ONE PUCK AT A TIME –
April 14, 2026 – In an effort to break the ice with Chris Pronger ahead of our conversation for the release of his book, Earned: The True Cost of Greatness from One of Hockey’s Fiercest Competitors, I thought a good opener would be to give him a chance to tell everyone he is the newest general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. His response began with a belly laugh. “I am currently not the new general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs,” he said.
Currently?! While Pronger didn’t share much beyond that when it comes to the prospect of management, the 51-year-old didn’t shy away from how the competitive drive that fuelled his 18-year NHL career never left.
Earned, released Tuesday in bookstores and available for purchase online, isn’t a long read but serves as a microcosm of who Pronger was as a player and a person: straight to the point, no bullshit or tiptoeing around the subject, blunt to a fault. But his first attempt at writing subverts the traditional genre of storytelling retired athletes are known for; Earned isn’t a tell-all memoir that shares anecdotes of late nights on the road or him taking the opportunity to bash coaches and players he hated.
