Two summers ago, I approached Brent Seabrook in the corner of a ballroom at Hilton Chicago and, once the crowd of reporters dissipated and it was just him and me, I asked a very proud man a very humiliating question.
You’re a three-time Stanley Cup champion, you’re an Olympic athlete, you’re almost adored by your teammates, but all anyone thinks about when they hear your name is “the worst NHL contract” Does that bother you?
I was teasing him, of course. Atlético had just put that phrase in the headline of a ranking of the biggest hockey albatrosses. Seabrook can be prickly, so I was playing with fire a little, but after all these years, I got enough rope with the guy to pull something like that every now and then.
He didn’t bite.