The Nashville Predators lost one of the people who helped build the franchise Friday when longtime assistant coach, radio analyst and team ambassador Brent Peterson died after living with Parkinson’s disease for more than two decades. He was 68.
The club announced his death around midday and referred to him the way so many people around Bridgestone Arena did: Petey.
“We are incredibly saddened by the passing of our dear friend Brent Peterson. Our thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends and all those who knew Petey,” the Predators said.
Peterson had been in Nashville since the beginning. Barry Trotz brought him onto the expansion staff in 1998, and he became associate coach in 2003. He stayed through the 2010-11 season, helping the Predators reach the playoffs six times as the club went from newcomer to regular postseason team.
Parkinson’s, diagnosed in 2002, eventually made it too hard for him to stay behind the bench. He did not drift away from the organization. He moved into the radio booth as an analyst, spent time in hockey operations and kept coming to home games, stopping to talk with old friends and people he had just met.
He is survived by his wife, Tami, son Brad and daughter Kristin. Brad has worked as an assistant equipment manager for the Predators since 2019.
“True to Brent’s nature, he thought of others before himself up until his passing this morning. 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,” the Predators said.
The team also said, “In addition to serving as a beacon to so many involved in the fight against Parkinson’s, Brent served as an inspiration to hundreds of Predators players, coaches, and staff members for nearly 30 years.”
Peterson and Tami founded the Peterson Foundation for Parkinson’s in 2009. The foundation has raised millions of dollars through events that became part of the local hockey calendar, including Petey’s Preds Party at Bridgestone Arena and the Brent Peterson Golf Classic. This year’s party was Thursday night. Peterson was not there in person, but organizers streamed tributes to him.
“It’s a lot of fun, it’s a lot of work, it’s a lot of stress, but we want to do these things. We want to raise as much money as we can, to help as many people as we can,” Peterson said last year.
Before he became a Predators fixture, he put together a long hockey life. He was born Feb. 15, 1958, in Calgary, Alberta, and emerged as a standout with the Portland Winter Hawks. The Detroit Red Wings selected him 12th overall in the 1978 NHL draft.
Peterson played parts of three seasons in Detroit before moving to the Buffalo Sabres in 1981. With Buffalo, he became a dependable checking-line center and penalty killer, playing alongside Craig Ramsay and Ric Seiling. He later played for the Vancouver Canucks and Hartford Whalers.
He finished his NHL career with 72 goals and 141 assists in 620 games, adding eight points in 31 playoff games.
Peterson moved into coaching with Hartford after retiring in 1989. He returned to Portland, first as an assistant and then as head coach. His five-season record as the Winter Hawks’ head coach was 198-137-20, and he took the team to the playoffs in each season.
In 1997, Peterson was named WHL Coach of the Year. The following season, Portland won the WHL championship and then the Memorial Cup, giving him the most prominent title of his coaching career. He was inducted into the Winterhawks Hall of Fame in 2012.That Memorial Cup run led him back to the NHL and, soon after, to Nashville.
Longtime hockey voice Jeff Marek remembered both the player and the storyteller.
“Such a nice, kind man and really good player. Every time I was on a radio show with Brent, I’d try to swing the conversation to junior hockey so he could share Memorial Cup stories with Portland. Condolences to his family, friends, and the Nashville Predators organization,” Marek said.
Around here, people still talk about his years on the radio with Pete Weber. Peterson was in the booth for one of the longest nights in franchise history, when Mike Fisher scored at 11:12 of the third overtime to beat San Jose 4-3 in Game 4 of a second-round series. That game remains the longest in Predators history and did not end until 1:02 a.m.
The Predators said they will share details of a celebration of life later. For a lot of people in Music City, Peterson was more than an 11-year NHL veteran who later coached and called games. He was one of the first coaches who helped make hockey feel like it belonged in Nashville, and he stayed part of the room long after the disease forced him off the bench.
