MEDIA – HOCKEY – INDUCTED IN 2018
Though he was a fixture in local sports, Denis Gibbons left his mark on international hockey as well.
Gibbons literally wrote the book on international hockey, authoring Hockey: My Door to Europe in 2017.
Gibbons was a fan of the St. Michael’s Majors and their coach Father Bauer, who started Canada’s national team. Gibbons followed Bauer’s amateur teams representing Canada at the Olympics and world championships.
As more international games were televised, Gibbons became fascinated by the Soviet Union’s style of play.
The sports editor at his hometown Acton Free Press (1969-1972), the Georgetown Independent (1973-78) and the Burlington Post (1979-1995), Gibbons took part in a sports exchange between Canada and the Soviet Union in 1974.
He began researching European hockey extensively and became the authority on the international game, its players and its history. He became a part-time writer and editor for The Hockey News, and a freelancer for The Globe & Mail and Broadcast News. Gibbons was so dedicated to his research that he learned to speak Russian and had a working knowledge of Czech, German, Japanese and Spanish.
ABC hired Gibbons for the 1988 Calgary Olympics to boost their knowledge of international hockey. American networks hired him for nine Winter Olympics and he was on site for seven. Gibbons was the chief writer for the official 2010 Olympic hockey program and contributed to Kings of the Ice: A History of World Hockey.
Gibbons covered four world championships and eight world junior championships.
Hockey: My Door to Europe detailed Gibbons’ years covering hockey, but also significant historical events – the Chernobyl nuclear plant explosion, which happened during the 1986 world championships in Moscow. He was in Moscow again in 1989 when the Berlin Wall fell.
The Society for International Hockey Research honoured Gibbons with its President’s Award in 2014.