Chris Pronger and Brandon Graham proved the road isn’t always smooth. They shared their stories — and advice — with students.
by Ariel Simpson
Philadelphia Inquirer
Published April 11, 2025
It’s called City of Brotherly Love for a reason.
When it comes to leadership both on and off the ice, Chris Pronger is someone from whom you want to learn. During his 18-year Hall-of-Fame career, Pronger became one of the most decorated defensemen in NHL history — earning both the James Norris Trophy and the Hart Trophy, winning two Olympic gold medals with Canada, and becoming a Stanley Cup champion.
The six-time NHL All-Star, who played for the Hartford Whalers, St. Louis Blues, Anaheim Ducks, Edmonton Oilers, and Flyers, credits his success to two things: Consistency and showing up for himself.
“Every single day you have to show up,” Pronger told a crowd of about 250 students at an Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education event on Thursday at Neumann University. “Champions aren’t born, they’re built by showing up every single day, by the discipline in which you do things and the habits that you have in your lives.”
Pronger’s journey began at 19 years old, when he was drafted by the Whalers (now known as the Carolina Hurricanes) with the second-overall pick in the 1993 NHL draft. But success didn’t come easily. Pronger, now 50, remembered being welcomed by boos from fans at the start of his career.
“As things progressed, I was sitting there thinking to myself, ‘This dream isn’t real,‘” Pronger said. “I’ve been booed for the first three years of my career and I was paralyzed by losing. Paralyzed by the expectations of not only my contract, but by being selected second overall. By the pressure and by the expectations I had for myself, what the fans had, what my teammates had, and what ownership had.”
A visit to a sports psychologist helped him decide to set his own standards. From that moment on, Pronger began his journey to becoming one of the league’s top 100 players to ever play the sport.
Pronger overcame plenty of adversity — playing in 1,167 games, recording 1,590 penalty minutes, suffering 14 broken bones, enduring nine surgeries, and suffering from cardiac arrest in the rink during a playoff game in 1998.
“The road to success is through the gates of adversity,” Pronger said. “In those moments when times are tough and you feel like quitting, take a step back and hit pause. Realize that it’s supposed to hurt. If it was easy, everybody would be able to do it.”
Pronger played with five different teams under seven different general managers. On each team, the defenseman led by example, and was a team captain for the Blues, Ducks, and Flyers. Now retired, he continues to do the same thing — bringing the same championship mindset to a new game off the ice by inspiring others to work harder and make it to the top.
When one student asked Pronger if he ever experienced burnout, he responded: “There were moments … You’re exhausted, you put everything you have into being successful and I think you just need to take a step back.”
The one-day “Fit to Lead” conference also featured a few interactive panels. Jeremy Rahn, the Flyers mental performance coordinator, led a conversation on the importance of mental skills and strategies used in professional sports. Meanwhile, Snider life skills coordinator Katherine Wakefield led an interactive workshop — “A Leadership Blueprint” — where students came together to make structures using uncooked pasta and marshmallows.
A few other speakers attended the event, including Baseball Hall of Famer and Inquirer writer Claire Smith; Lakisha Harvey, the regional vice president of Enterprise Mobility; and two-time Super Bowl champion and former longtime Eagle Brandon Graham.
The 15-year veteran Graham recently retired after playing in 206 regular-season games, the most by any Eagles player in team history. After shattering the “bust” label early in his career and developing into one of the best defensive ends for the Eagles, Graham stood in front of the students and emphasized the importance of hard work.
“Practice is everything,” Graham said. “To get to the pro level it’s about practicing. They have to trust you. Make sure that whatever you do, you work hard at it and see what happens. You just never know where it can go.”
This wasn’t the first time Graham spoke at the “Fit to Lead” conference. He was a keynote speaker in 2023, shortly after joining the board of directors of Ed Snider Youth Hockey & Education, a foundation whose mission is to create opportunities for under-resourced youth of the Greater Philadelphia region.
When asked what students can take away from his journey to success, Graham responded “commitment.”
“Even when it doesn’t seem like things are working,” he said. “If you got a dream and you really got one, exhaust everything that you can before you move on because there are so many lessons learned from failure.”
Source: https://www.inquirer.com/flyers/chris-pronger-brandon-graham-fit-to-lead-conference-20250411.html
