RANGERS MOURN

Sarah Palin’s NHL Star Boyfriend Dead at 69

Sarah Palin and Ron Duguay started dating in 2022, two years before his cancer diagnosis.

Former NHL star Ron Duguay, known for his eight seasons with the New York Rangers and his high-profile relationship with former McCain running mate Sarah Palin, died Thursday at 69.

Duguay battled cancer for nearly two years, enduring financial strain and serious medical complications, including internal bleeding and a hospitalization after collapsing at home.

Palin appeared in a February video shared eight months before his death, spoon-feeding the former hockey star in his hospital bed as he underwent chemotherapy for stage 4 colon cancer.

The New York Rangers drafted Duguay in 1977 from his Ontario hometown when he was 19—just shy of his 20th birthday.

During his six seasons in New York, he became known for tying the Rangers’ record for the fastest goal scored, just nine seconds after the start of a game, and his identifiable curly hair on the ice.

He finished his time playing for the Rangers with almost 500 games, 164 goals, and 176 assists for 340 points.

He became a local celebrity, boosting the team’s popularity with a Sasson jeans commercial where he danced and sang “Ooh La La” on skates with three other Rangers teammates: Phil Esposito, Anders Hedberg, and Dave Maloney.

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“As soon as I stepped on the ice, I could feel the energy. You then become more than a hockey player,” he told TVA Sports in 2023. “You become an artist, because you entertain and you have an opportunity to make spectators jump out of their seats every time you make a check.”

He had a Hollywood look and a Studio 54 lifestyle, leading him to pose for Andy Warhol’s Interview magazine, where Muhammad Ali, Mets Tom Seaver, and NBA star Kareem Abdul-Jabbar also appeared in the athletes section.

He was considered for Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, and had romantic entanglements with celebrities like Farrah Fawcett. He married California model Robin Bobo in 1983 and fashion model Kim Alexis in 1993, before their divorce in 2016.

After the NHL, he moved to Florida and coached the minor-league Jacksonville Barracudas.

Duguay and Palin began dating in 2022 and maintained a long-distance relationship between his home in Florida and hers in Alaska.

Palin’s husband, Todd, filed to divorce his wife of 31 years in 2019, citing “incompatibility of temperament,” and it was finalized in 2020. They share five children and nine grandchildren together.

Duguay’s daughter, Shay Thomas, said Palin would take red-eye flights at short notice to help care for him and once stayed with him in the hospital for five days after surgery involving his colon and liver.

“She’s been a huge source of support,” Thomas said. “Not only for my dad, but for our entire family.”

Palin became a Tea Party standard-bearer and an early Trump supporter, endorsing him ahead of the 2016 Iowa caucuses.

Her post-election career also took unexpected turns, including a role at Fox News and a “Baby Got Back” performance as a pink-and-purple bear on The Masked Singer.

Duguay returned to professional hockey in 2009, at age 51, playing two games for the minor-league Brooklyn Aces and Jersey Rockhoppers to raise money for the Garden of Dreams Foundation.

That same year, he competed on CBC’s figure-skating show Battle of the Blades with former world champion Barbara Underhill, earning $25,000 for World Vision’s relief work in Haiti.

Duguay’s daughters started a GoFundMe and social media campaign to raise $100,000 to help their father through the costly disease.

Palin said the former NHL forward lost what his family called a “hard-fought battle with cancer” Thursday morning and died “peacefully.”

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