Former Minnesota Wild star Zach Parise on Wednesday was announced as one of the five members of the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025. He will be formally inducted later this year.
Parise helped the New Jersey Devils advance to the 2012 Stanley Cup final before joining the Wild that summer and spent the next nine seasons playing in his home state. His late father, J.P. Parise, was a star forward for the Minnesota North Stars in the 1970s.
Parise, 41, played youth hockey in Bloomington before playing two seasons of prep school hockey at Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Faribault and two more seasons of college hockey at North Dakota, where he was a Hobey Baker Award finalist in 2004.
Picked by the New Jersey Devils in the first round in 2003, he played the first eight seasons of his NHL career in New Jersey. On July 4, 2012, he and Ryan Suter, the NHL’s two most sought-after free agents that summer, each signed a 13-year, $98 million contract with Minnesota.
While the newcomers reignited fan interest in the Wild, their impacts on the ice did not ultimately translate into notable success in May and beyond. Minnesota advanced past the first round of the NHL playoffs in 2014 and 2015, but won just two second-round games total. Both Parise and Suter were bought out of their Wild contracts in the summer of 2021.
Parise was also a key player for Team USA in the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics.
He played two more seasons with the New York Islanders, and joined the Colorado Avalanche midseason in 2024 before retiring that spring. He and his family make their home in the Minneapolis suburbs, and Parise has done some volunteer coaching with the Edina High School boys’ prep program.
Also included in the 2025 class for the USHHF — based in Eveleth, Minn., since it opened in 1973 — are photographer Bruce Bennett, Devils star Scott Gomez, women’s hockey trailblazer Tara Mounsey and former Wisconsin standout Joe Pavelski.
Originally Published: September 3, 2025 at 11:17 AM CDT