March 2, 2025 by Philip Lewenstein

John Gilbert: Premier Hockey Writer Was Mentor and Friend

One measure of a person’s true character is how they treat people; do they treat people with respect, listen, and make them feel welcome?

I often envisioned a “top ten” list of people who treated me with respect, imparting a feeling of belonging. One member on my list was John Gilbert, the famous hockey writer who befriended and mentored me in summer 1967—before he earned his place among Minnesota’s great sports journalists.

In fall 1966, as a freshman at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, I started working as a sports writer at the Minnesota Daily, the student newspaper. Bruce Bennett, executive sports editor of the Duluth News Tribune, saw my byline and asked me to write and mail him some feature stories on Gopher football players.

Later, Bennett invited me to join his staff for the summer. When I arrived, as a nervous 19-year-old, I was fortunate to be welcomed by John Gilbert, who became a good friend, mentor, and role model during my college years.

I was saddened to read that John had died January 29 at age 82 of heart failure. He was a Duluth native. A graduate of Duluth Central High School, where he played baseball and basketball, he attended the University of Minnesota-Duluth and the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities before joining the News Tribune and Herald.

Fifty-eight years after we met, I continue to cherish how well he treated me. He took time to show me how to report, write, and edit sports stories. More importantly, he became a good friend.

After the paper was assembled and put on the presses about midnight, John invited me to join him for food and conversation at the Holiday Inn in Canal Park. We talked at length about a variety of sports and operating the newspaper.

Minnesota Star Tribune sports columnist Patrick Reusse worked at the Duluth News Tribune from late 1965 to spring 1966. He recalls that after the night shift, John would drive him to a late-hours coffee shop where John would talk hockey nonstop for two hours, minimum (“Passion for puck still drives Gilbert, January 25, 2024, Minnesota Star Tribune).

I was impressed by John’s energy, enthusiasm, and passion for sports and his work. He had amazing listening and communication skills. As a result, he easily established connections with everyone he met. And he treated everyone as he treated me—an observation confirmed by several tributes after his passing.

“He was always helpful to young writers, was willing to ‘show us he ropes,’” said Chris Miller, pro sports team leader for the Star Tribune, who met Gilbert while covering college hockey in 1979 for the Minnesota Daily.

“During the 1980s and 1990s, I worked for the Mesabi Daily News in Virginia, then the Duluth News Tribune, and we ran into each other a lot,” Miller said. “He loved to talk hockey and cars, and I became an avid listener—when you talked to John, he had the floor…John was passionate about hockey.” (“In Memoriam: John Gilbert” by Business North staff, January 30, 2025, Business North).

We kept in touch when he moved to Minneapolis in fall 1967 to work for the Minneapolis Tribune. Since I was from northern Minnesota, which dominated high school hockey, the Daily sports editors thought I was an expert and assigned me to write about Gopher hockey; this assignment enabled me to see John often.

The Minnesota North Stars had begun their first year in Minnesota that fall as a member of the National Hockey League. John picked me up at my dormitory and took me to one of the early North Star games.

Another day, at Williams Arena, where the Gophers played, he introduced me to Herb Brooks, then assisting coach Glen Sonmor and coaching the Gopher freshmen. John knew everyone and anyone—coaches, players, fans—and he always took time to introduce them to me such as at the NCAA tournament at the Duluth Arena Auditorium in 1968.

John became “the hockey department” at the Tribune. He covered all levels of hockey, all at once: high schools, the Gophers, regional small colleges, the North Stars, the St. Paul Fighting Saints in the World Hockey Association, and the Olympics in Lake Placid and Salt Lake City.

He was known for his intensity and insights—an eye for detail. John became known as a superb storyteller and photographer.

“Some of us lean toward writing about what the principals have to say about what happened,” said Reusse. “With Gilbert, it always has been him explaining what went into making it happen—whether every nuance leading to a goal being scored, or the ride and power of a vehicle on the highway, or a race in Brainerd or Indianapolis or Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.”

“John’s legacy will be as the person most connected to reporting hockey in the state of Minnesota,” said retired Duluth News Tribune hockey writer Kevin Pates. “He will be known for covering hockey better, more intently than anybody that’s ever written for a newspaper in Minnesota.” (“Gilbert Preached Gospel of Minnesota Hockey” by Jamey Malcomb, February 1, 2025, Duluth News Tribune).

“He covered all these levels of hockey,” Pates said. “There are tons of high school people that love him, tons of Minnesota North Star and Minnesota Wild people that love him and Gopher people that love him because he did all of those—that’s why he’s Mr. Hockey.”

Gilbert also covered the automotive industry and auto racing with the same energy he devoted to hockey and all other sports to which he was assigned. He often could be found test-driving a new vehicle and writing a review about it. John noted that he did not miss a single auto column in more than 40 years, according to his obituary.

Gilbert wrote three books. In Return to Gold Country: Minnesota Reclaims NCAA Glory, published in 2003, John describes how the Gophers won the NCAA hockey championship after a 23-year hiatus.

In Herb Brooks: The Inside Story of a Hockey Mastermind, published in 2010, John describes his relationship as a confidant and sometimes critic of the famous coach.

 In Miracle in Lake Placid: The Greatest Hockey Story Ever Told, published in 2019,

 John examines the impact of the 1980 US-USSR Olympic hockey game on the people who played and coached in it and how the game changed the trajectory of American hockey. The book is based on his extensive notes and exclusive interviews with Brooks and the players after the games.

After 30 years, John retired from the Star Tribune and returned to Duluth to continue his journalism career. He wrote stories for the Up North network of newspapers, covering hockey and other sports. He wrote auto reviews for the Duluth Budgeteer as well as sports stories and car reviews for the Duluth Reader.

Further, he wrote columns for Minnesota Hockey magazine, which he helped start in the 1980s; posted auto reviews on his website; and hosted a talk radio show, the John Gilbert Show, on KDAL radio. I enjoyed listening to the show on some of my visits to Duluth.

A near-death experience in May 2022 at the Road America Speedway in Elkhart Lake didn’t stop John. He was brought back three times from heart stoppages, was in a drug-induced coma for six days, and in the hospital for three more weeks.

He had two partially blocked arteries and a third, the left anterior descending artery, was 100% blocked. John had three stents put in and was on dialysis for about three weeks at the Fond du Lac hospital and another two months in Duluth. He wore a defibrillator vest, all day, every day, for three months until it was removed in September (“Head of His Deadline,” by Jon Nowacki, October 8, 2022, Duluth News Tribune).

Then, it was back to his love of sports reporting. In fact, John was reporting and writing local stories a month before his passing.

John’s father, Wally, was one of the greatest athletes in Minnesota history. He played baseball for five seasons in the major leagues and played four seasons for the Duluth Eskimos of the National Football League. A member of the Duluth Sports Hall of Fame, he is considered the greatest all-around athlete in Duluth history.

Even with his busy schedule, he coached youth teams of his sons, Jack and Jeff, in hockey, baseball, and soccer. He also coached his wife Joan’s senior women’s hockey team. John and Joan coached girls and women’s teams before the start of girls’ high school hockey.

John was the premier hockey writer in the State of Hockey, which he helped develop through his work. But for me, 58 years ago, he was a mentor, friend, and role model on how to treat people.