Zach Parise gets history lesson on dad's career

MONTREAL-- Zach Parise will be taking some family history home with him.
The Minnesota Wild forward was given two scrapbooks filled with clippings that span the NHL career of his father, J.P. Parise, following the Wild's morning skate Saturday.

The scrapbooks were gifted to him by Jean-Claude Grenier, an editor with the Journal de Montreal daily newspaper who had relatives in J.P. Parise's hometown of Smooth Rock Falls in northern Ontario.
"My mother and brother are going to love seeing these," said Zach, who was born in Minneapolis in 1984, five years after his father retired as an NHL player. J.P. Parise died Jan. 7, 2015; he was 73.

Grenier began keeping clippings, photos and letters about J.P. Parise in 1969. He filled one scrapbook and began a second in 1978 after Parise was traded from the New York Islanders to the Cleveland Barons.
"They are in the right hands now," said Grenier, who estimated he filled about 200 pages with Parise clippings. "I've enjoyed keeping everything from Jean-Paul's career all these years, but I'm 60 now and I didn't want to see them end up in the trash."
Grenier showed Zach two photos not in the scrapbooks, the first of Grenier interviewing J.P., who is in his Islanders uniform, at the Montreal Forum in 1976. The other, which is of five men, shows Grenier standing alongside a shirtless J.P. in Smooth Rock Falls in 1969.
"I took that one out of the scrapbook," said Grenier, who remained in touch with the elder Parise following his NHL career.
J.P. Parise, who played in 14 NHL seasons, made his debut with the Boston Bruins in 1965-66. Selected by the California Seals in the 1967 expansion draft, he was traded prior to the start of the 1967-68 season to the Toronto Maple Leafs, who traded him to the Minnesota North Stars on Dec. 23, 1967.
In 890 NHL games, J.P. had 238 goals and 594 points, including 154 goals and 396 points in 588 games during nine seasons with the North Stars, who traded him to the Islanders on Jan. 5, 1975.