While Bruce Bennett is the lone member of the five-person U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame Class of 2025 who hasn’t played in the NHL or at the Olympics, that certainly doesn't diminish his extraordinary contributions to the game as one of the most influential visual storytellers in the sport’s history.
It’s true that Bennett won’t be able to share stories about winning gold medals or Stanley Cups among the other four inductees, but he will have something else to offer the Class of 2025 at the induction ceremony on Dec. 10 in St. Paul, Minnesota.
“The other inductees I’m sure are happy to have me as part of this class because they are guaranteed to get some good photos at the induction ceremony,” Bennett, who has been hockey’s preeminent photographer for more than a half-century, playfully mused during a virtual press conference on Wednesday.
Scott Gomez, Tara Mounsey, Zach Parise and Joe Pavelski — who all enjoyed long and accomplished playing careers — join Bennett in the Class of 2025.
A Long Island, New York, native, Bennett began shooting hockey games professionally when he was 18. Over the following five decades, he’s worked more than 6,300 hockey games, including six Winter Olympics and the past 45 Stanley Cup-clinching games.
Bennett credited the love of hockey he developed from a young age for why he’s stayed in the sport so long.
“I played hockey as a kid — street hockey, then roller hockey and eventually ice hockey,” he said. “To be able to make a career out of it, looking back it’s kind of bizarre. Coming up to the 52nd year of taking pictures for a living, but to do it in hockey is super special because I love this sport.”
Gomez first made his name with the New Jersey Devils. A native of Anchorage, Alaska, he earned the Calder Trophy as NHL Rookie of the Year in 1999-2000 before helping the Devils lift that year’s Stanley Cup. Three years later, in 2003, he won the Cup again with the Devils.
Growing up, Gomez said his main goal was just to play in college. However, a local basketball star helped prove to him that he could make it to the pros.
“I owe a lot to Trajan Langdon, the Alaskan Assassin,” Gomez said of the Anchorage native who went on to play at Duke and later for the Cleveland Cavaliers. “When Bobby Knight and [Mike] Krzyzewski and all those guys are coming to Alaska to recruit, I remember my dad put in my ear that, ‘If you’re good enough, they’ll find you.’”
Gomez, who went on to play 16 NHL seasons and in the 2006 Winter Olympics, is one of only 14 Alaska natives to reach the NHL.
Mounsey grew up in Concord, New Hampshire, where there weren’t many opportunities for her to play girls’ hockey growing up, so Mounsey played with boys throughout high school.
Her teammates and her parents constantly pushed her to improve, Mounsey said, which led to her winning New Hampshire Player of the Year honors in 1996 after leading Concord High School to a state title.
Two years later, in 1998, she starred as a defender on the U.S. Women’s National Team that won the first Olympic women’s hockey gold medal in Nagano, Japan.
Parise is no stranger to success at the youth level, either. A Minnesota native and the son of NHL veteran J.P. Parise, he joined the prep hockey powerhouse Shattuck-St. Mary’s in Faribault, Minnesota. As a junior, Parise tallied 162 points and led his team to a national title, a moment he considers the highlight of his youth career.
A first-round NHL draft pick in 2003, Parise enjoyed two standout seasons at the University of North Dakota before joining Gomez on the Devils in 2005–06.
Before his 19-year NHL career, Parise guided the U.S. to its first World Junior Championship gold medal in 2004. With five goals and six assists, Parise became the first American to earn MVP honors at the tournament.
Parise continued to have success in a U.S. sweater at the Olympic level, helping Team USA win a silver medal in 2010 in Vancouver before serving as captain four years later in Sochi, Russia.
Pavelski joined Parise on both of those Olympic teams. That’s not the only parallel in their careers. A native of Plover, Wisconsin, Pavelski was also selected in the 2003 NHL Draft and played two college seasons, helping the University of Wisconsin to the 2006 NCAA title.
Pavelski and Parise both retired following the 2023–24 season, though they never played together in the NHL.
“You just felt like he was always going to score a big goal,” Parise said of Pavelski, whose 74 NHL playoff goals are the most for an American-born player.
“If I’m on the bench watching him, I’m kind of watching myself out there at times,” Pavelski said about Parise, whose 433 NHL goals are the most by a Minnesota-born player. “You knew what you’re going to get each and every night, which is a huge compliment to players around the league.”
Pavelski became a symbol of consistency himself across the league. In 10 of his 18 NHL seasons, Pavelski played in every game. That included his final three years in his late 30s. It was a mindset instilled in him by playing the early part of his career alongside stalwarts Joe Thorton and Patrick Marleau.
“There really wasn’t an option besides to play,” Pavelski said. “You have that standard [and] that’s kind of what you hold yourself to.”
Story from Red Line Editorial, Inc.