Brooks Orpik spent 15 full seasons and part of another in the NHL. He appeared in 1,035 regular-season games -- 703 of those with the Penguins, who'd invested a first-round draft choice in him in 2000 -- and 156 more in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Won a championship with the Penguins in 2009, another with Washington in 2018.
He never got tired of winning.
Or stopped making the sacrifices that winning demands.
That's how he put 2,556 hits and 1,551 blocked shots on his resume over the final 12 years of his career, after the NHL began to formally record those statistics. And why he had an "A" as an alternate captain stitched to his sweater for so many winters.
Also why he never wanted his playing career to end.
Not until he realized there was no real option, anyway.
But after undergoing meniscus surgery early in the 2018-19 season, then needing to have fluid drained from his right knee "six or seven times" before that season ended, Orpik concluded that he no longer could contribute at the level he once did.
Or in the way he wanted to.
"I loved playing," he said. "It just took so much time and effort just to get my knee to ... I don't even know what the proper word is. It was playable, but it wasn't very fun because of some of the limitations you had to play with. You had to be smart, trying to adjust your game accordingly. I couldn't go more than two weeks without (the knee) just blowing up with fluid. And once it affected me with day-to-day (living) stuff, that made my decision pretty easy."
So he closed out that chapter of his career in hockey, and quickly moved on to the next.
Just 2 1/2 months after announcing his retirement last June 25, Orpik was named to a player-development post with the Capitals. He was charged with helping the organization's defense prospects, primarily those with its American Hockey League affiliate in Hershey, to progress.
And even though his first season in that role was cut short when hockey went on hold in mid-March because of the coronavirus pandemic, Orpik said he's happy with how his introduction to that facet of the business played out.
"It was the kind of thing where I wanted to try it out, just to see if it was something I'd be interested in," he said. "I thought it was, obviously. That's why I decided to do it, but you never really know until you actually do it, get your feet wet. But I loved doing it."
Some of his duties sound not unlike those Matt Cullen has with the Penguins, although Cullen spent time working with the parent club. And like Cullen, Orpik was based far from the place he worked; Cullen lives in Minnesota, Orpik in Massachusetts.
"There aren't a lot of draft picks (in the Capitals' prospects pool) outside of Hershey that are defensemen ... so I really didn't have to go anywhere beside Hershey," Orpik said "I'd go down to Hershey a couple of times a month. I would try to be there for three or four practices and a game. I didn't want to go down and just be there for game days, because then you really don't get to work with the guys on the ice."
In addition to his on-ice duties, Orpik helped young players with their off-ice transition to pro hockey and, like Cullen, served as a go-between between players and management.
"I actually kind of felt like I was kind of a middle man between the organization and the players, to be honest," he said.
Orpik had just a one-year commitment to the job, but seems inclined to remain in that role.
"I like doing what I did and was already thinking about doing it again next year," he said. "That was something I was already kind of talking to (Capitals director of player development) Steve Richmond about."
In addition to his work with Washington's prospects, Orpik said he spent a day or two each week last winter at Boston College, his alma mater, helping legendary coach Jerry York.
Orpik cited York as one of the coaches who had a significant impact on how he approaches his current responsibilities, but added that he was influenced, in some way, by pretty much everyone for whom he played.
"As you go through your career as a player, you try to learn from different people," he said. "Everybody has their own style, but you can always pull different things from different coaches. Every coach has different attributes."
Orpik played for four of those with the Penguins -- Rick Kehoe, Eddie Olcyzk, Michel Therrien and Dan Bylsma -- and even though he has been on the payroll of one of their biggest rivals since 2014, some of his ties to the franchise endure.
"I was in Pittsburgh twice as long as I was in Washington, and it's the team that drafted you," he said. "There are only three guys left on the team from when I was there (Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Kris Letang). The coach and the management are completely different. Once all that stuff turned over, it had a little different feeling.
"(Pittsburgh's) not just another rival. It's somewhere I lived for 10 or 11 years. I got drafted there, won a Stanley Cup there. So it's definitely not just another (opponent) for me. It just kind of happens that it worked out that way, that now these teams are huge rivals."
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