After sitting out the majority of last season with post-concussion syndrome, Keith Primeau announced his retirement this morning. With the announcement, the Flyers lost their number one defensive center and the best captain they've had in years.

After coming to Philadelphia from Carolina in 1999, he was known simply as "that guy we got for Brind'Amour," but on May 4, 2000 he became the hero, as he scored the game winning goal in the 5th OT in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals against Pittsburgh.

Before the 2002-2003 season, Ken Hitchcock came on board as the coach of a team that had just chased away former head coach Bill Barber and was suffering a major identity crisis. Hitchcock transformed Primeau into a checking line center; his role was to play against the opposing team's top center and shut him down. This resulted in a decline in Primeau's personal offensive numbers, but instead of complain, he worked even harder on his defensive game. Primeau came into his own during the Flyers' 2004 playoff run, for which he will always be rememberd in the city of Philadelphia. With 9 goals and 7 assists in 18 games, Primeau single handedly led an injury-riddled Flyers team to within one goal of the Stanley Cup Finals. It was also during that run that Primeau provided me with my single favorite Flyers memory of all time, which I wrote about last year.

Eastern Conference Semifinals, Overtime, Game 6, Philadelphia Flyers vs Toronto Maple Leafs. May 4, 2004. As always with these two teams, it had been a gritty, grueling, exhausting series. Game 6 went into overtime and the action was fast-paced, with both teams trading scoring chances. Though the Flyers held a 3-2 lead in the best-of-7 series, it felt as though the next goal would decide the fate for the teams. It was the kind of game that made people fall in love with hockey all over again; the kind where you realize sometime during the third period that you'd been holding your breath for the last eight minutes, too nervous to breathe.

Coming off the bench, Sami Kapanen, a winger who was playing defense for the first time in his career because the Flyers' blue line was so depleted, got slammed along the boards by Darcy Tucker. He made three excruciating attempts at getting to his feet, each one a failure. As a fan, all of your greatest fears were being realized as you watched yet another Flyer struggle to get to his feet. All of a sudden, there was Keith Primeau, the Captain's C on his chest practically glowing at that point, leaning off the bench holding his stick out, attempting to guide Kapanen back to safety. Meanwhile, across the ice, Roenick was racing towards the goal. A few seconds and one wristshot later, the puck was in the net, the game was over, the series was won, and the Flyers were celebrating on the ice.

Had Kapanen been unable to get back to the bench, play would have been whistled dead and the puck never finds the back of the net. As a sea of orange and black filled center ice, ESPN cut to a shot of Keith Primeau and Sami Kapanen on the Flyers bench, their heads rested against each others' as the Captain refused to leave his wounded teammate sitting alone on the bench while he celebrated their victory. In 26 years of watching the Flyers, that is my single favorite memory.


Apparently, I'm not alone. When asked about his own favorite memory, Primeau singled out his growth as a team captain.

"It became my identity. I was playing in the National Hockey League and there were times I was on other teams and recognized for that, but it just wasn't the same as in this city with this team. That will always mean a lot."

It sure will. Thanks for the memories.

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Primeau and Kapanen

..and again

Primeau Highlight Footage