The State of Hockey says farewell to J.P. Parise

Thursday morning, the story started trickling in, that a long-time member of the Minnesota hockey family had lost his battle with stage 4 lung cancer. I first saw the news around 8:30 am on the Minnesota Wild official message boards that J.P. Parise had passed away the night before. Within the hour, the news was on Twitter, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and the rest of the hockey media as well. While he was born in Canada (he later became an American citizen), played in several provinces and states over his career, no place in North America was impacted more by his presence than in his adopted state of Minnesota. The hockey world, especially in Minnesota, has lost a great ambassador of the sport as well as a true gentleman.

When a person of Parise’s stature dies, I love to read and watch people remember their stories. Often they’re ones of humor or of general good times. For those of us who only know them as a sports star or other celebrity, it often gives us window into their normal lives. We’ve been able to hear some of the stories from one of his own North Stars teammates and current Minnesota Wild radio broadcaster, Tom Reid. Before I started writing this, I grabbed our copy of Lou Nanne’s book about the Minnesota North Stars. One of my favorite stories I read in the book dealt with a USO tour during the Vietnam War. Parise, Nanne, and Reid were joined with Murray Oliver who also passed away a few months ago.  It seems that Parise was not exactly comfortable with helicopters and that their hotel in Saigon also doubled as a military bunker. With the stress of the situation, the other three decided to play a bit of a prank on Parise, since it appears that Parise was squeamish with large bugs and snakes. Nanne thought he had seen a large cockroach, but instead it was a military knife that had a looped handle. So while Parise was taking a shower, Nanne put the knife in Parise’s bed and then Nanne and Reid hid in J.P.’s closet while Murray was pretending to read.  After they left his room, they were then pleased to hear Parise screaming over the knife.  It seems that Parise wasn’t too pleased with being scared with his own people in what was essentially a war zone.  Nanne’s book is full of great stories like these, and over the next few days, I’m sure we’re going to hear more of these glimpses into the man that was J.P. Parise. Of course it is only fitting that his friend Tom Reid will be delivery the eulogy.

After Parise retired from playing, he was active with his family and in hockey development. When it comes to development, it was Parise who was instrumental in making the hockey program at Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Faribault, Minnesota the destination program that it is today. There’s a reason why players like Sidney Crosby, Jonathan Toews, Nathan MacKinnon and Parise’s own sons Zach and Jordan Parise attended there. Now for Zach and Jordan, it’s obvious why they attended, but then they were talented in their own right. Between his own experience and his connections over his National Hockey League career, he knew what the young men coming to his school needed for development and could ask his connections around the league what they were looking for. While players like Crosby only come for a year or two, the thing is that they do come to Minnesota to play hockey.  They will continue to come, thanks to the hard work of Parise.

Earlier Friday, it was announced that Zach would play in Saturday’s game against the Nashville Predators. Many were probably expecting Zach to take more time off, however in a comment, he said something to the effect that his dad would be mad that he missed two games and was gently pushed by his wife to return. As someone who lost her own father to cancer, I completely understand that sentiment. Just after I completed tenth grade year of high school, my father lost his 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer.  He was only 59. Even when he was at his sickest, he expected me to maintain my grades, practice my music (I played both the violin and the oboe), and attend sports practices and games. Good parents understand the need to keep their kids busy, regardless of how old they are, in times of stress. If there’s one benefit to a long illness, is by the time our parent goes, we’ve already said our good-byes and ready to let that person go. It’s never easy and it’s very sad, but it’s even sadder to focus on the sadness. By Zach returning to the game, he is doing what his father would want. Clearly Zach and his father were great friends and had the additional father-son connection of a sport they both played professionally. Plus, his return to the game will definitely help him return some normalcy to his life. Yes the loss hurts, but in my case, I found the visits to the nursing home where my own father received his terminal care far more stressful and sad. While I don’t know how J.P. was near his death, in my case, the man in the bed was not the man who raised me thanks to the high doses of morphine to keep him comfortable. I honored my father by being the daughter he loved and doing the things that made him proud. Zach will do no less.

J.P.’s funeral is scheduled for Friday, January 16th. As he always said to players, including his sons, “just be a good guy.” Minnesota and hockey definitely lost one of those good guys.  The State of Hockey News would like to add their message of sympathy to the Parise family to the outpouring coming from the rest of the hockey world.