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Home , Brad Treliving, Brian Burke (ice hockey), Calgary Flames, Calgary Hitmen, Calgary Roughnecks, Goal (ice hockey)

BRIAN BURKE FLAMES

www.vanguardlawmag.com W   N C

2 | -driven with law degree and hockey smarts

W   N C

hen Brian Burke was a senior at But hockey still came first. Claimed by the Philadelphia and Flyers, he played a handful of games for their minor affiliate of the hockey team during the in Springfield, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1977 and 1976-1977 season, his coach, then followed the team the next season when it relocated WLou Lamoriello, called the driven, hard-nosed to Portland, Maine, and won the ’s young man into his office and told him he had Calder Cup. to take the upcoming Law School Admission Test. Not that Burke was a major factor.

Though an excellent student who would be “My statistics would lead you to believe I played 20 games as a Rhodes Scholar finalist, Burke, who was a defenseman, not a whole season as a forward,” says Burke, majoring in history and aspired to follow who managed all of 3 goals and 5 assists in the regular Lamoriello into coaching college hockey, season and no points, but a whopping 25 minutes in declined. just eight playoff games.

Or at least he tried to. “If I were you, I’d go back to school,” Philadelphia advised Burke during the offseason. “I told Lou I had no interest in law school, but However well-meaning the counsel, Burke says it felt like “a he said ‘that’s not a request,’” remembers the kick in the groin.” 61-year-old Burke of his conversation with the famously authoritarian coach. “Well, I score in A few years later, with a Harvard Law juris doctorate instead the 98th percentile and next thing you know of Allen’s foot under his belt, it felt a lot better. Call it a goal I’m applying to Harvard and Georgetown.” by Burke, with assists to Lamoriello and Allen.

| 3 2015 Pride Parade

With a couple of assists from long-ago mentors, a marginal minor-leaguer turned lawyer has become one of the NHL’s most accomplished front-office executives as well as a progressive advocate.

4 | Photo by Jenn Pierce, Calgary Flames The law won

Though never having made the NHL as a player, Burke But Burke’s also part of an organization whose ownership holds a league record for having served as general group, Calgary Sports and Entertainment, includes manager of five teams, including an interim stint with the junior hockey team’s , the National the Calgary Flames, where he has been president of League’s , the Canadian hockey operations since 2013, combining legal smarts Football League’s , and a minor league and puck sense, and primarily crediting the former. hockey team in California. There are lots of opportunities to weigh in on sports law and the business of the overall “I’d encourage everyone to get a law degree,” operation. says Burke during a colorful and sometimes salty conversation from his Calgary office. “It helps so much “I thought I’d miss being general manger, but it’s much with how you approach business and life itself. My law less of a day-to-day grind now,” says Burke. “And I’m degree got me where I am.” involved in many areas. We have a great president in King.” Burke’s on-ice role in the city with its striking views of the Canadian Rockies may actually be less And no one doubts Burke’s DNA is embedded in a Flames hands-on than in his previous tours of NHL duty, which team that’s been one of the NHL’s surprises this season. included being general manager of—in reverse order— the Maple Leafs, , Few expected the Flames, whose sole came Canucks and ( in 1989, to be much of a factor, as the team can be since 1997). disadvantaged for multiple reasons, among them the remoteness of the market in an NHL bent on expanding At all those stops, Burke almost had the dictatorial its footprint in glitzy U.S. cities, including Las Vegas, power he demanded when choosing players and whose Golden Knights take to the ice this October. coaches, and negotiating contracts. Now his position may be more advisory, with him filling a gap between But as the regular season entered the homestretch, the overall president, , and General Manager the Flames seemed headed to the postseason for the , whom Burke hired from the Phoenix second time on Burke’s watch, prompting him to say with Coyotes after cleaning house in the spring of 2014. characteristic curtness “don’t jinx us.”

| 5 The way to the NHL

Much as Burke downplays his hockey skills for landing him in an NHL front office, he probably wouldn’t have gotten there without wearing a minor league uniform. Though a low-scoring Maine Mariner well down the Flyers’ depth chart, the young Burke developed a kinship with a then-Flyers assistant coach, the late —also a former player who earned a law degree and went on to a distinguished career in hockey management.

Nine years after that Calder Cup championship of 1978, Burke joined ancient Mariners at a raucous reunion in Portland. “It’s amazing how great a player you seemed to have been nine years earlier after 15 beers at 3 a.m.,” Burke remembers with a laugh.

Only by now he was Brian Burke Esq., 30-something and well established as an agent, having at the time scored the biggest signing bonus ever for a U.S. college player, , who had left the University of Minnesota-Duluth early to sign with Calgary and would go on to be the most feared sniper of his era.

In Burke, Quinn saw the aggressive negotiating skills that could be put to use in Vancouver, inviting him to come aboard as director of hockey operations, which enabled him to go toe-to-toe with agents over players’ contracts.

Some years later, in 1992, Burke couldn’t resist the opportunity to be general manager of a Hartford team struggling in a small market and substandard building. But it was a no-win situation, and after one season he joined NHL headquarters in New York, working under the Westward bound again progressive new commissioner . Though known best, and perhaps unfairly, for Then in 1998 when the Canucks needed a new general manager, disciplining players for on-ice excesses, Burke Burke returned and in his six years there, the team did almost was entrusted with far more than just handing everything but win the Stanley Cup. Through Burke, the team out fines and suspensions. acquired the Swedish brothers Daniel and , who made the team an offensive juggernaut. But after another early “Gary placed great value in my law degree,” playoff exit in 2004 and with the team under new ownership, his says Burke. “People may remember me for contract was not renewed. discipline, but I was involved in collective bargaining for players and officials, rules The following year Burke did TV commentary before going south changes and international tournaments, and to manage the Anaheim Ducks, adding grit to a talented lineup, settling a work stoppage.” and resulting in the only Stanley Cup of his career in 2007.

6 | Breaks of the game

Burke is reminded about an old quote that one must be “a cold-hearted bastard” to work in sports management. For those in a team’s brass, hiring and firing coaches and general managers, trading or demoting players or granting them their outright release are all in a day’s work. Burke, who has experienced that unpleasantry from all angles, chooses to rephrase his feelings.

“You’ve got to have that gene to trade a player whose father is dying of cancer or whose wife is eight months pregnant, because the good of the team comes first.” As Burke and Treliving were manning the phones right until the NHL’s trade deadline on March 1, he says, “I’ve had to do just that.”

But there’s an area in which Burke is anything but cold- hearted.

His six children, all grown, included an openly gay son, Brendan, who was student manager of the Miami (Ohio) University hockey team, and died along with a friend when their car crashed on an icy highway in Indiana in February 2010. Despite decades of being immersed in hockey’s famously macho culture, the elder Burke was comfortable with Brendan’s orientation, although he did worry about how the rest of the world would respond.

Since then, Burke’s activism for gay acceptance has only intensified. He can’t seem to say no to speaking engagements at schools. He’s marched in gay pride rallies in Toronto and Calgary, and even advised the National Football League on anti-bigotry. In pregame skates, the Flames sometimes wear pro-tolerance jerseys and wrap their sticks with rainbow tape.

“If you’re the general manager of a Canadian team, you have the platform and profile to be influential,” he says, adding Photo by Gerry omas, Calgary Flames that a prominent hockey personality may have more clout in puck-mad Canada than any U.S.-based superstar may have in America. “I’m proud of my involvement and how young In the fall of 2008, he opted to leave sunny California to be players are supportive of this cause. The players I ask to general manager and president of that pressure cooker known get involved do so; those I haven’t asked will ask me why as the , an NHL charter member that hadn’t I haven’t asked them. It’s great they want to get involved.” won the Stanley Cup since 1967. Despite roster and coaching shakeups, the Leafs’ fortunes didn’t improve under Burke, and Another Burke son, Patrick, works at NHL headquarters and, with the team sold, he was dismissed in early 2013. in his brother’s memory, co-founded the league’s initiative, which assures gay, lesbian, transgender and “I’ve only [been] released by teams twice, and in both cases the bisexual youths that there’s a place for them on the rink. teams were sold,” say Burke. “I’m not bitter about Vancouver The elder Burke assures there’s a place for them in Calgary. or Toronto; when a team is sold there’s a 90 percent chance you’re going to be replaced.” If, of course, they really can play. •

| 7 WWW.NHL.COM/FLAME

Photo by Gerry Thomas, Calgary Flames 8 |