When their hockey season ends, players start or continue work on their favorite off-ice activities. I’m thrilled by Zach Parise’s promotion of reading, and seeing large banners of #9 beats the daylights out of the “Reading is Fundamental” public service blips that ran during the Saturday morning cartoons of my youth. For every hockey player that gets “named star” status in Beckett’s, though, there are another dozen or so who work hard, every day, and complete the team in every sense from 4th line wing to locker room prankster to club confidante (sometimes but not always the same guy, and yeah, I’m betting the Devils miss guys like Jim McKenzie).
George Parros of the Anaheim Ducks (far right of the net, picture on the right) is one of those guys, and his year-round work with the Childhood Leukemia Foundation shows that between the long hair and bushy facial hair is a veritable stash of good values and intentions. He didn’t see a lot of playing time as the Ducks advanced in the 2007 Stanley Cup playoffs, and with only 32 games played in the 06-07 season technically he didn’t meet the NHL requirements for having his name engraved on the Cup. But he became the first Princeton hockey player to join that etched roster of champions, and his inclusion speaks to the value his club and teammates placed on his contributions, on and off the ice.
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