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To place an obituary, please include the information from the obituary checklist below in an email to obits@pioneerpress.com. There is no option to place them through our website at this time. Feel free to contact our obituary desk at 651-228-5263 with any questions. General Information: Your full name, Address (City, State, Zip Code), Phone number, And an alternate phone number (if any) Obituary Specification: Name of Deceased, Obituary Text, A photo in a JPEG or PDF file is preferable, TIF and other files are accepted, we will contact you if there are any issues with the photo. Ad Run dates There is a discount for running more than one day, but this must be scheduled on the first run date to apply. If a photo is used, it must be used for both days for the discount to apply, contact us for more information. Policies: Verification of Death: In order to publish obituaries a name and phone number of funeral home/cremation society is required. We must contact the funeral home/cremation society handling the arrangements during their business hours to verify the death. If the body of the deceased has been donated to the University of Minnesota Anatomy Bequest Program, or a similar program, their phone number is required for verification. Please allow enough time to contact them especially during their limited weekend hours. A death certificate is also acceptable for this purpose but only one of these two options are necessary. Guestbook and Outside Websites: We are not allowed to reference other media sources with a guestbook or an obituary placed elsewhere when placing an obituary in print and online. We may place a website for a funeral home or a family email for contact instead; contact us with any questions regarding this matter. Obituary Process: Once your submission is completed, we will fax or email a proof for review prior to publication in the newspaper. This proof includes price and days the notice is scheduled to appear. Please review the proof carefully. We must be notified of errors or changes before the notice appears in the Pioneer Press based on each day’s deadlines. After publication, we will not be responsible for errors that may occur after final proofing. Online: Changes to an online obituary can be handled through the obituary desk. Call us with further questions. Payment Procedure: Pre-payment is required for all obituary notices prior to publication by the deadline specified below in our deadline schedule. Please call 651-228-5263 with your payment information after you have received the proof and approved its contents. Credit Card: Payment accepted by phone only due to PCI (Payment Card Industry) regulations EFT: Check by phone. Please provide your routing number and account number. Rates: The minimum charge is $162 for the first 12 lines. Every line after the first 12 is $12. If the ad is under 12 lines it will be charged the minimum rate of $162. Obituaries including more than 40 lines will receive a 7.5% discount per line. On a second run date, receive a 20% discount off both the first and second placement. Place three obituaries and the third placement will be free of charge. Each photo published is $125 per day. For example: 2 photos in the paper on 2 days would be 4 photo charges at $500. Deadlines: Please follow deadline times to ensure your obituary is published on the day requested. Hours Deadline (no exceptions) Ad Photos MEMORIAM (NON-OBITUARY) REQUEST Unlike an obituary, Memoriam submissions are remembrances of a loved one who has passed. The rates for a memoriam differ from obituaries. Please call or email us for more memoriam information Please call 651-228-5280 for more information. HOURS: Monday – Friday 8:00AM – 5:00PM (CLOSED WEEKENDS and HOLIDAYS) Please submit your memoriam ad to memoriams@pioneerpress.com or call 651-228-5280. When the Wild’s original coaching staff visited St. Paul recently as part of the team’s 25th anniversary celebration, to a man they commented on TRIA Rink, the downtown St. Paul practice facility that now houses the Wild most of the time, save for when they make the journey of a few blocks to Grand Casino Arena for home games. When the franchise was born in 2000, their home arena – then known as Xcel Energy Center – was brand new, but they were a bit nomadic when it came to practice rinks. Much of the team’s time away from St. Paul was spent without a permanent locker room at Parade Ice Arena in Minneapolis. And at least one Wild star of that era didn’t mind it. While he admitted that the current facilities are amazing, Marian Gaborik – the team’s first-ever draft pick and the first Minnesota star player in the state’s second NHL foray – lived in uptown Minneapolis in the early days of his professional career, and didn’t mind the relatively short commute to practice. Before a recent Wild home game versus Winnipeg, Gaborik handled ceremonial first puck drop duties along with former teammates Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Brian Rolston and Stephane Veilluex. Speaking with reporters before they headed to the rink, the early-era Wild veterans said having an experienced coach like Jacques Lemaire behind their bench was the biggest advantage afforded a team of rookies and players unprotected in the expansion draft. “Everybody started on the same page. We didn’t have any superstars. It was an expansion team, so a lot of guys had to work for the job, including me,” said Gaborik, who is 43 and retired, living back in his native Slovakia where he owns a rink and runs hockey schools. “It was amazing what Jacques did with the team,” he said, noting that the payroll in 2000 was peanuts compared to the NHL coffers of 2025. “I was the highest-paid guy as a rookie, so it was not like these days, but it was incredible. When someone asks me who was my favorite coach and the best coach I’ve ever had, I always say it was Jacques, because he knew how to get the team ready and out-coach the other team late in the third period.” For most Wild veterans of the early 2000s, no mention of Lemaire’s coaching magic can exclude the 2003 playoffs, when Minnesota made its first postseason appearance. The Wild trailed Colorado 3-1 in the first round and won. They trailed Vancouver 3-1 in the second round and won, making an unexpected trip to the Western Conference Final. There, the magic ended, as Minnesota managed just one goal versus Anaheim, bowing out in a four-game sweep at the hands of the Ducks. To this day, Andrew Brunette’s overtime goal versus Avalanche legend Patrick Roy to win Game 7 in Denver remains the biggest on-ice moment in the franchise’s history. Bouchard, now 41 and living back in his native Quebec, was a rookie that season and watched from the pressbox that night as the underdog band of cast-offs shocked the hockey world. “I will remember that all my life. The atmosphere at the rink, outside the rink, was unbelievable,” he said. “That Colorado Avalanche team was pretty stacked, with (Joe) Sakic, (Peter) Forsberg, Roy in nets. So I was pretty speechless. Man, it was a great goal.” Not long after St. Paul hosted the 2004 NHL All-Star Game and the World Cup of Hockey in the fall of that year, a league lockout wiped out all of the 2004-05 season. That delayed Rolston’s debut in Minnesota. He signed with the team as a free agent in the summer of 2004, but due to the labor strife, did not first appear in green and red until October 2005. But a one-of-a-kind shootout move made the Michigan native a fan favorite right from the start. Facing Roberto Luongo, who always struggled in Minnesota, Rolston took a few strides, crossed the blue line, then ripped a slap shot from the high slot that beat the goalie and sent Wild fans into a frenzy. Like so many of the Wild’s first decade highlights, he gives credit to the coach. “Jacques Lemaire came up to me one time in a pregame skate or something and said, ‘You know, you should try that in the shootout,’” recalled Rolston, 52, who now lives in suburban Detroit. “The first time I did it, I got tripped down. It was on a penalty kill and I was exhausted. So I was like, ‘I’m going to just try it here.’ And I did and it worked out, so I used it a few more times after that.” Rolston played three full seasons in Minnesota, earning the title of team captain for 2007-08, when the Wild won what is to date their only division title – a banner that hangs from the arena rafters. Rolston, who played for Lemaire and was a teammate of current Wild general manager Bill Guerin on the 1995 New Jersey Devils team that won the Stanley Cup, retired in 2013. Gaborik signed with the Rangers in 2009 and helped Los Angeles win the Stanley Cup in 2014 before retiring in 2021. Bouchard spent 11 seasons in the Wild organization and played briefly for the New York Islanders before finishing his on-ice career in Europe in 2016.
