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John Gilbert, a Duluth native and long-time Minnesota sports and automotive journalist who was especially known for his hockey coverage, died Wednesday. He was 82.
A graduate of Duluth Central, he started his newspaper career at what was then the Duluth News-Tribune and Herald, working there for several years before leaving for the Star Tribune in 1967. For the next 30 years, he covered all levels of hockey, from high schools and colleges to the NHL and the Olympics, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.
He also authored two books, “Herb Brooks: The Inside Story of a Hockey Mastermind,” in 2010, and “Miracle in Lake Placid: The Greatest Hockey Story Ever Told,” published in 2019.
Beyond hockey, Gilbert also covered auto racing and the automotive industry and wrote car reviews for the Star Tribune.
Following his retirement from the Minneapolis paper, he returned to Duluth, where he continued working in various journalistic capacities: writing stories for the Up North network of newspapers, covering hockey and other sports and writing automotive reviews for the Duluth Budgeteer, writing sports stories and car reviews for the Duluth Reader, writing columns for Minnesota Hockey Magazine, which he helped launch in the 1980s, posting auto reviews on his website, Newcarpicks.com, and, for a time, hosting a talk radio program the John Gilbert Show, on KDAL Radio.
“He was always helpful to young writers, was willing to ‘show us the 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, the student newspaper at the University of Minnesota. “During the ’80s and ’90s, I worked for first the Mesabi Daily News in Virginia, then the Duluth News Tribune, and we ran into each other a lot. 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.
When the Duluth Budgeteer hired John in the late 1990s, they took out billboards around town to promote the fact that they had the state’s best hockey writer on board. He and Herb Brooks ended up being quite a pair during Herb’s odyssey. John’s sports writing rivals had a saying: ‘John Gilbert didn’t invent hockey, but he was there when Herb Brooks did.’”
Gilbert’s father, Wally, was one of the top all-around athletes in Minnesota history, according to the Star Tribune. Wally Gilbert played five seasons in the major leagues and also played four seasons with the Duluth Eskimos of the NFL.
Gilbert’s family also includes his wife Joan and two sons, Jack and Jeff.
