MONTREAL – In the fall of 1978, Red Fisher was the 52-year-old sports editor of the Montreal Star and at the height of his very considerable powers.

He ran one of Canada's biggest sports departments and could get just about anyone in hockey (or football, or boxing, or baseball) to take his calls.

But in the fall of 1978, he was also one frustrated sports editor. I know this because I was the 27-year-old, wet-behind-the-ears city editor of the Star, and Red and I sat together in an empty newsroom as a strike by pressmen dragged on and kept the paper from publishing. I had been at the Star a few years, but had had very little contact with superstar Fisher, who never had a great deal of time for rookies. But through those months of the strike, I found Red to be a very cool dude, indeed. And he even talked to me as an equal, which I wasn't.

Almost 34 years later, Red came into my office this week to tell me he has written his last column for The Gazette.

He's done.

And he's going to be really unhappy with me for writing about it.

But I share at least one trait with Fisher: I hate to be scooped on my own story!

By the time many of you are reading this, the news will have already been racing around on Twitter and the rest of the digisphere.

Just to further enrage Red, we'll be doing plenty more on this giant of Canadian journalism and hockey in Saturday's newspaper, and online.

But allow me a couple of anecdotes about my great and good colleague.

A few years after the Star strike and the events that followed, I found myself back at 250 St. Antoine St., but now working for The Gazette. Red was the sports editor but the union had challenged his right to cover the Canadiens while being a manager and not a union member. The editor of the day asked Red to choose and, naturally, Red chose the Habs and writing.

So, being one of the newest (and slowest) guys in the office, I was promptly made "executive sports editor."

I was Red Fisher's boss. That last part was completely true in my mind. But I don't really remember ever telling him what to do over the next five years.

A couple of years later, in the fall of 1984, The Gazette had a new publisher, the inimitable Clark Davey, who (rightly) wanted to shake things up in The Gazette's newsroom.

Clark, who I came to admire greatly in the years ahead, had a habit of lobbing idea grenades to see what would happen. He thought sports departments were far too focused on traditional male interests, the writing was too formulaic, and beat writers should drop the "game story" and become critics, doing reviews of the games.

He was right, it turned out.

But, back then, Clark let it be known he thought Fisher and some of the other beat writers needed to be switched out and some new blood put on the hockey beat.