Chris Jensen, the newest member of the Portland Pirates Hall of Fame, brought a blue-collar approach to hockey.
“I was raised like that by my parents, and that’s what got me as far I went in hockey,” said Jensen, who served as captain when the team capped its first season of operation by capturing the Calder Cup championship in 1994. “If I didn’t work, I wasn’t going to stick around long. I just took care of my business that way, and hopefully other guys fed off that.”
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Jensen’s induction will take place during the first intermission of tonight’s game between the Pirates and Springfield Falcons.
Jensen spent two seasons with the Pirates.
“He was a tremendous leader, on and off the ice,” said Kent Hulst, a hard-nosed centerman who was inducted into the Pirates’ Hall of Fame in 2002. “When he talked, the boys listened.”
For the most part, Jensen believed his actions spoke louder than his words.
“I very rarely said things,” he recalled. ” I wasn’t a big rah-rah guy in the dressing room, so I guess when I did have something to say the boys respected it.”
During Portland’s championship year, Jensen had six goals and 10 assists in 16 playoff games after scoring 33 goals during the regular season.
The following season, Jensen had 35 goals and 42 assists to lead the Pirates to another appearance in the playoffs.
“He could score. He could kill penalties. He could drop the mitts,” recalled Hulst. “He just came to the rink and worked.”
Portland was one of several stops Jensen made during his 13-year professional career, including stints in the IHL and ECHL. He played a total of 74 games in the NHL with the New York Rangers and the Philadelphia Flyers and spent five seasons with the Hershey Bears of the AHL.
Staff Writer Paul Betit can be contacted at 791-6424 or at:
pbetit@pressherald.com
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