Marcel Pronovost

Joseph René Marcel Pronovost (June 15, 1930April 26, 2015) was a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman and coach.

Pronovost was born June 15, 1930, in the community of Lac-à-la-Tortue, Quebec.

He was the third of 12 children, nine boys and three girls, of Leo and Juliette Pronovost.

Leo was a construction worker who worked with aluminum and occasionally moved around; the family settled in the nearby town of Shawinigan Falls by the time Marcel was five years old.

Cross-country skiing was Pronovost's first sport, but he quickly developed a passion for hockey.

He began skating at the age of three years and was playing competitive hockey by age five.

Pronovost played and studied at College Immaculate Conception Superior School (CIC) in Shawinigan Falls where he played centre and left wing.

His team won the Quebec provincial midget hockey championship in 1944–45.

It was with CIC that Pronovost was discovered by National Hockey League (NHL) scouts.

The Detroit Red Wings sent scout Marcel Côté to sign Larry and John Wilson at a Quebec tournament.

Larry suggested that Côté observe Pronovost.

As a result, he was also signed to the Red Wings.

Hockey was a significant part of life for the Pronovosts, and three of Marcel's brothers followed him to the NHL: Claude was a goaltender who played three games and Jean played nearly 1,000 at forward.

The Red Wings placed Pronovost with the Windsor Spitfires, one of their junior teams in the Ontario Hockey Association (OHA), beginning in 1947–48.

The Spitfires were a dominant team that season; Windsor finished with the best record in the OHA but lost the championship series to the Barrie Flyers after Detroit was forced to recall Windsor's goaltender, Terry Sawchuk, to one of their minor league teams.

Pronovost believed that the Spitfires would have won the league title and gone on to play for the Memorial Cup if they hadn't lost Sawchuk.

At the same time, Pronovost also played for the Detroit Auto Club team in the International Hockey League (IHL).

At the time an amateur league, the IHL based most of its teams in Detroit or Windsor and the majority of players were affiliated with the Red Wings.

Playing in the two leagues prepared Pronovost for the rigors of an NHL schedule.

He played 52 games that season, and 51 in 1948–49.

Pronovost permanently moved to defence during his tenure with the Spitfires.

Upon starting his professional career in 1949–50, the Red Wings assigned Pronovost to the Omaha Knights of the United States Hockey League (USHL).

He appeared in 69 games for the Knights and scored 13 goals and 52 points.

Pronovost set a scoring record by a defenceman and was named the USHL's rookie of the year.

He was also named to the first All-Star team.

At 19 years of age, Pronovost was compared to legendary defenceman Eddie Shore and Detroit coach Jack Adams described him as being "one of those guys who comes around once every 20 years".

The Red Wings brought Pronovost to Detroit at the conclusion of his USHL season.

He played in 1,206 games over 20 National Hockey League (NHL) seasons for the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs between 1950 and 1970.

A top defenceman, Pronovost was named to four post-season NHL All-Star teams and played in 11 All-Star Games.

He was a member of four Stanley Cup championship teams with the Red Wings, the first in 1950, and won a fifth title with the Maple Leafs in 1967.

Gordie Howe had suffered a serious injury early in Detroit's 1950 Stanley Cup Playoff series against the Toronto Maple Leafs forcing the team to move Red Kelly to forward and insert Pronovost into the lineup at defence.

He made his NHL debut on April 6, 1950, in the fifth game of the series.

Pronovost appeared in nine playoff games as Detroit eliminated the Maple Leafs then came back from a 3–2 series deficit in the final and defeated the New York Rangers in the final two games of the series to win the Stanley Cup.

The NHL All-Star Game format of the time had the defending champion face a team of the all-stars formed from the remaining teams.

In his autobiography, A Life in Hockey, Marcel argued that the NHL having only six teams until 1967 prevented some of his other brothers from reaching the league.

Pronovost began coaching in 1969 and spent several seasons behind the bench of the junior Hull Olympiques and Windsor Spitfires.

He was head coach of the Chicago Cougars in the World Hockey Association's inaugural season in 1972–73, coached 104 games in the NHL for the Buffalo Sabres between 1977 and 1978 and was briefly an associate coach of the Red Wings.

Pronovost was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player in 1978.

Pronovost worked for the NHL Central Scouting Bureau for five years until 1990, when he was hired as a scout for the New Jersey Devils, with whom he was a member of three Stanley Cup championship teams, with the last coming in 2003.

The 53-year span between his first championship and his last is a Stanley Cup record.