Burke looks back at long, storied career in memoir
The 304-page memoir is the result of 200 hours of combing through his memories
Brian Burke doesn’t care if you like him or not.
The Harvard Law School graduate, former player agent, former scout, former National Hockey League general manager, NHL Director of Player Safety, former director of hockey operations for the Calgary Flames, father of six, and Sportsnet Analyst has made that abundantly clear in his 65-years on this planet.
But he does, however, want you to enjoy his newly penned memoir — Burke’s Law, A Life in Hockey — should you decide to read it.
“I do care if people like the book,” Burke said, calling from his home base in Toronto. “I’d hate to take 25 bucks or whatever from someone who says, ‘This is a waste of time.’
“So, I tried to fill it with interesting stories, historical stuff. I feel like Forrest Gump, I was present first-hand at a lot of these important moments in league history.”
With a portion of it adapted from his diary that he’s kept since winning the Stanley Cup in 2007 with the Anaheim Ducks, some of it written in his own words, and some of it dictated, Burke collaborated with award-winning writer Stephen Brunt to pen his life’s story.
The 304-page memoir, which officially hit the shelves earlier this week, is the result of 200 hours of combing through his memories. He had initially written a 100-page outline, single-spaced, and sat down with Brunt.
“He looked at the outline and said, ‘This is terrible.’ You write like a lawyer. It’s no good,” Burke said.
But together, they worked to ensure accuracy in his tales — Burke did as much factchecking as he could himself with former general managers and colleagues — and made sure to tell his story, in his tone.
With many, many ‘f’bombs.
“It was vital, in my mind,” Burke said of keeping the same tone throughout. “You can’t be a polarizing figure and not have the book in your voice. You can’t. It was essential.
“And I think he did capture my voice … I’m sure there are mistakes, but I tried my best to get it all right.”
Burke’s intellectual voice is now heard regularly on television as a figure on Sportsnet while his presence has been a recognizable one in the hockey world since the 1980s.
The memoir begins with Burke’s upbringing as the fourth of 10 children in an Irish Catholic family, going to mass before school at 6 a.m., learning lessons about finishing fights — but to never start them — from his Grandma Burke while visiting her in Clifton, New Jersey, the mandatory reading hour in their family’s living room, and growing up in Chicago, then Boston, then Minnesota.
It was there, watching the Minnesota state high school hockey championship on television, that he fell in love with hockey.
He touches one of his biggest influences, Lou Lamoriello, who was then the head coach at Providence College that recruited Burke out of high school, and the impact he had on his approach to the game in an entire chapter called “Lou’s Rules.”
Lamoriello was the one who encouraged Burke to take the Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) — encouraged, as in, telling him “You’re taking the f*****g exam.” Providence
was also where he learned to tie his tie, tearing the directions out of a magazine and wearing it on his recruiting trip.
His professional stint in Portland transitions into his time at Harvard Law School, meeting (and marrying) his first wife Kerry Gilmore, the birth of his daughter Katie, and becoming a hockey agent in the early days.
The book discusses his special relationship with Pat Quinn who had a law school degree (like Burke), strong morals, was a good listener and “had a great gift for making people feel important.” He also assigned Burke to deal with the media in Vancouver for the first time he was a public face for a hockey team — and was the beginning of his, at times, combative relationship with some media members.