Omaha’s players unexpectedly had Tuesday afternoon free.
That wasn’t Mavericks coach Mike Gabinet’s idea, but one of his assistants might have had something to do with it.
“A puck hit the sprinkler system when guys were just shooting around, so we couldn’t practice,” Gabinet said. “A guy hit the crossbar and the puck went up and hit a sprinkler head, so it started gushing water all over the rink. Maybe PJ was saying from above, ‘It’s a day off today.’”
“PJ” is how friends and colleagues referred to Paul Jerrard, an Omaha assistant coach of five years who died Feb. 15 following a lengthy cancer battle. He was 57.
It’s been a tough last week for everyone in Jerrard’s orbit, including in the hockey world. The former Lake Superior State defenseman played professional hockey for a decade before going into coaching and was an assistant with the American Hockey League’s Iowa Stars when Gabinet played for them in 2006.
Jerrard went on to become an assistant with the NHL’s Calgary Flames from 2016-18, and when he looked toward the college ranks, Gabinet was glad to bring in a personal mentor.
“He’s a great human being who really cares about the athletes, but still has a great way of demanding a lot from them in terms of development, and a way of helping them get to a potential they maybe didn’t realize they could get to,” Gabinet said. “For me personally, especially as a young coach, he has so much experience and such an understanding of how to support a head coach, and that’s what I’ll really take away from it.
“A lot of times, you hear first-time coaches in interviews talking about, ‘I thought I knew what the job was about, but then I realized there’s a difference from an assistant to a head coach,’ and he helped navigate the good times and navigate adversity, and he reminded you how important family is. He was a calming, steady influence that really helped mold me as a head coach, and I’m really grateful for that.
“He really got it,” Gabinet continued. “He understands the pressures that come with the job, that nobody else really knows about. A lot of times, he had a really good way to understand what you’re going through, and really support you. He didn’t have an ego, and when you don’t have an ego, and you have the work ethic he had, you can be a mentor at certain times and an unbelievable assistant coach, too. There was no job too big or too small, and I think that’s what made him so valuable to the team and the staff, that he could do all those different things.”
UNO honored Jerrard during last weekend’s series at Miami through helmet decals showing Jerrard’s initials. Sweater patches with his initials arrived Tuesday.
Gabinet called Jerrard, an enthusiast for road bikes, golf and general exercise, “just a person you want to be around,” and who spoke glowingly of his family. Jerrard is survived by his wife Cheryl and two daughters, Catherine and Meaghan.
A visitation and funeral service for Jerrard are being held Wednesday in Omaha. The funeral is being streamed for public viewing at Baxter Arena, where a reception and celebration of life in his honor are to be held this afternoon.
During his time at UNO, Jerrard was an NCHC representative for the College Hockey for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Initiative members from around the country met regularly to share their stories and ideas for making college hockey a safe place that respects people’s differing backgrounds.
“I asked him about it quite frequently, and just asked about stories of his growing up,” Gabinet said. “When he was with the Flames, he was I think the only coach of color in the NHL and was of a minority growing up playing the game. He conducted himself with a lot of class, and he credits his mom a lot for how he was brought up, and how he was taught to handle certain situations.
“He’s a real inspiration in that department, and people are getting more of an appreciation for what somebody like that goes through, and for PJ as a trendsetter who really forged a path throughout his career. His DEI work is important to us, and we’ve been fortunate at Omaha here to have a lot of people of different backgrounds in our program. That’s close to us, and I want to make sure we continue to honor the groundwork PJ did.”
Jerrard’s impact in hockey will be remembered long into the future, far and wide.
“I’ve had coaches pop up to see me and pass along their regards, and it’s a lot of similar comments about, ‘Hey, I was an up-and-coming coach who had a guy with NHL experience come up, introduce himself and make me feel comfortable and part of the coaching fraternity,’” Gabinet said.
“That’s what Paul did, making people feel comfortable and helping them out. There’s not many people in the game like him, where any time you run into people he’s known, they always ask, ‘How’s Paul doing?’ It’s neat to see how many people whose lives he’s touched.”
