Thirty years before Chris Zimmerman would become CEO of the St. Louis Blues’ business department, he was establishing a career in advertising in Ridgefield, Conn. He and his wife, Emily, had built a house from the ground up, in which they were planning to raise their then-3-year-old daughter, Katie, and newborn son, Ted.
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“We literally could imagine our kids going to Ridgefield High,” Zimmerman remembers. “But they didn’t even get to preschool there.”
In February 1995, Zimmerman was offered a job with Nike in Portland, Ore., and the family changed coasts and started a journey in sports that’s last ever since.
There would be more stops along the way: Exeter, N.H., where Zimmerman worked for Bauer; Vancouver, with the Canucks; briefly back to New Hampshire; then Los Angeles with Easton Sports.
It was one thing for Zimmerman to relocate.
“Your focus, your connections, your daily life is defined,” he says.
But for spouses and family, it’s incredibly hard.
“You moved and it was like, ‘OK, we’re staying in a Residence Inn for six months,'” Katie, now 32, recalls.
After doing the drill five times, Zimmerman concluded that to get truly integrated into a new community, it takes at least three years.
Mom, though, always made the transition smoother.
“She was so great at assimilating with new people,” Ted, 28, recalls. “She was from Georgia, but friends of mine say, ‘Your mom doesn’t say y’all,’ and she doesn’t have an accent.’ That’s what I’m saying — she was so good at taking on any opportunity and whatever challenge in a new place and just running with it.”
In June 2014, the couple were both 54 years old and living in L.A. They were finally settling in. The kids were gone, Katie graduating from the University of Vermont and Ted heading to the University of Massachusetts-Amherst.
Then came a text message from Blues chairman Tom Stillman, whom Zimmerman had known since their hockey-playing days at St. Nicholas Hockey Club in New York in the 1980s and had reconnected with in 2009 when the Blues played the Canucks in the playoffs.
“Tom said he was just checking in, but I said to Emily, ‘I don’t think he’s just checking in,'” says Zimmerman. “I really didn’t know anything about the leadership of the Blues, but this was potentially a chance to run a second professional sports team in a sport I love.”
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But it would mean asking his wife to move once more, from the beaches of L.A. to the unknown of St. Louis.
Emily was all-in, though, and for the next nine years, she approached her new home with her sleeves rolled up. She co-chaired the Urban League, a nonprofit organization that helps empower the underprivileged, and worked with many other charitable foundations. With the Blues, she found ways to welcome new players to town, take care of familiar faces around the franchise — like anthem singer Charles Glenn and super fan Laila Anderson — and everything in between.
Her death at age 63 in May — six months after being diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer — may not have been on the radar for the average fan. But it was certainly felt by the community she adopted and the organization she so passionately supported.
“In many ways, St. Louis became some of the most meaningful time that we had together,” Zimmerman says. “Everything she got involved in, she had a big impact. She had a level of optimism and joy that was her trademark. You won’t meet many human beings that would have affected people that quickly that universally.”
Emily was never along for the ride, a fact she made clear to her husband the day she kept her maiden name.
“She is Emily Burch!” Katie says defiantly. “She never used Zimmerman. I will tell you the exact story the way she told Ted and I our whole lives. She said, ‘When your dad and I were getting married, I asked him if he wanted to change his name.’ He said, ‘No,’ so I responded, ‘Then you’ll understand why I don’t want to change mine.’ If friends came over and were like, ‘Mrs. Zimmerman,’ she said, ‘It’s Emily’ or ‘Ms. Burch.’ She was so clear on who she was and having her own identity.”
That identity would play a big role in Burch facing the challenges she was about to encounter.
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Two months after Zimmerman accepted the job with the Blues in August 2014, he was in St. Louis getting their living arrangements settled while his wife was back in L.A. watching the aftermath of Michael Brown’s death on TV.
“The city is being burnt down and she could have said, ‘Where the heck are you taking me?'” Zimmerman says. “But she saw coming to St. Louis as a stimulus, trying to understand the local issues. We were just two people working for a hockey team, but to her, we would have a platform to get involved and impact what’s going on here.”
“That was one of the things that she really felt emboldened about,” Katie says. “Hockey is a predominantly White sport. How can this massive organization in town be a vehicle for change in the community? I think somebody asked us, ‘Are you still going?’ She was like, ‘Yeah, they need us there.’ Like it was a personal mission for her.”
Dave Peacock, who co-chaired the Urban League with Emily, saw her passion immediately.
“I’ve never seen someone so quickly become part of the fabric of the community and lean in in a very authentic way and contribute,” Peacock says. “It wasn’t someone who said, ‘Oh, my husband is the president of the Blues, so therefore I have credibility.’
“She went out and earned it by how she treated people. She was amazing and very genuine in her concern. Her ability to empathize and at the same resonate with people at the individual level was incredible.”
There was also the “100 Neediest Cases” campaign, a holiday tradition in St. Louis in which thousands of families and individuals in the area are provided with dinners and toys.
“One of our closest friends was organizing that effort, so Emily got involved, and it always got very personal for her,” Zimmerman says. “What I would always see is her helping these organizations raise their own expectations of what they could accomplish. Her courage and fortitude and persistence led to many of them having significantly more success than they had had.”
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That was the case, too, with the Blues.
Because Emily was so familiar with the hardship that comes with moving cities, she wanted to know how the organization was making it easier on players and their families. Do they have babysitting options? Do they have food to eat at the rink? What is being done to help them during the playoffs? Yoga classes for the wives? You name it.
“There were times where I’d have to say, ‘I can’t fix everything,'” Zimmerman says. “But it was a desire that she wanted to be part of making the Blues as good as we could as an entity and making St. Louis as good as it could be.”
It went beyond that, though.
“I’d go over to their condo and be like, ‘Mom, there’s a puppy in the house. What’s going on?'” Katie says. “Well, it was Jaden Schwartz’s dog, Stella, and she’d be like, ‘Oh, he’s out of town, so we’re just hanging out.’ I’m like, ‘OK.'”
In 2016, Glenn, who would become the Blues’ popular anthem singer, received a phone call from Emily.
“I hadn’t met her yet,” Glenn remembers. “She said, ‘We want to know what real blues music is like. We’re trying to change our format a little bit, so we want to go hear some blues musicians.’ So we went to hear some musicians, and we had a ball. She had an energy like no other. She got up and danced and said, ‘This is great!'”
Emily went to a lot of games, and while she did wear Blues gear at times, her preference was a pantsuit.
“She was just as dressed up as anybody who worked in that building,” Katie says. “And she had an employee badge that allowed her to do all the things and connect with all the people she wanted to. She wore that pretty proudly.”
Peacock was often a visitor in the Blues’ ownership box and always took note of Emily’s presence.
“You’ve got the excitement and build-up of the playoffs, and yet someone would have their kids there and she would bend over and talk to them and say, ‘Do you want to come over here to the cookie tray?'” he says. “She was always so thoughtful, even amidst this amazing event going on.”
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After belting out the final note of “The Star-Spangled Banner,” Glenn always got a text from Emily.
“If the game was sold out, she’d say, ‘Come up to my booth and bring the grandkids,'” he recalls. “When we got there, she would introduce me to everybody. Then she’d take the grandkids and introduce them as if they were guests. The grandkids were like, ‘Whoa, we’re royalty!'”
Glenn wasn’t the only one.
Remember Laila Anderson, the young girl who had a rare, life-threatening disease and was in the spotlight as one of the Blues’ biggest fans during their Stanley Cup run? Emily befriended Laila and her mother, Heather, and the bond that grew eventually led to an invitation to fly to Boston for Game 7.
“When Laila and I got on the plane, she came right up to us, took our pictures, and she wanted to make sure that we had the proper badges to get anywhere that we needed to go,” Heather Anderson says.
Because of Emily, Laila got more than a badge.
After the Blues won their first Cup in franchise history, Zimmerman says he and his wife helped create the original design of the ring and present it to Stillman and general manager Doug Armstrong.
“That’s a massive lifetime memory,” Zimmerman says.
And Emily wanted to make it a memory for the Andersons, too.
“I didn’t know if I was allowed to tell you that story,” Heather Anderson says. “Emily reached out one day and said, ‘I need to ask your permission.’ She said, ‘We’re going to have Laila’s name engraved inside all the boys’ rings.’ It took me a minute and I said, ‘Are you sure you want to do that?’ and she said, ‘Yes.’
“Who does that? Those boys worked their whole lives for that ring, and for Laila’s name to be on the inside, I hung up the phone and I remember just crying.”
That summer, on Zimmerman’s day with the Stanley Cup, the family had its own memorable moment.
When Mom and Dad moved to St. Louis, Katie followed them and eventually met Christopher Janson. The two married in Kentucky, where reception-goers were able to witness Chris and Emily bringing the silver chalice in together.
“It was …” Katie says, temporarily at a loss for words. “There’s so few times in a career, or a life, where you get to see a lot of work and stress amount to something.
“In that moment, a Stanley Cup felt like everything they had been doing their whole lives had been worth it all.”
A few years later, in July 2022, Ted got engaged to his girlfriend, Hannah Treuer, and they were planning a wedding for 2024. They were living in Seattle, where he worked for the Seahawks in the sponsorship department.
The close-knit family remained in regular contact with their son, including some on Zoom. But in October 2022, he couldn’t have prepared himself for the call he was about to receive.
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Living in St. Louis, Katie had a clue something might be wrong. Her mom had recently mentioned that she had a bruise on her side and was getting imaging done.
“In my head it was, ‘Oh, she has a ruptured spleen,'” Katie remembers. “Even if she has cancer, it would be surgical, and she would get it out.”
Katie and her husband could’ve driven to her parents’ condo to hear the news in person, but because Ted and Hannah would be on Zoom, she believed it was best for them to do so, too.
Mom came on the computer screen and told them she had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and being Stage 4, the five-year survival rate was 2.9 percent.
“Tears …” Zimmerman recalls.
Ted sat stunned.
“It was definitely the most shocking and devastating day of my life,” he says.
Emily was wearing a T-shirt that read: “Joie de Vivre,” which in French translates to “joy of living.” The family hadn’t remembered her wearing it before.
“It was the mentality that she embraced throughout her entire battle,” Zimmerman says.
One of Emily’s first thoughts after her diagnosis was Ted’s wedding, which was more than a year away.
“It was a no-brainer to move our wedding so that my mom could be there,” Ted recalls.
His fiancee’s parents were coming to St. Louis in December, so they decided to have a small ceremony and reception at the Ritz-Carlton the day after Christmas.
“It was, without question, one of the happiest days of Emily’s life,” Zimmerman says.
At the couple’s celebration, she read a speech written on a plate.
“It was all about partnership and bringing that joy to your partnership and making sure that you’re treating your partner with that same love and care every day,” Ted says.
The night would be memorable for another reason.
“We reached out to Charles Glenn to play at the service, and he said, ‘I want to do it!'” Zimmerman says.
“I pictured just a DJ or something, but having the man, the myth, the legend himself at your wedding, I don’t think that can be topped,” Ted says. “He even did a little singalong with our mom and all of us. And, of course, he did ‘When the Blues Go Marching In’ … because how can you not?”
Glenn has played many weddings over the years, but watching Emily, this one was special.
“She had a beautiful smile, and she danced and danced like there was no tomorrow,” Glenn remembers. “She was a show-stopper, man!
“(But) it was sadness and euphoria at the same time. There was a time when nobody was dancing except for she and Mr. Zimmerman, and it was such a romantic moment. They were just holding each other. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it now.”
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There weren’t many tomorrows left.
As Emily’s condition worsened, Zimmerman spent a lot of time away from the Blues.
“Being in the building last year while she was sick was one of the hardest things,” he says.
In February, Zimmerman ran into Michael McMillan, president of the Urban League, who notified him that they were going to present Emily with a women’s achievement award in September.
“It was one of those times where I thought, ‘Is she going to make it to September?'” Zimmerman says. “I ended up calling Michael back and said, ‘Is there a way we can do that sooner?'”
They held the ceremony in a common room at the couple’s condo, where Emily spoke for about 15 minutes with 40 people in attendance, including Peacock.
“This was just weeks before she passed away, and she was obviously weakened by illness and treatment, but she was the same Emily I met the first time after she moved here,” Peacock says. “Here she’s going through this horrific experience, but she’s thinking about others, speaking on the need to lift up marginalized populations in the community. It was inspiring and affected everybody in the room.”
It turned out, the award wasn’t the only honor for Emily.
“They named a wing of their building after her, which blew us away and was one the most moving things I’d ever seen,” Zimmerman says.
A short time later, Emily went into hospice, but trying to find any possible alternative solution, they briefly removed her from that care to travel to Florida. One of the Blues’ owners provided the family with a private plane, but in the end, her condition was not suitable for the procedure.
“We chased hope right until we couldn’t,” Zimmerman says.
On May 7, 2023, Emily died peacefully.
“I remember sitting in the living room when they came to take her away, and that was the moment I realized I had lost my mother, this person who meant more than anyone in my life,” Ted says. “But as we now have this incredible hole that will never be replaced, we’re just trying our best to honor her legacy. It goes back to ‘Joie de Vivre’ and sharing the joy that she brought to every relationship, whether she knew you for two minutes, two years or 20 years.”
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“One of the things that I’ve learned, and I’m feeling it a little bit more this holiday season, is just the empathy that she carried for our family, for our friends, for our community, and what a weight that was on her shoulder,” Katie adds. “I don’t know how she did it, but it was why she was able to touch so many people’s lives. That’s literally the only rational that I can come up with for how she was able to be so present.”
In honor of Emily and all those who are battling or have battled cancer, we're not going to give up.
Join us as we launch our season-long effort to fund a $200,000 research grant for @SitemanCenter through @TheVFoundation.
LEARN MORE ➡️ https://t.co/0IG4hQ3qo9 pic.twitter.com/3SFv2rNECW
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) December 12, 2023
Last month, on Thanksgiving, Zimmerman received a text message from Heather Anderson.
“I wrote: ‘Kind, generous, thoughtful, loving …'” Anderson says, reading from her phone.
“‘Inspiring, beautiful, inclusive, amazing!'” Zimmerman says, picking up where Anderson left off. “‘These are just some of the words that describe Emily. I’m a better person because of knowing her. She will always have a place in mine and Laila’s heart.'”
The love for Emily — Emily Burch! — is endless.
“Her mark is on everything I do,” Zimmerman says. “Much of it, at least for me, doesn’t happen without her. The values that I bring to my work and that I’ll bring to life going forward, whatever person I am and however I become better, is because of her.”