TONY THE TIGER
Grrrrrrrrreat ex-Province columnist Gallagher to be inducted into Hockey Hall of Fame
It takes something of supreme significance to silence the unflappable Tony Gallagher.
Never at a loss for words or a frank opinion, the legendary Vancouver Province writer and columnist is being inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as the 2020 media honouree and recipient of the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award for journalism excellence.
However, when Gallagher got the confirmation call, he was stunned.
He reasoned that a 45-year career recognized with induction into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame in 2018 was as good as it gets. The warm-and-fuzzy buddy system for adulation never applied to Gallagher, and if there was a higher award calling, then the Professional Hockey Writers’ Association reached the decision based on merit.
Gallagher’s work did the talking and the Vancouver chapter of Professional Hockey Writers’ Association did the lobbying.
Still, when association president Frank Seravalli reached out, Gallagher didn’t know what to make of it. He thought the TSN senior hockey reporter might be pitching a freelance project.
“I have to say, for about the next five minutes, I was in considerable shock — really,” admitted Gallagher. “I was able to carry on a conversation, but I wasn’t really into it. He was doing a bio and I was answering the questions, but not really present.
“I was already retired for five years and it (HHOF) was gone and I put it out of my mind. That was fine and life was going to go on. In retrospect, those things (awards) are selective. We’ve never had anybody who’s from Vancouver
get in and there have been several who deserved consideration.”
Gallagher was a must-read insider for everything evolving on and off the ice with the Vancouver Canucks — especially during turbulent and triumphant times from 1977 to 1997 — and was either loved or loathed for crossing swords with players, agents, coaches and management in relentless pursuit of the truth.
Many called for his head and former Canucks general manager Brian Burke tried to get him fired after Gallagher returned from a two-year sabbatical in sports-talk radio. The Canucks threatened to bar Gallagher and Province writers from the dressing room. Brian Butters was editor-in-chief and ran the letter on the front page of the paper and supported his scribe.
“They all did — everybody tried to get me fired,” recalled Gallagher. “I tried to write what I thought was happening and what the true story was and I’m sure I made lots of mistakes, annoyed a lot of people and begged forgiveness from those I critiqued unjustly.
“You get a wrong steer, or used by somebody to make somebody else look bad. You think about that. I had Dwight Mathiasen signing in Vancouver (1985) and he went to Pittsburgh the following day. I was hornswoggled along with (owner) Frank Griffiths, but it turned out to be a blessing because Mathiasen wasn’t a very good pro.”
Owning up to a wrong is imperative, but the big story was how Gallagher owned the market. Pick a player like Pavel Bure or Igor Larionov. Pick a contentious point like a trade request or transfer payments with Russia. Gallagher was all over it.
“I had a lot of great stories, like Bure asking for a trade and that was one of my biggest,” noted Gallagher. “I worked hard at them and had a lot of great contacts and people were helping — the inside stuff, that doesn’t happen much anymore.
“My wife (Susan) and I laugh and talk about it all the time because it was an incredible ride. I was inside on a lot of stuff that I never wrote about and some of the early quotes were mind-boggling. We had the best times in the newspaper business when salaries were high and the conditions were the best.
“The last couple of years were tough with the players becoming very circumspective of what they would say. And certainly in my last five years, when social media took off, it made the players way more guarded. It was hard to get good material. I was lucky. I went to 19 straight Stanley Cup finals and you get contacts, and it takes years to get up to speed as a hockey writer.”
Gallagher formed a friendship with Wayne Gretzky that came by chance. They were seated together on a commercial flight and Gallagher’s natural instincts kicked in and the personal relationship evolved off the ice.
“He was always very magnanimous with his time and he told me a couple of weeks ahead of time that he might be coming to Vancouver,” Gallagher said of contract negotiations. “So, I knew all about it and he said not to say anything because nothing had been done.
“And when he didn’t come, it was disappointing for me and I might have been a little hard (on the Canucks) and I only have agent Mike Barnett’s side of the story. Then the (Mark) Messier thing happened the next year, which was a rebound from Wayne.
“Gretzky was just the greatest person, the greatest of the superstars. We always got to know the person in the old days and some of the greatest times we had were waiting for flights in the airport.”
Former Canucks general manager Mike Gillis was also a player agent. He dealt with the media a few times a season — draft, free agency, contracts, trades — and that paled in comparison to the daily microscope he was under as GM. And Gallagher was always focusing in for a closer examination.
However, like any credible journalist, he would back up his views with facts and not fiction.
“To write factually about what you’re witnessing, no matter how difficult that might be, and be totally invested in it is an incredible trait for a journalist,” said Gillis. “Tony displayed those things. It isn’t that you’re always right or wrong, and sometimes the facts are clearer a little bit later.
“But the fact that you would base your reporting on facts, base your opinions on facts and have the courage then to write about what those facts display, I think is the sign of a true journalist.”
And a true writer will poke and prod at players and issues and have to answer to management.
“When I first took the job in Vancouver, Tony and Jason (Botchford) were being really hard on a couple of players,” recalled Gillis.
“I pulled them aside and said: ‘Hey, you know, you can’t have a target. If you’re going to be hard, you’ve got to be hard on everybody’.
“They agreed and we all laughed. It wasn’t like it was a collision, it was more of a discussion about maybe a bit broader lens to look through in terms of certain items. But that was the extent of it.”
It also said something that when Gillis was considered for NHL positions he confided in Gallagher.
“I wasn’t living in Vancouver and it was great to have a good friend, who was not just challenging things that I may have believed, but also provided a lot of background and a lot of information about how things were happening and being done,” said Gillis.”
“We had long conversations about lots of philosophical issues, issues relating to player rights and issues related to league rights and lots of different things. And over time, I just came to really appreciate how honest he was in what he was trying to do. And he would recognize at times that he wasn’t completely right and would have to modify things.”
Gallagher was recruited by The Province after graduating from UBC, where he wrote for the campus paper. He started his storied hockey coverage when the New Westminster Bruins of the WHL relocated from Estevan, Sask. In 1972, he moved to the WHA beat with the Vancouver Blazers and in 1976 became the paper’s lone Canucks beat writer. He was promoted to columnist in 1987.
Gallagher doesn’t have a lot of regrets, but when you’re surrounded by accomplished siblings — working tirelessly in the demanding health profession and also have sons who became lawyers — it’s easy to believe that you just work in a toy factory and there’s a whole other real world out there.
“Maybe I didn’t help as many people and maybe my siblings made up for me — but maybe I entertained them (readers),” reasoned Gallagher. “I could have chosen another line of work. I was a bright guy. But I’ve had a great life and opportunities and went with my heart. I was seduced by the newspaper industry and I loved it, but it was a battle at times.
“There were great memories when you felt like you were confided in by people you loved and respected. Those are special. What helped keep my sanity most of all was that my family was not a sports family. My kids were and became great counsels in my latter years.”