From around 1977 to 1997 Tony Gallagher overshadowed Vancouver Canucks coverage in a way that hasn't been duplicated in many, if any, NHL cities. It was the heart of a 45-year run that earned him a place in the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame's media wing as part of the 2018 inductee class.

The Province is featuring five athletes, one builder and one media member being inducted into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame on May 31 during a reception at Parq Vancouver.

They join sports medicine’s Alex McKechnie, who revolutionized physiotherapy and has worked with the biggest names in sports; swimming’s Tom Johnson, who among other accomplishments was on 10 Olympics coaching staffs for Canada; the 1900-18 Rossland ladies ice hockey team that was undefeated in organized play for 17 years; the 1991 national men’s rugby team that reached the World Cup quarter-finals and included 23 players either born in B.C. or who played rugby in the province, as well as B.C.-born coach Ian Birtwell; and W.A.C. Bennett Award winner Alex Nelson, founding member and three-time president of the North American Indigenous Games Council, women’s rights crusader, and soccer coach for 42 years.

Today’s feature is on Tony Gallagher

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At a top prospects tournament in Penticton, Tony Gallagher is socializing when he’s abruptly enveloped by the friends and family of one of the most promising players there.

Mere moments after introductions, they launch into a ballooning list of grievances against the team that drafted their loved one. Everything seemed to be at issue, from minutes, to the coach, to the general manager, to a comparable player the team had just acquired.

They feared the organization was burying their guy. Looking back, they weren’t wrong .

It was such a Gallagher moment. People just want to tell him their stories. They always have. It’s a quality that helped drive him from cub reporter in 1970 to the columnist who dominated the Vancouver sports media scene for a 20-year stretch.

From around 1977 to 1997 he overshadowed Vancouver Canucks coverage in a way that hasn’t been duplicated in many, if any, NHL cities.

It was the heart of a 45-year run that earned him a place in the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame’s media wing as part of the 2018 inductee class.

The greatest part is Gallagher’s best stories never happened late at night in any bars where so many media bathed in post-game leisure time. They were always in the newspaper where he, uhm, wrote them.

They all spill from him now so smoothly and with such precise detail, you listen hoping one day he’ll flow it all into the book that is so obviously waiting in a corner of his memories.

There was the time lawyers opposing the Canucks in the Vladimir Krutov international arbitration case couriered him the transcripts and audio tapes from Sweden. It was a fascinating case and one in which the Canucks, represented by Brian Burke, got financially drubbed.

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In one riveting sequence, Vancouver legend Pat Quinn was on the stand, forced to admit he misled the public about agreed-to transfer payments the Canucks failed to make to Russia. “We messed up,” Quinn would admit. The source that cross examiners used to box Quinn into that corner?

A Gallagher column.

“It was devastating for the Canucks and it was all in the paper,” Gallagher said. “The bottom line, Burke got annihilated.”

Gallagher so often shared the players’ side and it regularly put him at odds with Canucks management.

“There was a constant theme of grinding players down for years,” Gallagher said. “It was a beautiful environment for a writer to come in and take the player’s side.

“When I did that, players liked it. Of course, a lot of times fans wouldn’t. But they had to recognize I was getting the right information.

“(There were years) when the Canucks would just lie to the public about what they were offering. The agents would tell me, ‘Here’s the offer sheet. Read it yourself.'”

There is no better example than Pavel Bure, who some reporters have cast as a bitter villain because, well, he asked to be traded.

“He’s always ascribed all these evil characteristics, like he was selfish,” Gallagher said. “It drives me crazy. They’re missing how abused he was from the moment he got here. No one would think a team would abuse superstars like that.

“For example, they made him pay part of the money to the Russians to buy him out of his contract. What a way to start a relationship with a guy you think is going to be a star.

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“Then he goes out and scores 34 goals and he’s rookie of the year. He said: ‘Are you guys going to do something about this contract?’

“It was normal in those days to renegotiate and get upgrades. Bure’s agent asked and they said: ‘We don’t think he’s ever going to do this again. The league will get on to him.'”

Bure would score 60 goals in each of the next two seasons.

There was also Igor Larionov, who the Canucks lost in part because they refused to negotiate down what was a massive transfer payment with Russia that was supposed to match his NHL salary. The Calgary Flames, for example, negotiated with Russia and got Sergei Makarov’s transfer down to a flat $50,000.

“The Canucks lost Larionov because Quinn was so stubborn,” Gallagher said. “He didn’t want to make a phone call and just say, ‘I’ll pay whatever Calgary is paying.’

“The Russians would have been happy with $50,000 because they didn’t get anything.

“So Calgary keeps Makarov and Vancouver loses Larionov. Look at the career he went on to. He could have been with Bure. They made beautiful music together.”

The Burke-era Canucks were so triggered by Gallagher they leaned on The Province like mobsters more than a couple of times. Once, they pressured the paper to not hire him back after he took a two-year sabbatical to try radio. The Canucks accused Gallagher of “ scurrilous editorial attacks,” which is about the most Burke phrase ever.

“They sent a letter to (then editor in chief) Brian Butters saying: ‘If you hire him back we won’t let him in the dressing room and will bar Province guys,'” Gallagher said. “Butters ran the letter they sent on the front page of the paper.

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“I was forever grateful because that could have ended my career. They could have secretly acceded to the Canucks’ wishes and not hired me back. That would have been it.”

Instead, the paper showed Gallagher a ton of respect and did what he did his entire career. They pushed back.

Gallagher is as close to a rock star as The Province has ever had. He’s still recognized wherever he goes. In fact, he was in Palm Springs recently and a car randomly pulled up to him, the window came down and the driver blurted out:

“Hey Tony, did the Canucks win last night?”

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