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Agitator extraordinaire Darcy Tucker announces his retirement

Patrick Kane, Darcy Tucker

Chicago Blackhawks’ Patrick Kane, right, is checked by Colorado Avalanche’s Darcy Tucker during the first period of an NHL hockey game in Chicago, Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

AP

Love him or hate him, Darcy Tucker has made an impact on your NHL fandom. From the Canadiens, to the Lightning, to the Maple Leafs, to the Avalanche, Tucker has left his mark on the NHL and not generally for things that leave a good taste in the fans’ mouths. With a history of dirty hits and generally pugnacious play behind him and no free agent offers coming to him through training camp, Darcy Tucker is calling it a career and retiring. TSN’s Darren Dreger gets the breaking news from the man himself.

“After spending the whole summer anticipating I would play, it got to a point where I knew it was time.”

“I just knew, during workouts I didn’t have that same feeling,” Tucker told TSN, “and I needed to be fair with my family.”

The 35 year old, who played his final season with the Colorado Avalanche, ends his NHL career with 215 goals and 476 points over 15 NHL seasons.

His final season, in Colorado, was marred by a bad concussion which Tucker says, thankfully, he has no lingering affects from, but he still describes the experience as devestating and says while he came back from the hit that earned Carolina’s Tuomo Ruutu a three game suspension, he was never the same and didn’t play well after it.

Tucker’s career has a legacy of hair-raising situations, one in particular that involved Michael Peca during the 2002 Stanley Cup playoffs that saw Tucker deliver a hit to the then Islanders forward that severely injured his knee. The Islanders and Peca were furious over the hit but Tucker tells Dreger that while he’s made amends with Peca over it, it’s all part of the game.

“It was one of those series and there may never be another like it,” Tucker recalls.

“I’ve talked to Mike about it and I’ve always had a lot of respect for him.”

“It was just one of those things and I was saddened he got hurt, but I was playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs and he was the enemy at the time.”

Win at all costs was clearly a motto that Tucker lived by and made his career out of. He’s still a wildly popular player in Toronto where he made his name as a dangerous force on the ice. When he and the Leafs parted ways it wasn’t under the greatest of terms. Tucker refused to waive his no-trade clause and the Leafs ended up buying out his four-year contract before the start of the 2008-2009 season, something they’ll be paying off until 2014 to the tune of a million dollars a year.

All that aside, Leafs fans do still love him for being one of the bigger performers for them when the team was making the playoffs year in and year out. That alone helps make the Leafs fanbase unique because most other fans across the NHL are likely happy to hear that Tucker is calling it a career. When you earn a nasty reputation, sometimes the good-byes aren’t always tearful.