Former Pittsburgh Penguin Phil Bourque opens up about fear of brain damage

PITTSBURGH — From the ice to the broadcast booth, Phil Bourque has given so much of his professional life to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Highlight reels from the Pens’ Stanley Cups are burned in Bourque’s mind, even now as he experiences memory lapses from what he believes are the long-term effects of a career filled with head injuries.

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“(I’ve suffered) a dozen (concussions) easily,” Bourque said. “Some pretty bad -- knocked completely out cold.”

Bourque was an aggressive player and never one to back down from a fight.

"I'll be honest with you, Ox. I felt the more battered and beat up I was, the better I played,” Bourque said.

In 1991, he won his first Stanley Cup, and a year later, his second. In 2009, he added a third ring as a broadcaster.

“It's the most painful thing I've ever gone through trying to win the championship, but that ring is what it's all about,” he said.

But Bourque said he’s paid a high price.

"I think it was a part of trainers not maybe having the knowledge that they have now and myself having a fear for losing my job, my spot on the team, and telling the trainer, ‘I'm OK. I'm fine,’ and I knew I wasn't fine,” he said.

Bourque, who will be 54 in June, said he’s now experiencing periodic memory lapses.

“There's this little glitch. The brain just shuts off for a few seconds and then it comes back to you. It's not going back in people that I see every single day, and I look at them and I go, ‘Oh no. Come on. Come back, come back, come back, come back.’ And it's gone. It's completely, it's not things you should be forgetting at this age,” he said.

Bourque said he wants to learn as much as he can about the long-term effects of head injuries, but said he wouldn’t change anything.

“I should have regrets, but my answer is ‘No.’ I don't. I don't. I'd do it all over again,” he said.

WPXI