Years before he walked onto the Civic Centre stage as the featured speaker at Thursday’s 10th annual UNBC Timberwolves Legacy Night at the Civic Centre, pro hockey executive Brian Burke had another memorable Prince George visit.
In July 2001, when he was still the GM of the Vancouver Canucks, Burke attended the Special Olympics BC Games as honorary general manager of the three-day event.
When Saturday afternoon rolled around and the track and field competitions were winding down, Burke was riveted to the action at Massey Place Stadium. Burke knew he had a flight to catch but hated the thought of leaving.
He asked the driver who volunteered to take him to the airport how long it would take to get to the airport, knowing he just had to put it off as long as possible.
“The guy said it’s time to go and I didn’t want to leave until the last second, I was enjoying the event so much,” said Burke. “I said wait another 20 minutes, we’ll rush to get to the plane and get there late, I wanted to make as much as I could of it.
“Special Olympics is special, it’s amazing and it’s been a big part of my life for 25 years.”
Being there to see those athletes in action left a lasting impression on Burke and the following year all the Canucks players attended a Special Olympics event. That became a tradition that grew into the Sports Celebrities Festival that has since raised more than $11 million to build Special Olympics programs and events.
Organizers of the Timberwolves Legacy Night event have been trying for years to get Burke as the featured guest of the annual fundraiser, which raises money to support UNBC’s varsity soccer and basketball programs. His sit-down interview with Rich Abney provided all the entertainment the crowd of more than 500 had expected.
Burke discussed his life as a college hockey player at Providence College in Rhode Island and how his coach at the time, Lou Lamoriello, convinced him to write the entrance exam that got him into Harvard University’s law school. Lamoriello had insisted that he write the law school admission test, so Burke read the study guide twice, drank a cold beer and went to bed and aced the test the next day.
“I wanted to keep playing but I wasn’t good enough (for the NHL) and I wasn’t going to say no to Harvard,” Burke told the crowd.
He graduated in 1981 and after a year of practising law he decided that wasn’t what he wanted as a career and became a players’ agent. His first client was Frank Bathe, a defenceman and former teammate he fought on the second day of rookie camp at the Maine Mariners’ AHL training camp on the way to winning the 1978 Calder Cup championship.
Burke got his first NHL job in the Canucks' front office in 1987 and became GM of the Hartford Whalers five years later. His second stint with the Canucks started in 1998, when he took over as GM after five years working with Gary Bettman in the NHL head office.
He knows Bettman, the NHL president since 1992, gets a bad rap from hockey fans sometimes and he can’t understand it. Along with his father Bill and Lamoriello, he considers Bettman one of three most influential people in his life.
“He does get a rough ride and I don’t know why, he’s brilliant, the best thing that ever happened to the NHL was Gary,” said Burke. “What hasn’t he done? He’s grown franchise values, he’s expanded, he does a lot of charity work, disaster relief, the guy’s amazing.”
It was Bettman’s suggestion that Burke take the Stanley Cup he won as GM of the Anaheim Ducks in 2007 to Camp Pendelton, the largest U.S. Marine Corps base, where he visited with soldiers missing limbs and suffering serious burns from overseas combat operations.
“I couldn’t wait to get there, I thought, this is the coolest thing to do with the Cup and it was,” he said
Burke talked about the behind-the-scenes wrangling that went into prying Pavel Bure out of Russian hands and how he convinced Pat Quinn to draft him in 1991 in the sixth round. He also spoke about the wheeling and dealing needed by the Canucks to acquire the rights to draft the Sedin twins, Daniel and Henrik, second and third overall in the 1999 NHL draft and how they were the only first-rounders in that year’s draft who went on to become everyday NHLers.
“That was the worst first round in the history of the NHL, “ Burke said.
Burke had scouted the Sedins at the world junior tournament and wasn’t impressed, to the point where he told Canucks owner Arthur Griffiths he wasn’t going to draft either of them. A few months later, Thomas Gradin, the Canucks' Swedish scout, told Burke the news that the twins had been picked to play for Sweden in the world championship in Norway.
“Back then, and it’s still the same today, they don’t take 18-year-olds for that tournament, those are 25- or 27-year-old men,” said Burke. “So Thomas Gradin called me and said you’ve got to come and watch these kids, they’re legit.
“I watched one shift, the first game. Hank floats this aerial pass and there was no one within 20 feet of him and Daniel skates right under the puck and goes in and gets a scoring chance and I said, oh my god. No one on our whole staff liked them except Thomas Gradin and I watched one shift and I called Dave Nonis and said we’ve got get this guy. He said, ‘How do you get two of them? You’re not going to get two guys in the top five, it’ll never happen.’ So we came back and worked out a trade.”
Asked what stands as the highlight of his hockey career, Burke wore his answer on his finger – the Stanley Cup championship ring in won in 2007 as GM of the Anaheim Ducks. He was disappointed the Ducks didn’t go back-to-back as Cup winners and after in 1998 he came back to Canada to serve five years as GM of the Toronto Maple Leafs, followed by a four-year term as the Calgary Flames' president of hockey operations until 2018.
His most recent NHL employer was the Pittsburgh Penguins, where he took over hockey operations from 2021-23 and got to know Sidney Crosby, who he considers the best player, best leader and best hockey ambassador he’s ever known.
Burke, a popular hockey analyst on TV broadcasts, is nearing the end of a two-year term as executive director of the Professional Women’s Hockey League Players Association and said before the end of the year he will relinquish his job to a woman.
“I don’t know who she is yet, but there’s lot of qualified women,” he said.
“The great thing about the PGHL is it grows the scouting staffs, the management staffs, the referees, linesmen, administrators, trainers - it’s an industry that grows, not just the teams.”
His opinion of the women’s game was forever changed when he saw the Nagano Olympics tournament in 1998.
“I, like many American players, didn’t pay attention to the women, didn’t follow it at all. Once I started to realize how exciting it is and what great athletes they are, I was hooked.”
Burke has long been a supporter of LGBTQ rights and speaks out against homophobia. His son Brendan, who died in a car accident in 2010, was gay. With 750 players in the league and the incidence of homosexuality in the general population estimated between four and eight per cent, it’s only a matter of time before an NHL player publicly acknowledges his own homosexuality.
“That’s a lot of gay players, we’ve had a lot of gay players and I don’t know why they haven’t admitted it – it’s usually a strong family member who objects and that’s the reason they don’t come out,” he said.
“That day is coming, folks. It’s going to be sooner rather than later, I had hoped it would have happened by now, but certainly in the next year or two I think it’s still likely. But when it happens, when a player’s ready for that, it will be a good day.”
Burke offered his take on Tampa Bay Lightning head coach and Prince George native Jon Cooper, who will serve as head coach of Team Canada at the Four Nations Face-off in February.
Cooper was the guest speaker of the Timberwolves Legacy Night in 2021, when the pandemic made that a memorable virtual event when he took viewers on a tour (17:09 into the video) of his office and the Lightning dressing room at Amelie Arena in Tampa.
“We had a couple beers two weeks ago when they played the Leafs, I’ve known Coop for years, I tried to recruit him,” said Burke. “He’s a dual (citizen) and I tried to get him with USA Hockey before he went with Hockey Canada and I wasn’t successful.
“He’s a great guy, a great coach, a great Prince George guy and he’s been great for the game. I met him when he was coaching in Syracuse in the AHL when I was running the Leafs and they played the Marlies and I was instantly impressed with him. He’s huge talent as a coach.”
And what makes Cooper stand out?
“His command skills,” said Burke. “He can convince people to do things. He’s a general, not a colonel. Since he started he’s been a successful coach and he breeds good people around him. He teaches good life lessons and he creates solid citizens, not just good players, I love the guy.”
Burke packed the place Thursday and his influence obviously helped convince people to open up their wallets. The live and silent auctions drew healthy bids from people who came to hear him speak. Urged on by Hell Yeah PG Facebook page founder David Mothus, the crowd got into the spirit to raise $100,000 in seed money for the new Selena and Anita Alpay Leadership Award that will help athletes on all four Timberwolves varsity teams.
