Pierce honored by Wild, colleagues with press box memorial

Pierce was the Wild reporter for NHL.com for the past 10 seasons, attending every home game. Along with the memorial at her seat in the press box, the Wild also held a moment of silence for Pierce and her three children with a tribute on the scoreboard. 

The game against the Canucks was the first home game for the Wild since the news of her death became public. 

“Jessi used to watch games with a blanket around her and the other thing she would do during a game is she would go down to the alumni room and get a hot dog. Every game Jessi did this,” Russo said. “The Wild have a really cool alumni room that anybody who has ever played in the NHL can go to during games. We would go down there and get a hot dog and one of her friends put a hot dog in her seat last night. I think we’ll probably continue that tradition as well, because it was a big part with Jessi.”

McLellan’s younger sister Kelli came up with the design for the pin with three hockey sticks for Pierce’s three children, Hudson, Cayden and Avery, along with a microphone to honor her work as a broadcaster. 

“I told my sister we had this idea and I asked her if she could help me come up with something and she did. She just put it together,” McLellan said. “We passed them out at the game last night to the people that Jessi worked with at the arena; the arena staff and personnel and other reporters, some people that we would come in contact with. We wore them last night at the game.” 

A graduate of Iowa State University, Pierce had her work appear in numerous publications, including USA Hockey, the Minnesota Hockey Journal, Massachusetts Hockey, The Athletic and the B1G Ice Hockey blog, which covered Big Ten ice hockey. 

She was also a co-host on the “Bardown Beauties” podcast about the Wild and appeared on a Minnesota Vikings podcast.