The Free Press’s Bill Dow posted a profile of former Red Wings enforcer (and one-time assistant coach) Joe Kocur today, and Kocur tells Dow that Bob Probert was a big factor in Kocur’s return to the Red Wings in 1996:
“I always wanted to play for the Wings again. I was out of a job, playing in a local beer league and with the Red Wing Alumni team. Bob Probert was with Chicago and I said to him before a game against the Wings, ‘why don’t you kick the crap out of them and maybe they’ll realize they’ll need an intimidator.’ Bob obliged and the following day, there was an article about how the Wings needed to get tougher. I later learned that my friends at Art Moran Pontiac, Jerry Vought and Bob Moran, had kept telling Scotty Bowman, who was a customer, that the Wings should sign me. In my second game back, we were in Chicago and I started a fight with Bob Probert. At the end of it, I was on top of him and said, ‘Thanks buddy for getting me back in the league.’ He said, ‘no problem.’ Years later when we were being interviewed for the book, “The Bruise Brothers,” he asked me why I had started that fight. I told him that I had to because they signed me to help protect the others. There were never any hard feelings between us. I had also fought him when I was with the Rangers. We both knew we had a job to do.”
Continued (paywall)
