<p>The most improbable heavyweight in the National Hockey League wears a Boogie Nights mustache, speaks passable Spanish and graduated from Princeton in 2003 with a 3.16 grade point average and a degree in economics. George Parros is not the most famous pugnacious Princetonian – former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wrestled there in the early 1950s – but the university is not exactly a haven for the cap-and-goon set. If throwing punches during hockey games seems an odd way for an Ivy Leaguer to make a living, it is no more bizarre than the careers of classmates whom Parros says are now in “I-banking,” investment bankers who put in 15-hour days and sleep in their offices. Through Sunday, Parros had played 19 games and averaged 4:41 minutes of ice time this season. If he dresses for 18 of his team’s final 30 games and ramps up his ice time to five minutes, he’ll play 180 minutes this season. For Parros, earning the NHL minimum of $450,000, that’s $150,000 an hour. Take that to the I-bank. </p>
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<p>Parros usually asks, “Do you want to give me a fight?” – a delightfully rococo way of expressing the common “Wanna go?” </p>
<p>With 32 NHL fights, Parros, 27, is a relative newcomer. He grew up in comfortable circumstances in New Jersey and never had a fight, on or off the ice, until his first full season in the minors in 2003-04. (Los Angeles’s eighth-round draft choice in 1999, Parros played nine games in the AHL the previous spring, finishing his senior thesis on the economic impact of the '02 West Coast longshoremen’s lockout while on a bus ride to a game.) He has been schooled by teammates in the art and protocol of hockey fighting, and last summer he worked with a boxing instructor in L.A. The 6’5", 225-pound Parros tends to be a counterpuncher – last month the one time he was overly aggressive, he was bloodied by a blind swing from Columbus’s Jody Shelley – and has a 4-4-3 record in '06-07, at least according to voters on hockeyfights.com, The Ring magazine of hockey’s pugilistic subculture. That website, says Parros, “might as well be my home page.” He downloads fight clips on a PlayStation Portable and studies opponents, “just like getting ready for a test at school.” </p>
<p>Parros hopes to eventually spend more time dissecting goalies than roughnecks. He aspires to be a third-line regular and the guy in front of the net on power plays, a more complete player, like Ottawa’s Chris Neil, a tough nut whose hands and smarts allow him to play on any line. For the moment Parros wants to gain the complete trust of coach Randy Carlyle, which means tailoring his play to the situation and handling the rough stuff. “Do we win every fight?” Carlyle said. “No. But we show up for most of them.” </p>
<p><a href=“http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/michael_farber/02/05/ducks0212/[/url]”>http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/michael_farber/02/05/ducks0212/</a> (awesome photos)</p>