Parros goes from enforcer to head of player safety
George Parros, the first Washington County-born player to make the National Hockey League, hoists the Stanley Cup in 2007 as a member of the Anaheim Ducks. Parros, An Ivy League graduate who was known for his role as an enforcer during his playing days, currently works as the NHL's Head of the Department of Player Safety.
Associated Press
George Parros, right, the first Washington County-born player to make the National Hockey League, was known as an enforcer as a player. A Princeton graduate, Parros currently works as the NHL’s head of the department of player safety.
There was a time when George Parros’ ample moustache and his clenched fists defined him. The first Washington County native to make it to the NHL was an enforcer, a physical winger admired by his teammates for his willingness to fight.
He was the type of player loved by the home fans – he spent most of his career with the Anaheim Ducks – and loathed by other teams’ faithful.
Parros still contends with a love/hate formula, but it’s in a new role.
He is in his first season as head of the NHL’s department of player safety, which has the authority to hand out supplementary discipline such as suspensions and fines. Those tend to be polarizing.
“I always knew I wanted to stay in hockey,” Parros, 37, said in a recent phone interview. “I always tried to learn as much as I could. I immersed myself in that. I was very interested in the (players) union and how that worked and very interested in the teams and how hockey operated. I kept my eyes open.”
After he retired as a player in 2014, he used those fists to start banging on the league’s doors.
“It took a few years of wearing them down, but they finally hired me,” Parros cracked.
It’s an important enough role that Parros recently was slotted at No. 16 on The Hockey News’ “Top 100 People of Power & Influence.” That put him just seven spots behind Penguins star Sidney Crosby and five behind Wayne Gretzky.
“This department caught my eye. It is an interesting department,” Parros said. You regulate player behavior. You have an impact on the game. What we do, hopefully, changes the game for the better. And it’s an interesting way to stay in the sport. It kind of has some similarities to what I was doing when I was playing – I was looking out for the safety of my fellow teammates.”
What’s that you say? A former fighter now dishing out suspensions and fines for players who flagrantly violate the rules?
To those who conger images of foxes and hen houses, Parros has an answer. It starts with the fact that in 474 NHL games, with 159 fights and 1,127 penalty minutes (and one Stanley Cup ring), he never got fined or suspended.
“It’s interesting. That was kind of my tagline,” he said of his clean slate in terms of supplemental discipline. “I think that’s why I was a good candidate for the job. I played the game as physically as anybody but never once got fined or suspended. Certainly I knew where that line was and how to operate within the game without going over the line. I try to hold everyone to those similar standards.”
Which, of course, can be lost on those who feel as if a player on their favorite team gets too harsh a punishment. Or those with often even louder voices crying out about too light a punishment.
Parros has thick enough skin – and, as a Princeton graduate, plenty enough smarts – to handle the blowback without being swayed by it.
“No matter what we decide, there’s going to be critics everywhere,” he said. “Now that we have social media, those voices are even louder. One thing I learned early on is that I have to be able to go to sleep at night knowing I made the right decision. That’s really been the driving factor.
“We really try to go through things the same way, use the same process. Every play is different, but we go through things the same way and arrive at our decisions through a process. At the end of the day, no matter what we decide we’re going to have people support it and people who are against it.
“It’s no fun taking people off the ice and suspending them, but it’s a very interesting job, and it’s important work.”
It’s work that has brought Parros back to this side of the continent after several years living in the west. Just before the holidays he was busy moving his family east to be closer to the NHL offices in New York.
That means it will be easier for him to get back to southwestern Pennsylvania, something he hopes to do more often.
Parros was born in Washington but moved around quite a bit – the South Hills of Pittsburgh; Columbus, Ohio; and New Jersey, where he played his high school hockey.
With a mother who taught figure skating, Parros took to the ice early on at the Mt. Lebanon Ice Rink, but he didn’t get into hockey until years later.
He still has relatives in the area, with his biggest connection being a family farm in the Scenery Hill area.
“I’m very fond of that area,” said Parros, who brought the Stanley Cup to the farm when the Ducks won it in 2007.
Even before he took on his new role, Parros was outspoken about the benefits of teaching young players how to stay safe. Now he can be a part of that in an official capacity.
“The players we see in the NHL are products of youth hockey around the nation,” he said. “A big part of what we do is continue education, show people how to protect themselves when they come to this level.”
Parros has 6-year-old twins. Lola is a budding figure skater. Jagger (like Mick, not Jaromir) plays hockey. Parros has every intention of making sure his son learns to play smartly and safely if he chooses to stay in hockey.
“Who knows what the game is going to look like when he’s older. We have no idea,” Parros said.
He is fully aware that fighting keeps decreasing in the NHL and enforcers are becoming rare – the Penguins raised eyebrows in June when they traded down in the draft, giving up a first-round pick, to acquire winger and heavyweight Ryan Reaves from St. Louis.
Parros laments nothing.
“I think the game is as good as it’s ever been. It’s fast. It’s skilled. It’s high-paced,” he said. “If you can have a player that wants to play physically and play within the confines of that game, then I think it’s great.
“We like a physical game, but fighting itself, I think, has gone by the wayside. I think that’s OK. There’s a time and place for it. I think the game has evolved past that for now. The level of fighting and the frequency of fighting I think now is at a natural state. I don’t think there’s any need to artificially decrease it or increase it.
“The game is good and healthy right now, and we’d like to see it stay that way.”