- Brent Peterson, the first assistant coach in Predators history, has died at 68
- He lived with Parkinson’s for 23 years and built a foundation to fight it
- Read below for Nashville’s full statement and Peterson’s 30 years with the club
Nashville announced Friday that Brent Peterson has died at 68. He had lived with Parkinson’s disease for 23 years.
The team’s statement went straight at the thing everyone around that building brings up first, which is that Peterson stayed funny right through it.
“Brent loved a good laugh and lived with Parkinson’s for 23 years, facing every day with a smile and a joke, no matter what his battle brought to him that day.”
He was the first assistant coach the franchise ever had. Barry Trotz put him on the original staff in 1998 and he stayed behind the bench through 2011, then returned to call games on the radio from 2014 to 2017.
Before Nashville, he ran the WHL’s Portland Winter Hawks for seven seasons and won three division titles. His last year there ended with a WHL championship and a Memorial Cup.
Detroit drafted him 12th overall in 1978. Peterson put up 72 goals and 213 points in 620 games across 11 seasons with the Red Wings, Sabres, Canucks and Whalers, and his strongest stretch came in Buffalo, where he turned into one of the league’s best penalty killers.
His first NHL club remembered him Friday afternoon:
Doctors diagnosed Peterson with Parkinson’s in 2002. He and his wife Tami started the Peterson Foundation for Parkinson’s in 2009, and the Predators have raised money for it ever since through their annual Petey’s Preds Party. The club’s statement called him a beacon for everyone fighting the disease.
Watch the Predators tell his story in full:
Peterson is survived by Tami, son Brad and daughter Kristin. Brad has worked as an assistant equipment manager in Nashville since 2019, according to Alex Daugherty of the Tennessean, so the family name never left the room.
It has been a heavy stretch for the sport. Peterson’s passing comes two days after Barry Melrose died at 70.
We at Gino Hard send our condolences to Tami, Brad, Kristin, and everyone who spent those 30 years around Petey in Nashville.
