Chris Pronger Reveals He Once Drunkenly Agreed To A Five-Year Deal With The Oilers

You've got to figure that before any NHL player signs a contract — especially a longer-term one with a new team — they comb through it meticulously and would never accidentally sign one in a drunken stupor.

Well, you'd be wrong, because it turns out it happened to Hockey Hall of Famer Chris Pronger when he inked a five-year deal with the Edmonton Oilers.

Pronger — who spent 18 years in the NHL as one of the league's most fearsome defenders — has a new book coming out titled "Earned," and an excerpt of it was published by The Athletic this week. 

And it is something.

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Pronger said that in August 2005, he had just been having a good time at a friend's 30th birthday party when he got a call from his agent that he had been traded by the St. Louis Blues.

"I ducked into a quiet room, half-drunk, thinking I was headed to Los Angeles, Florida, maybe Boston," Pronger writes. "Those were the teams we had heard whispers about."

But it wasn't any of those. Instead, it was the Edmonton Oilers.

Chris Pronger reveals he drunkenly agreed to a five-year Oilers contract in 2005, then chose family over money, forcing a quick exit after one season. (Getty Images)

Remember, this was just as the NHL was returning from a one-year lockout, and Pronger and his wife agreed that he'd sign a one-year, qualifying offer to play in Edmonton.

But then there was an issue after his wife went to bed for the evening: one year at over $7 million was too rich for Edmonton's blood.

"I should’ve said no. Should’ve said I need to sleep on it," Pronger writes. "Should’ve said I need to talk to my wife. Instead, sitting in my home office, several more beers deep, we started negotiating.

"By 2 a.m., I’d agreed to five years."

You read that correctly. He cut a deal for four more years than he and his wife had agreed to.

And did it while boozin'.

She wasn't happy, but in his book, Pronger used it as a teachable moment.

"No excuses," He writes. "That was my standard. So I owned it."

However, Pronger told his agent that he would only do one year in Edmonton, which happened to end with a Stanley Cup Final loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.

Sure enough, that offseason, the Oilers dealt him to the Anaheim Ducks, who won the Stanley Cup the very next season.

But, as Pronger writes, that was the only option for him.

"I could have stayed an Oiler," Pronger writes. "Could have played out the contract. Could have kept collecting checks. And destroyed my marriage.

"Instead, and I’ll say it (and do it) until the day I die: I choose family first."