup Finals in 2002, losing to Detroit.
Pronger’s link to the Whalers-Hurricanes can tighten the connection, since he played two seasons with Hartford before the Whalers sent him to the Blues for Brendan Shan- ahan in a controversial deal that was much criticized in St. Louis – until it was obvious he was going to tap into unrealized potential and become one of the league’s top players.
The Whalers came up Sunday when Pronger faced the media at a Raleigh hotel.
“That was a long time ago, man,” Pronger said. He called his stay “just a couple great years of learning the game and learning how to be a professional, and learning to play in the NHL. At 18, 19 years old, it’s a little bit of an eye-opener and a wake-up call.”
He is only 31, six years removed from winning the NHL’s Hart and Norris trophies in the 1999-2000 season at St. Louis, playing for current Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville. But the fact that the cost-cutting Blues moved him – and his contract – to the small-market Oilers shortly after the lockout ended last summer was one of the first signs of the changing conditions under a salary cap. The Oilers weren’t going to spend wildly, but the point was, nobody could, and Pronger’s subsequent $31.25 million, five-year contract extension with the Oilers was eminently “reasonable” when compared with the former standards.
“Obviously, I can’t say enough about his game right now, how good and how well he’s playing,” Oilers general manager Kevin Lowe said. “There are few players in the game who control the game like he does.”
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
