Former Calgary Flames player Chris Simon passes away

A product of Wawa, Ontario, Simon played his junior hockey in the Ontario Hockey League with the Ottawa 67’s and Soo Greyhounds. He was a second-round pick of the Philadelphia Flyers in 1990, but was sent to the Quebec Nordiques as part of the Eric Lindros mega-deal in 1992.

Simon broke into pro hockey with the American Hockey League’s Halifax Citadels in 1992-93, but worked his way into the NHL picture quickly and was a regular NHL from 1993-94 until 2007-08. Equal parts big, mean and talented – he was listed at 6’2″, 251 pounds in his heyday – Simon was a player teams loved to have on their roster because he could hurt the opponents in a lot of different ways. Sometimes that tendency saw him cross the line, and he was suspended several times during his NHL career.

From TSN:

Simon was suspended eight times over the course of his career for a total of 65 games, including two of the longest in NHL history. In March of 2007, Simon was handed a 25-game suspension as a member of the New York Islanders for a cross-check to the face of New York Rangers forward Ryan Hollweg. Then in December of the same year, Simon was banned for 30 games for stomping on the leg of Pittsburgh Penguins forward Jarkko Ruutu.

Simon could crash and bang with the best of them and wasn’t afraid to fight if the situation called for it, but he also had a sneaky scoring touch – he was credited with 101 fighting majors during his day, but that was paired with 144 goals, 18 of them game-winners.

Simon played 782 NHL regular season games (and 75 more in the playoffs) during 15 seasons spent with Quebec, Colorado, Washington, Chicago, the NY Rangers, Calgary, the NY Islanders and Minnesota. He won a Stanley Cup with Colorado in 1995-96, returned to the Cup Final in 1997-98 with Washington, and was part of the 2003-04 Flames team that made it to within a goal of a championship win.

He left North America in 2008 and spent five more seasons in the KHL, playing with Vityaz Chekhov, OHK Dynamo Moskva and Metallurg Novokuznetsk before retiring in 2013 following a knee injury. Simon briefly  resurfaced in the public eye in 2017 via news reports regarding his appearance in bankruptcy court.

Our thoughts go out to Simon’s family, friends and all who knew him at this difficult time.