Marcel Provonost obit

Marcel Pronovost, 84, Dies; Hall of Famer Shared in Five N.H.L. Titles

He was not on the list.

Marcel Pronovost, a slick-skating, tough-checking defenseman who played on five Stanley Cup championship teams and earned a place in the Hockey Hall of Fame, died on Sunday in Windsor, Ontario. He was 84.

The New Jersey Devils, for whom Pronovost was a longtime scout, reported the death on their website. No cause was given.

Pronovost (pronounced in the French manner, PRO-nuh-voh) was a National Hockey League champion before he ever played in a regular-season game. He made his first N.H.L. appearance during the playoffs in 1950 when, at age 19, the Detroit Red Wings called him up from their affiliate team in Omaha after their emerging star Gordie Howe was injured.

Pronovost played in nine games, and when the Wings defeated the Rangers in a seven-game final, he shared in the Stanley Cup celebration. He went on to play 20 seasons in the N.H.L., 15 of them with Detroit, and won three more Cups, in 1952, ’54, and ’55. After being traded to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1965, he added a fifth championship in 1967 as the Leafs defeated the Montreal Canadiens in six games.

Pronovost was not a prolific scorer — a left-handed shooter, he had 88 regular-season goals and 257 assists in his career — and on the Red Wings of the 1950s, a team with well-known stars like Howe, Red Kelly, Ted Lindsay and Alex Delvecchio, he could be overlooked.

But with his bruising checks on attacking players daring to enter the Detroit end, and his fearless bursts up ice with the puck that could puncture a defense, he was a consummate team player who rarely if ever sat out a shift and was not afraid to put his body at risk to deflect a puck or to knock an opponent off his skates.

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He was often bloodied, and his nose was broken at least a dozen times; the hockey writer and historian Stan Fischler, noting that Pronovost’s “stitch count eventually reached into the hundreds,” called him “the most embroidered man in hockey.” He was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1978.

Joseph Rene Marcel Pronovost, as he is identified on the website of the Hockey Hall of Fame, was born on June 15, 1930, in Lac à la Tortue, a village in Quebec now part of a larger town called Shawinigan, where he grew up, the third of 12 children. His father worked in construction.

Like many Canadian boys, Marcel cross-country skied and played hockey from a young age, and he became a star player in school. A player from a rival school, Larry Wilson, who eventually played six years in the N.H.L., was signed by the Red Wings, and he suggested that the Wings consider Pronovost as well.

Pronovost retired as an N.H.L. player early in the 1969-70 season and the became player-coach of the Tulsa Oilers, a minor league team. It was the first of several coaching jobs, which included one season and part of another as the head coach of the N.H.L.’s Buffalo Sabres. He joined the Devils as a scout in 1990 and was with the team for all three of its Stanley Cup championships, in 1995, 2000 and 2003.

Pronovost’s first wife, Cindy, died in 1993. His survivors include his second wife, Eva; two sons, Leo and Michel; a daughter, Brigitte Stickley; and three grandchildren. A full list of survivors was unavailable. Three of Pronovost’s brothers, Claude, Andre and Jean, also played in the N.H.L., and online references indicate that they are living.