By Tom Hintgen

Otter Tail County Correspondent

Former Fergus Falls Daily Journal Media reporter Heather Rule, today a freelance sports journalist in the Twin Cities, has our sincere support after losing Jessi Pierce, her close friend and colleague in sports journalism. Jessi and her three children, Hudson, Cayden and Avery Hinrichs, lost their lives in a house fire in White Bear Lake on March 21.

“We worked together and we built a friendship,” Rule shared in a written tribute posted to her Written Rule of Sports Substack. “We spent time at many Hockey Day Minnesota events and I loved going to some of her live shows for her Bardown Beauties podcast.”

Pierce was a well-known hockey reporter for NHL.com and, in addition to being co-host of a podcast, she was a contributor to Twin Cities sport-talk station Skor North. Pierce was a loving mother and wife of husband Mike who was out of town during the fatal fire.

Mike is now grieving with family and friends as they face an unimaginable time in their lives. Rule wrote, “It’s shocking, devastating and still doesn’t seem real.”

She said that her friend Jessi was an amazing woman, friend of many people and an admired colleague in sports journalism. Rule added that Pierce worked hard as an NHL correspondent covering the Minnesota Wild and visiting NHL teams, all the while voicing her knowledge and opinions about hockey.

One of Rule’s best memories of time spent with Pierce took place in early November 2025 when a World Junior Hockey Championship 50 Days Out event had just wrapped up at the Mall of America.

“I was there in a working capacity, along with Jessi,” Rule wrote. “Once our work was done, I thought maybe we’d grab lunch together. Jessi had another idea.”

She wrote that Pierce wanted to go on a ride at the Mall of America amusement park that both of them still referred to as Camp Snoopy.

“I was a little hesitant,” Rule wrote, “since rides aren’t really my thing. But I remembered liking that roller coaster in the middle of Mall of America since it didn’t have any giant drops. So I told her I’d be up for a ride on the coaster.”

They nearly had the coaster to themselves in the middle of a weekday afternoon. That’s a memory with photos that Rule says she will cherish forever in the wake of the unimaginable tragedy from March 21 when Jessi Pierce and her three young children perished in the house fire in White Bear Lake.

“As a writer, I struggled to find the right words,” Rule wrote, “but we’re writers and story-tellers, so I have tried to tell little pieces of Jessi’s story from my own observations. I’ll leave it here: Life’s a roller coaster, and I’ll miss having my friend Jessi along for the ride.”

Minnesota Wild head hockey coach John Hynes echoed those sentiments. Heather wrote in another piece on Written Rule of Sports, “Jessi was a tremendous person who cared about hockey and, most importantly, cared about people,” Hynes said. “It’s tremendous to see the legacy that she left.”

Written Rule of Sports

Heather Rule, former Daily Journal Media reporter, is an award-winning freelance sports journalist who is located in the Twin Cities. She has covered a variety of sports at the professional, collegiate and high school levels. Additionally, she has written many profiles and feature stories about athletes and sports personnel.

From 2015 to 2020 she worked as an in-game social media coordinator for Major League Baseball, specifically in-game coverage for the Minnesota Twins social media accounts (mostly Twitter). She stayed in the same role from 2021 to 2023, working directly for the Minnesota Twins organization.

Rule has also written more than 12 non-fiction children’s sports books. She earned a journalism degree from the University of St. Thomas and has more than a decade of experiences working in various communications capacities, including Daily Journal Media.

Follow Heather on social media platforms @hlrule.

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