Honoring His Father's War-Torn Life, Zenon Konopka Fights For Every Shift

Filed under: IslandersAsk most NHL players where they get their character and work ethic, and you'll hear warm and appreciative stories about moms and dads who drove them to hockey practices at five o'clock in the morning. Ask Zenon Konopka, the gritty and pugnacious fourth-line center of the New York Islanders, and he's got some story to tell about Zenon Konopka Sr.

"I play hockey and I scrap, and I guess people say I'm tough," said Konopka, who led the NHL last season with 33 fighting majors while a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning. "But my dad ... now, he was tough. There isn't any comparison between what I do as a hockey player and what his life was all about."

Konopka's Polish-born father was three years old when Germany and later Russia invaded Poland at the start of World War II. Russian soldiers came to his family's home and said they would be placed in a concentration camp in Siberia.

"The way I understand the story," said the Islander, "my father's family was left on a train to Siberia for two straight weeks before it moved an inch. People got sick. People died all around them before they even left Poland." Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

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