Former NHLer Alex Pirus finds another calling in the game

CEDAR RAPIDS - The topic of conversation was ice quality.

Back in the 1970s when he was playing in the National Hockey League, Alex Pirus said the old Met Center in Bloomington, Minn., had the best ice in the league. That was the home of the Minnesota North Stars, and because it was mostly a hockey only building, that ice never was melted.

Now perhaps the worst ice in the league? Try the famed Madison Square Garden in New York City.

“Terrible because they kept taking it out, putting it in. Taking it out, putting it back in,” Pirus said. “So it was really chippy. In fact, I was making a turn there one game, and I went head first into the boards. Split my head underneath the helmet. The guy sewing me up, I could smell the alcohol on his breath. He was hammered while he was sewing my head up. Hockey stories. Don’t you love it?”

Pirus, 67, incorporates some of those stories into messages he gives to players as a chaplain for Hockey Ministries International. He works with Penn State University and four teams in the United States Hockey League, including the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders and Waterloo Black Hawks.

He’ll make the trip from his home in the Chicago area every other week during the season to meet with interested players.

“Last year, I drove 13,000 miles doing chapels,” Pirus said. “And that’s with COVID and everything, where I was doing a lot of them online over Zoom.”

Pirus recently gathered the entire RoughRiders team in its locker room for an introductory meeting, explaining HMI, which has spread its non-denominational Christian message at all levels of hockey since 1977.

The organization is akin to Baseball Chapel, which conducts Sunday services during the season to interested players, managers, coaches and umpires in the major and minor leagues.

“It was something where I was going to church, and we had a missionary conference in our church. I just felt God calling me,” Pirus said. “You are watching people do all these things. I was an options trader at the time after I played hockey. You are listening to all these people and going ‘Boy, I’ve got to be doing something like that.’ Because I want to share the word, I want people to learn about Christ, I want them to be saved.”

Eventually he came upon Hockey Ministries. That was 25 years ago.

Players and coaches certainly are not forced to take part in the bi-weekly chapels. In Cedar Rapids and Waterloo, they are conducted on Wednesdays.

The number who do take part varies upon the year, Pirus said, adding Cedar Rapids had around eight to 10 participants last season.

“I never know,” Prius said. “That’s why I like to get the whole team together for the introductory meeting and present it to the whole team. Tell them some stories. I’ve got some amazing stories. Just crazy stories.

“They love to hear those things. If it relates to chapel, I’ll tell them. Next time, my message is about teamwork. I use a video, it’s from ‘Gladiator.’ It’s a great teamwork thing.”

Pirus played 159 games in the NHL for the North Stars and Detroit Red Wings. His introductory meeting with RoughRiders players included a 40-second video of a game between the North Stars and Boston Bruins at Boston Garden in which a multi-player fight evolved that included Pirus.

Let’s just say he did not come out on top in that scrap with John Wensink of the Bruins.

“The Boston Bruins were a very tough team at the time, and they stuck together. The old Boston Garden. This is crazy, it really is,” Pirus said.

He pointed to some of the dignitaries in the old video.

“That’s Wally Harris, the old official. And that’s me on the bottom. John Wensink, a very tough guy. I’ve got his number, I’ve got to call him,” Pirus said. “He sucker punched me on the side. They came after me, and I was at the back. My teammate Steve Jensen started fighting, and when I turned to look, (Wensink) had circled around me and that was what I saw ... the fists. He hit me and cut me.

“I tell you, when you’re fighting for your life like that, it’s snapshots. Until I saw this video of him on top of me and stuff, I don’t remember it. I remember being on top once, but it’s just a snapshot here, a snapshot there because you are fighting for your life. You are just trying to protect yourself, doing anything you can to protect yourself.”

Pirus was asked what it was like to be in the NHL.

“It was my dream. It was my dream come true,” he said. “My parents were Ukranian, so I had to go to Ukranian school at night and Boy Scouts on weekends. There was no free time. So I didn’t start playing organized hockey until I was 12.

“But it’s God. He gave me the body, the desire to play. God gives you everything. All the glory goes to him.”

Comments: jeff.johnson@thegazette.com