"I never could have dreamed of it, to be honest," Zucker said. "It's something that I take a lot of pride in. Minnesota has come to be a second home for me, and I have my wife to thank for a lot of that. We've really created a home for ourselves."
He and his wife, Carly, have also become a force in the community. For his work, Jason was named the Wild's nominee for the King Clancy Memorial Trophy, awarded annually to the NHL player who best exemplifies leadership both on and off the ice and who has made a significant humanitarian contribution to his community.
And while Jason is proud of the work he's done, he said the nomination for the King Clancy is a group effort.
"She congratulated me the other day, and I said, 'my name is on this because I play hockey. But this is our award, if we're lucky enough to win it,'" Jason said. "The nomination is ours. Carly has put in countless hours, more than myself. When I'm playing games, she 's on her phone, e-mailing people, getting stuff done. She was very, very close with Tucker and his family and she still keeps in touch with them a ton."
Jason and Carly's work in the community has been a labor of love.
The two have begun a campaign to raise funds for the Zucker Family Suite and Broadcast Studio at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children's Hospital in Minneapolis. The space is designed to allow children and their families a space to watch Wild games live in a theater, which includes a ticketed entrance, food and beverages and a large projection screen to simulate the experience of being at the game itself.
The space will also serve as a state-of-the-art broadcast studio, with programming produced there ranging from music request hours to game shows and celebrity visits.
The Zuckers kickstarted the project by donating $160,000, then continued their push by encouraging others in the community to donate in forms of 16 -- Jason's jersey number -- to the cause, known as the
#GIVE16 campaign
.
Jason and Carly committed to donate $1,600 for every goal he scored this season, which coincided perfectly with the best season of his career.
"It made it so much more fun that way," Jason said. "All of the KFAN Power Trip Morning Show guys all donated $16 per goal. That's $528 from four guys and over $2,000 total. When you have multiple people doing that, it really adds up and it all makes a huge difference."
In all, the #GIVE16 campaign raised more than $900,000 during the past season.
"The greatest part about it is, we've gotten so many things out of it that we never thought we would get out of it," Jason said.
He mentioned the efforts of seven-year-old Maggie McLaughlin from Eyota, who wanted to do her part to help raise money for the cause. McLaughlin organized a hat day at her school, where every kid was allowed to wear a hat as long as they donated at least $1 to the charity.
The act of kindness raised more than $1,800.
"There were so many kids that did things," Jason said. "We knew there would be people that would want to jump on and do things because they were already fans of Tucker Helstrom] and friends of Tucker or had been to our events.
"But we never thought we'd get kids coming up and handing us cash, $16, and they'd say, 'hey I had this in my piggy bank,' or 'I saved this up from chores and wanted to donate it.' Those are the things that have been so phenomenal."
Jason's connection to Masonic Children's Hospital dates back to a relationship
[forged with
eight-year-old Tucker Helstrom, who was at the hospital battling osteosarcoma, a rare form of bone cancer.
