A Blast From the Past. Literally.

Here’s a great lil story about Bob Probert…one of my past heroes (until he got busted for transporting cocaine in his underwear from Windsor into Detroit…but that’s another story altogether).

Bob Probert, the former Detroit Red Wing and Chicago Blackhawk from Windsor, returned home Monday after joining a group of National Hockey League alumni on a tour to visit Canadian soldiers stationed in Afghanistan.

While there, he got an up close and personal view of what Canada's fighting best deal with on a daily basis.

"Our second night in Kandahar, they took us over to see the spy planes," Probert said. "We were in the one of the rooms getting briefed on the spy planes and all of a sudden the sirens start going off."

"They came in an escorted us right to the bomb shelter. The bunker, they called it."

While there, Probert looked around at his fellow retired NHLers and spied Dan Daoust, Mike Pelyk, Lou Franceschetti, Dave Hutchison, Dave (Tiger) Williams and Kevin Maguire, all of them former Toronto Maple Leafs and decided to add a little levity to a tense situation.

"I said, 'Apparently, they found out the Maple Leafs were here,'" Probert said. "That didn't go over too well."

As for the missiles, they missed their target.

Good on Probie. And I’ll bet those ex-Leafs kept their peace when Probert cracked wise about the Leafs being in Kandahar. There’s one thing you DIDN’T do back in the day, and that’s piss Probert off. I’ll give you a dollar to a donut that it’s still true. Why?

There was absolutely, positively no one, and I mean NO ONE, who could best Probert back in the day when he was known as The Heavyweight Champion of the NHL. I’ll quote the Wiki:

Probert will always be remembered as one of the NHL's toughest players, and many enforcers considered him the toughest and most feared fighter in the NHL.^[1] Several web sites, such as Hockeyfights.com, chronicle his long list of fights with other league enforcers. He saw it as his job to protect his teammates, especially Detroit captain Steve Yzerman. In a recent news story, he recalled a time that he sucker-punched enforcer Kevin Maguire of the Buffalo Sabres while Maguire was fighting with Yzerman.^[7]

Some fights in Probert's career:^[5]

· Two long fights with Craig Coxe of the Vancouver Canucks in the mid-1980s.

· A career-spanning series of battles with Tie Domi of the New York Rangers and other teams.

· A memorable fight on December 17, 1993 with former teammate Joe Kocur of the Rangers, during a brawl involving several players from both teams. Probert and Kocur had grabbed the nearest opposing player without realizing who it was, and continued trading punches even after they identified each other.

· A fight on February 4, 1994, against Marty McSorley, then of the Pittsburgh Penguins, lasting nearly 100 full seconds.

In his career, Probert took part in many other classic hockey fights against noted enforcers such as Todd Ewen, Troy Crowder, Tony Twist, Donald Brashear, Stu "The Grim Reaper" Grimson, Bob McGill, Dave Semenko, and "Big" Jay Caufield.

It would have broken my heart to watch Probert and Kocur mix it up. Those guys were known as “The Bruise Brothers,” back in the day when they were Detroit’s top enforcers. And what memorable days those were… Nobody ran the Wings’ stars in those days. The price to be paid for that was simply too frickin’ high.

But. It’s good to see Probert has grown up a bit and that he’s giving back. As for me, IF I were still in the Air Force, and IF I were in Afghanistan, I’d have been pissed to find out Probie was visiting the Canadian troops and not us fans from Detroit. And believe me, Probert had legions of fans in Detroit. Just sayin’.