If Lou Nanne needed a reminder about the importance of family, he got the message in recent weeks with the force of a hard check into the boards.  Two weeks ago the Minnesota hockey legend received a surprise telephone call regarding his son Michael, a Burnsville dentist.

“My daughter-in-law called and I thought she was talking about somebody else I knew,” Nanne told Sports Headliners. “She said, ‘Mike’s got a brain tumor.’  I said, ‘Mike, who?’ She said, ‘Your son Mike.’ ”

Nanne’s son recently had a brain tumor operation.  Unfortunately, the tumor wasn’t benign and Michael will need more medical care.

This week Nanne will be offering TV commentary for a 46^th year during the boys’ state high school hockey tournament and for the first time a grandson will be participating.  Marty Nanne’s son, Louie, is a freshman left wing for Edina High School.

Years ago Nanne’s grandchildren told him he had to continue with state tourney commentary until they were playing.  The arrival of young Louie is a milestone but grandpa won’t show him favoritism on the air.  “I’ll be excited inside but outside I’ll still have to do the job the way I do the job,” Nanne said.

Nanne will be providing color commentary on KSTC, Ch. 45 and he described his role this way: “Make the people understand what’s happening on the ice.  Try and paint a simple picture of how the game is being played.  What teams are doing right, what they’re doing wrong, what to look for and give them (the viewers) an understanding of play, how it’s going.”

He has several other grandchildren but said realistically two others probably could play on state tournament teams in the future.  He believes that may translate into his working perhaps another four tournaments on TV before calling it quits.

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Nanne has learned to savor life through the years, whether it’s family, hockey or business.  It was 10 years ago this month that he was diagnosed with prostate cancer and a few years after that he survived a scary landing in a private airplane.

Was the cancer or airplane episode more frightening? “Prostate cancer. The plane crash, I didn’t think I was going to die,” Nanne said.  “I was more worried about how I was going to take the hit on the window because I had a bad shoulder.  Prostate cancer, all of a sudden you realize your mortality and you don’t know how bad it’s going to be.  …”

Nanne will be 69 in June but has no plans to leave his executive position with RBC Global Asset Management in Minneapolis.  He’s been in the investment business since leaving the Minnesota North Stars in 1991.  He enjoys his work with RBC Global and travels extensively including one day business trips to Hawaii which he has done about 50 times.

“I don’t know what else I am going to do, if I don’t do this,” Nanne said.

Nanne’s career and income allow him to enjoy life including his passions such as travel and playing golf.  And hockey is still part of his life, serving on both a board and council for USA Hockey, and also appearing weekly on KFAN Radio to enlighten host Dan Barreiro and listeners about the hockey world.

It’s a world that few others on the planet have as much knowledge about and experience as Nanne.  He grew up with hockey legends Phil and Tony Esposito in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.  Nanne, an All-American defenseman in 1963, was one of the few Canadians to play for the Gophers in the 1960’s.  After his Gophers career, Nanne became an American citizen and experienced 23 years in the NHL, all of it associated with the North Stars as a player, coach, general manager and team president.

Nanne remains a passionate supporter of the Gophers.  Recent seasons haven’t been successful for Minnesota, a program that is associated with national championships, not absences from the weekly top 20 rankings of the best college teams.

There are five big time college hockey programs in the state now including the Gophers.  In last week’s USCHO.com poll St. Cloud State, the University of Minnesota Duluth and Bemidji State were all top 20 teams while the Gophers and Minnesota State, Mankato were unranked.

Nanne said despite the recent emergence of so many big time college hockey programs in Minnesota, the Gophers can still excel at recruiting high school players in the state.  “…Minnesota in most cases gets the first pick of the players they want in the state even though there’s a lot of teams,” Nanne said.  “When you look at it, they don’t usually miss on the guys that they want.  Now whether they’re taking the right guys, or wrong guys that’s going to be the question.  But the people that they get, for the most part, are the ones that they want.  Their first choices.”

Is Nanne disappointed with the Gophers who are 17-17-2 overall and 12-14-2 in the WCHA, and also had mediocre records the previous two seasons?  Among the big five hockey schools in the state, only Minnesota State’s record is worse than the Gophers.  “I am very disappointed,” he said.  “Who wouldn’t be?  If you add Bemidji into the scheme of things, because they will be in the WCHA next year, we’re what last in the state of all the teams?  So how can you say you’re happy?  They have to do better.”

The resources, including access to talent and facilities, are in place for the Gophers program to still be a power.  “Oh, yeah,” Nanne said.  “If you can have St. Cloud fourth (in the country), how can we not be first?  We definitely got the resources.  No one’s got more than we’ve got.”

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Nanne was asked about the possibility of NHL players participating in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Russia.  Participation means stopping the NHL season for about  two weeks and the challenges that brings including having to compact the schedule and the stresses that go with it for players and teams.  This year’s Olympics were played in Vancouver with a much friendlier time zone to the United States compared with Russia.

Nanne thinks NHL ownership will use the 2014 Olympics as a bargaining chip to gain possible financial concessions from the players like a lower salary cap.  The players, unlike the owners, are in favor of participation, a chance to represent their countries or if not chosen, to enjoy a vacation.

“So really there are a lot of negatives to it (continuing NHL participation),” Nanne said. “The big positive to it is that it’s the best hockey to watch in the world and you’re not going to be able to see it unless you want to stay up in the middle of the night.”

Nanne would be one of the few who probably would watch at 3 a.m., or even be in attendance.  His passion for hockey lives on even though he has no desire to go back into that business.

Nanne, who wore No. 23 as a player, told a visitor it’s no coincidence that his downtown Minneapolis offices are on the 23^rd floor of the Fifth Street Towers.  Maybe that’s an omen Nanne is right where he should be, just like the several hours he will spend this week watching his grandson and the other players in the state tournament.

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