Former NHL enforcer Donald Brashear retires from pro hockey at age 52

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Graham Montgomery
May 27, 2024 (9:52 PM)

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Donald Brashear was one of the oldest players in all of professional hockey this season at the age of 52, but he has finally decided to hang up the skates.

The announcement came today, marking the end of a truly historic career. Brashear has played professional hockey since the 1992-93 season when he made his debut in the AHL. He's played pro hockey every year since then except the 2013-14 season, bouncing between the AHL, NHL, and Europe.

Donald Brashear 🇺🇸🇨🇦 has retired from professional hockey at the age of 52 and will join the new LNAH expansion team in Quebec City 🇨🇦 as an assistant coach.

Brashear played 1,025 NHL games from 1993-2010, scoring 85 goals and 205 points with Montreal, Vancouver, Philadelphia, Washington, and New York (R).

The last decade or so of his career has been spent in Quebec, where he played in the province's own professional league, the LNAH. It seems that he will still be around the league though as he has been brought on as an assistant coach for a new expansion team in Quebec city. The following post has been translated from French.

The expansion team @quebeclnah announced the appointment of Daniel Gauthier as the first general manager and first head coach in the history of the franchise.

In addition, Donald Brashear was named assistant coach of the team.

#LNAH #lnahsignature

After playing a return to professional hockey at the age of 51 this past season, 🇺🇸Donald Brashear has now accepted a position as the assistant coach of the new LNAH expansion team in Québec City.

Brasher proved that age is just a number this season, putting up a respectable 25 points in34 games this season. He also continued his tradition on dropping the gloves, as he got into one last fight at the ripe age of 52.

52 year old Donald Brashear is still fighting in the LNAH Quebec Pro League

Players like Brashear are becoming less and less common in the NHL. Now that we know the long-term affects of fighting on player's brains, perhaps that is a good thing. Still though, that is one entertaining aspect of the sport that is dying out. Luckily, we will always have the memory of watching players like Brashear throwing haymakers on the ice.