From parking lot brawls to Chub Club, untold stories of Lightning glue guy Pat Maroon

“Every day, there’s another story with Pat Maroon.”

Lightning winger Alex Killorn couldn’t think of just one, but plenty of the dozen former teammates and coaches we contacted could come up with their favorite memories of one of the NHL’s most colorful characters.

“I know you’re a progressive (site),” former teammate Troy Bodie said. “But I don’t think you can print a lot of them.”

With Maroon, 33, going for his third consecutive Stanley Cup, it was interesting to find out why he’s been such an important “glue guy” for champions. And it might be surprising to hear he nearly quit the game after being sent home by the NHL club that drafted him.

By now you’ve seen Maroon hoist the Cup (twice) and chant “back-to-back” while shirtless at a Lightning championship rally. He told the Bruins “You’re fucked” before the Blues beat them in 2019 Cup final. And Maroon gave the entire Panthers team the chicken gesture in their first-round series.

But have you heard about all his nicknames, from ‘Big Rig’ to ‘Slim’ to ‘Shifty 250’? You know about the parking lot brawl he got into in St. Louis? The way Maroon helped turn around the Lightning season in Sweden, paving the way for another Cup?

Here’s the making of Pat Maroon, through those who lived it with him.

The early years

Maroon grew up in St. Louis as a “rink rat,” getting his start in roller hockey.

Uncle Rob Ferrara: You’d have to kick him out of the roller-hockey rink. He’d even play goal just to stay out there. I remember telling him one day that he had to do his homework. He said, “I’m going to the NHL!” I’m like, “You still need to learn how to read.”

Maroon: In the summer, I’d go up there myself and my parents would give me three bucks. It was enough to get a soda and chips and hang out all day until 4, and then they’d pick me up. I’d use my money wisely.

I’m not the fastest skater. But I had an opportunity to work on my hands every day, work on my vision and puck skills. It brought me to where I am today.

Kelly Chase, the former Blues forward, saw Maroon play roller hockey and thought he’d be a great fit for a North American Hockey League team he co-owned, the Texarkana Bandits. Chase brought Maroon to see the Bandits coach, Jon Cooper.

Maroon was a 200-pound, 17-year-old who had never advanced past Double-A midget.

Cooper: As a 16-year-old kid, he had grown up and out. So he still had a little bit of baby fat. I saw the hands, but clearly he needed to get in shape. We created a group called “The Chub Club” and he had to be part of it.

I watched the evolution of Pat Maroon. In junior, he was the guy. He was our Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov. You talk about one of the elite players in junior.

Brian Garlock, former Bandits video coach and current Lightning video coach: We had a pre-game tradition where he’d come by the bench and tell me how many goals he’d score that game. One time, he told me he’d get a hat trick. Each time he’d score a goal, he’d come back to the bench to say, “That’s one. That’s two.”

Mike Murray, former Bandits teammate: Off the ice, he was a big goofball. On the ice, he was a man among boys. I know he’d always get ragged for being overweight, but on the ice it didn’t matter. In the lockeroom, he’d have his shirt off and tell all of us, “I’m jacked! I’m jacked.” We’d call him Slim.

Chase: He was from St. Louis, so he was the ring leader of getting the guys together and having parties. They thought they were hiding and we didn’t know where they were. When you’re young, you think you’re fooling the coach, but they weren’t fooling anyone. We let them do it because it was how we built the team, to have success and be together.

Murray: We would go out all the time and get in a lot of trouble and we’d think we got away with it, but then Chaser would be bagging us until someone would say, “Yeah it’s my fault.” No one came forward, so we all skated. Chaser one time took Maroon’s stick and broke it across the glass, saying, “You’re setting an example. You’re supposed to be in the NHL.” Slim was just laughing. He never took anything too serious, still doesn’t. But he would party with the best of them and then the next day, we’d be dragging ass and he’d be scoring three goals.

Andrew Cogliano, former Ducks teammate: The Big Rig can sure put down his share of beers.

Murray: We got into a parking lot brawl once. It was me, Pat, his brother Phil. We were just chirping some guys at the bar, got under some guys’ skin. I ended up getting hit by a car, and Phil and Pat chased the car down and Phil had a baseball bat and bashed the guys window in. I broke my jaw. Maroon still had school the next day — he was in high school. We took him home, and they took me to the hospital.

Maroon was the team’s best player and a key leader. When the Bandits lost in the round-robin playoffs to the Mahoning Valley (Ohio) Phantoms, there were some nerves heading into the rematch in the title game in Fairbanks, Alaska.

Chase: I’ll never forget. He comes to the bus and his hair is all over the place like he just woke up. I’m like, “Are we going to be all right?” He said, “Mr. Chase, you think I came all the way to Alaska to lose? We’re going to win, don’t worry about it.” He had four points in the first period and we won the title. He’s just got this belief in, “This is how it works and what I said, I’m going to do.” He’s got that swagger about him.

Murray: We flew back that night from Alaska and Chaser rented out a bar downtown and made sure we didn’t have to drive, got us all to Coop’s house and partied that night until 6 a.m. We went out more than we probably should have, but Slim was with us, whether he had school the next day or not, he always rallied. He was the star. If we were rolling with him, we could do no wrong.

The 2007 St. Louis Bandits, coached by Jon Cooper. (Courtesy Kim Cannon)

The low point

Maroon was drafted by the Flyers in the sixth round of the 2007 NHL Draft. But had a rocky start to his pro career. He was at odds with Flyers management while he was with the AHL Adirondack Phantoms. Maroon was benched and sent home by coach Greg Gilbert before eventually getting traded to the Ducks.

Maroon has said it was the “scariest” time of his life, having a three-year-old son, Anthony, and no idea if he would have to find another job to provide for him. He called his dad and told him. “I think I just want to retire.”

Greg Gilbert, Phantoms coach: Patrick was a big kid, tough kid, good skill. He had all the tools. Not a bad kid at all. He just didn’t have the commitment to become the player and push himself to become the player he’s turned into now.

I remember sitting in my office with him and sending him home. (Then Flyers GM Paul Holmgren) was on the phone. He was disappointed and shocked. It’s unfortunate. Should it have ever happened? I don’t know. But that was the decision that was made and Patrick moved on. It was a wakeup call. It’s awesome to see a kid go through what he went through and find the light at the end of the tunnel. Look at how important he is to every team he’s been on.

Ben Lovejoy, former Ducks and Devils teammate: He’s a guy that will admit he’s made pretty much every mistake you can.

Cooper: The one thing Pat always had was people are drawn to him, and there’s a reason: Because he has that personality, and he’s always had that. I always consider Patty a character who has character. He can be a funny guy in the room, but he can do things on the ice that some other guys just won’t do.

The big break

Maroon got traded to the Ducks on Nov. 21, 2010. He reported to the team’s AHL affiliate in Syracuse, with former NHLer Trent Yawney taking over as coach in Maroon’s second year there.

Trent Yawney: When I got to Syracuse, I told Patty, “I heard all this stuff, but I know you’re a good player. I’m wiping the slate clean. You’re going to paint your own picture. I’ll help you anyway I can.” We started to win a few games and change the way we practiced and Patty became a leader and made sure guys were doing it the right way. He was THE guy for our team.

Troy Bodie: You need someone to liven up the dressing room. We used to watch football and hang out at each other’s place all the time. We’d go out quite a bit, play cards on the bus. He’s just a person you’d gravitate toward because he’s so much fun.

Yawney: We were on a trip to Norfolk a month into the year. I get a call from the hotel manager. The guys were being too loud. And naturally there were girls in the room. I called him and said, “Patty, I got a call from the hotel, get the girls out and we’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

The next day, we were in the parking lot, ready to get on the bus, and we talked. Maybe another coach would have gone fucking ballistic on him because he was Pat Maroon. I said, “Listen, I’m not going to make a big deal out of this, but remember, you’re a leader on this team. You’re a dad. You need to think about those things, pick your spots and have fun. He said he was wrong and apologized. He was used to being accused of being a shit disturber and all that, but I was going to be true to my word.

I’m sure he went out after, I wanted him to, that’s part of his DNA. But we never had another issue.

Bodie: You could tell he’d be an NHL player. He was just the total package. He could play the physical game, he could skate, score around the net.

He used to poke fun at himself. He called himself the “Shifty 250.” He was one of my favorite teammates ever.

The Big Rig

Maroon established himself as an NHL regular the next several years, playing on a line with Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry in Anaheim and then Connor McDavid with the Oilers.

Cogliano: I was the guy that gave him the Big Rig name in Anaheim. He’s just a big man, he’s a big rig. I don’t know how it came about, probably just making fun of him doing his thing in Anaheim. But the nickname caught on. I should definitely be looking into royalties, though, for how much Big Rig has taken off.

Lovejoy: He was everyone’s best friend in the lockeroom. He’d be a clown in there, a big tough guy on the ice, but then you’d hear him on FaceTime with his son who he hadn’t seen in months and you just melted. He was at every team dinner, drinking every beer with you.

Cogliano: I know when he came up, Sheldon Souray took him under his wing. I vividly remember Pat showing up one day with a new style. Now if you put Sheldon Souray in a room with Tom Brady and Derek Jeter, Sheldon is the alpha male. Sheldon took Patty to his storage unit and gave him 40 suits. I think he appreciated Pat’s lifestyle, and the two were a great fit.

Bruce Boudreau: I remember one game I scratched him, might have been his second year with us. It was a matchup thing, we were playing a fast team with no toughness. Pat saw on the board he wasn’t playing and came up to me after the skate. He said, “You’re wrong. It’s not right.” I respected him an awful lot for saying the stuff he did and standing up to me. It was a watershed moment for me. I remember I went back and thought, “Maybe I’m making a mistake.” It made me smarter.

Hometown hero

Maroon signed a one-year deal with his hometown Blues in 2018 and it turned into a storybook ending, with the veteran winger winning a Stanley Cup. He scored one of the franchise’s biggest goals, the OT winner in Game 7 against Dallas in the second round. Maroon told teammates before OT to “Dream big, boys,” then scored.

Ben Hankinson, agent: It was around Christmastime and I had a lot of hard conversations with (GM) Doug Armstrong. The team was struggling, and they were thinking of making a lot of changes and had to decide, “Is Patty in?” There was a chance he was going to get scratched, maybe sent to the minors. Was he going to suck it up, work his ass off, swallow his pride? Or was he going to bail and get shipped out? Patty met with Armstrong for coffee one day, looked him in the eye and said, “I’m here for the long haul.” The rest is history.

Brayden Schenn: Throughout the whole playoffs, he’d sit at the other card table on the plane and would always wear the same suit jacket and socks. I don’t know if it was superstitious or not. But it was classic blue suit and orange socks. We told him if we won, we might have to put that suit in the Hall of Fame or burn it for how many times he’s worn it in a row.

Robert Thomas: That OT winner against Dallas, I remember on that draw specifically, we were just laughing going into it. We knew what play we wanted to run, and we knew that it would work at some point. He was laughing, like, “This is the one, we’ve got to do it!”

Back-to-back

Maroon was surprised to be a free agent so late in the summer after his Cup run with St. Louis, but a familiar face reconnected. Cooper thought he’d be a missing ingredient for a Tampa Bay team that had just been swept in the first round by the Blue Jackets. Maroon played an influential role on and off the ice as the group became champions.

Yawney: I remember catching up with him in the hallway of Amalie Arena that first year with the Lightning, it was early in the season, I was in town with the Kings. He said, “These guys don’t fucking get it here.” I said, “That’s why you’re fucking here. Make sure you voice your opinions.”

When the Lightning were struggling early on, Maroon and fellow veteran Kevin Shattenkirk sensed the players’ pain and were open about how many were “living in the past” and had to move on from their historic season that ended so stunningly in the playoffs. “Fuck last year,” Maroon said.

Cooper: We weren’t getting the results we wanted early in the season, there was a lot of talk about the Columbus series, a lot of talk in our locker room, and I think those two guys were instrumental in having that narrative leave our locker room. Those two guys were a big part of getting the guys to turn the page because they weren’t here for that, and I think they saw it as being disruptive. They were instrumental parts in helping us get past that.

The Tampa Bay Lightning in Sweden. (Courtesy Jonas Reinholdsson)

The Lightning’s trip to Sweden for the Global Series in November 2019 was seen as a turning point in their season. A big part of that came off the ice, where Maroon was the ringleader in getting the boys out for beers and bonding.

Maroon: You get together and to know people’s culture, understand their language. And to be honest, after a few beers, different personalities come out. It was good to see everyone get tighter. Sweden by far was the turning point. Just hanging out with each other, going to dinners together, going for beers as a team, that goes a long way. Not just one person, all 25 of us. That can turn a season around, I truly believe, when guys get together and make sure everyone feels welcome, no one is left out.

Cooper: I truly believe when you win a Stanley Cup, and even drawing back to junior, it was the same formula. The team was extremely close off the ice. They didn’t play with each other, the players played for each other. Those are the teams that win, and (Maroon has) recognized that and stepped right to the forefront to make that happen.

(Top photo: Douglas P. DeFelice / Getty Images)

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