Gillett, who owned Canadiens from 2001-09, dies at 87

MONTREAL -- George N. Gillett Jr. did much more than own the Montreal Canadiens from 2001-09, his final season monumentally kicking off celebrations for the centennial of the storied franchise that predates the NHL.

The energetic, glass forever half-full American businessman owned basketball’s famed Harlem Globetrotters when they actually lost a game in 1971, and he relished telling that story as much as he did any about his greatest moments in sports and business.

The Canadiens announced Wednesday on social media that Gillett Jr. had died at age 87.

“On behalf of the entire Canadiens organization, I would like to extend my deepest condolences to George’s family,” Canadiens owner, president and CEO Geoff Molson said in a statement. “George immersed himself in the Montreal community and was appreciated by everyone in the organization. We sincerely appreciate his contributions to the Montreal Canadiens during his time as owner.”

Canadiens owner George Gillett Jr. (l.) with team president Pierre Boivin during the 2009 NHL Draft at Bell Centre in Montreal.

Said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, in a statement:

“George Gillett’s passion for the Montreal Canadiens and commitment to the city of Montreal were demonstrated throughout his tenure as owner of the storied franchise from 2001 to 2009. He guided the Canadiens through a significant chapter in their history that included preparations for their Centennial Celebration, which honored the franchise’s rich legacy and seminal place in our game.

“George was a friend whose company I always enjoyed, whose counsel was wise, and whose energy was contagious. His contributions to the hockey world left an enduring mark, and his legacy will continue to be felt throughout the game for years to come. The National Hockey League sends its heartfelt condolences to his family and many friends.”

Born Oct. 22, 1938, in Racine, Wisconsin, Gillett Jr. became owner of the Canadiens and Molson (now Bell) Centre on Jan. 31, 2001. Founder of Brook Creek Management Corp., a portfolio management firm, he would own the NHL’s most successful franchise during several huge moments in team history, including captain Saku Koivu’s return after beating cancer on April 9, 2002, the renaming of the team’s arena to Bell Centre on Sept. 1, 2002, and the start of preparations for the team’s centennial season in 2009-10. 

Gillett Jr. owned the Canadiens until June 20, 2009 when he sold the team, its arena and its Groupe Spectacles Gillett concert/entertainment arm to current owner Geoff Molson and a consortium of investors.

Canadiens owner George Gillett Jr. (second from left) during an Oct. 15, 2005, Bell Centre news conference to announce the upcoming jersey retirements of Bernie Geoffrion (center), Dickie Moore (second from left) and Yvan Cournoyer (third from right). With them are Jean Beliveau (far left), Canadiens president Pierre Boivin (second from right) and then-team alumni president Rejean Houle.

I would get to know Gillett Jr. well during his tenure holding the Canadiens’ reins, spending time with him at the arena during games, in conversation in the team’s executive suites, even flying with him from Montreal to Toronto on his business jet to a 2008 sports awards luncheon when he learned that my commercial flight the morning after covering a Canadiens game would cut my arrival too close.

He’d officially arrived in Montreal on Jan. 31, 2001, from his base in Vail, Colorado, handing Molson Inc. $275 million Canadian for 80.1 per cent of the Canadiens and full ownership of their arena. By his own estimate, the Canadiens were roughly his 150th acquisition, the purchase coming more than a half-century after he’d worked his first job in 1948 – picking weeds in a Racine onion patch for his great-uncle Wally.

Within days, Gillett Jr. was strafed by some in the Montreal media for his 1992 bankruptcy, from which he had fully recovered. Worse, he was compared to an American entrepreneur who had destroyed the Montreal Alouettes CFL football franchise in the early 1980s, then coarsely laughed off that failure.

One of the loudest beefs about Gillett Jr.’s acquisition of the Canadiens was that it was an American who now owned this provincial treasure. It mattered not that no Quebec individual or corporation – not one – chose to bid.

A Feb. 1, 2001 newspaper report on George Gillett Jr.’s purchase of the Montreal Canadiens.

“My reaction was not to get angry (about the early criticism) but ask that we be judged on our record (with the Canadiens), not the past,” Gillett Jr. said on our flight to Toronto for the awards ceremony. “I made a mistake years ago. I can only live with that so long.

“At some point, you have to look at what I’ve done more recently. To the benefit of Quebec and particularly Montreal, they have turned the page and allowed my family’s actions to speak louder than words.”

Gillett Jr. playfully seized his chance at the October 2008 Sports Media Canada luncheon, at which he was named the group’s executive of the year.

“I don’t know how many of you remember the wonderful articles that some of your compatriots wrote about me when I first got to Montreal,” he told the media audience with a grin. “So I feel a real kinship to your organization.”

The packed ballroom roared in laughter.

Fear and loathing had long given way to respect, even affection for a man with a self-deprecating sense of humor who had proven not to be Godzilla with a U.S. passport. It turns out that Gillett Jr. had not, in fact, invaded Montreal to stomp the Canadiens flat or use the club’s long thread of history as dental floss.

Canadiens owner George Gillett Jr. (l.) with GM Bob Gainey, president Pierre Boivin and chief scout Trevor Timmins with other members of the organization during the 2009 NHL Draft at Bell Centre on June 26, 2009.

The team would have a record of 254-198-52 with 18 ties during Gillett Jr.’s ownership, the 18 ties coming before the draw was eliminated with the shootout following the lost season of 2004-05. Montreal went to the Stanley Cup Playoffs five times in his 6 1/2 seasons, losing three Eastern Conference Semifinal series and two Quarterfinal rounds.

As much as the Canadiens were a business to him and his family, you always sensed that the Canadiens were also an emotional investment.

The team’s 100th season was a gold mine, jerseys from the team’s past, myriad souvenirs and promotions and special nights filling his coffers. But the owner always detoured well out of his way to make alumni feel they still were a special part of the organization, and there was nothing he enjoyed more than being one of the boys.

With the Canadiens on the brink of elimination to the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 6 of their 2002 Eastern Conference Semifinal, Montreal forward Doug Gilmour stepped into the second-period penalty box to serve a minor and misconduct and slammed the door so violently that the glass exploded in a blizzard. It took ice crews some time to clean it up, shoveling the mess into wheelbarrows as Gilmour sat stone-faced in the sin bin.

George Gillett Jr. talks to the media after his and business partner Tom Hicks' purchase of Liverpool Football Club on Feb. 6, 2007 in Liverpool, England.

Later, Gilmour saw the chance to prank the man who signed his paycheck, taking about five pounds of broken glass to a team dinner and filling Gillett Jr.’s suit jacket pockets with it when the latter wasn’t looking. The owner nearly threw his shoulder out when he tried to swing the jacket over an arm.

Gillett Jr. truly cherished the Canadiens community. The engraved bricks in a plaza outside the arena made him a bundle, but he took greater pride in seeing fans study the statues that honour four icons – Howie Morenz, Maurice “Rocket” Richard, Jean Beliveau and Guy Lafleur. 

He would return to Montreal in December 2014 upon Beliveau’s death, the team’s greatest captain laying in state on the arena floor for public visitation. Having grown close to Beliveau and taken much counsel from the legend on team matters large and small, Gillett Jr. wept inconsolably in private conversation after he’d done a lengthy interview for the media at large.

The Canadiens would become just one holding in his sports portfolio. During a six-month period in 2007, Gillett Jr. bought a 50-per-cent share of the Liverpool soccer club with fellow American businessman Tom Hicks, and a controlling interest in a multicar NASCAR operation.

Liverpool co-owner George Gillett Jr. looks on during the Barclays Premier League match between Liverpool and Manchester United at Anfield on Sept. 13, 2008 in Liverpool, England.

I sat with Gillett Jr. in a Molson Centre conference room in 2003, two years into his ownership, for a wide-ranging conversation that he often punctuated with jabs at himself.

“The best thing about owning the Canadiens is being a part of the history and feeling that history – the relationship with the fans, the passion of this (Quebec) province,” he said that day.

“The worst thing? Not being able to have any direct effect on the result. In business, if you lose an order, you call on the customer and get it fixed. In production, you repair the equipment. In this business, it's an indirect kind of relationship and it's very difficult to get an immediate response or reaction to any action that you take. That's difficult for someone used to a very direct relationship with their businesses.”

Our talk that day would shift to his decade-long ownership of the Globetrotters, whose 100-99 overtime loss to the New Jersey Reds in March 1971 in Martin, Tennessee, ended the Globies’ 2,495-game winning streak.

“No matter where they were, or the time of day or night, we had a rule: The team manager would call me after the game to tell me about the crowd, injuries and the weather, because of travel,” Gillett Jr. began.

George Gillett Jr., owner of Gillett Evernham Motorsports, speaks to the media prior to the start of the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series Checker Auto Parts 500 at Phoenix International Raceway on Nov. 11, 2007 in Avondale, Arizona.

“When we were in the East or Midwest, the call would come by 11 p.m. or midnight. I was waiting for the call that night and it didn't come, so I went to bed. At 2 a.m. the phone rang, and it was a grown man who was sobbing: ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. ... we beat you tonight.’ It was Red Klotz, the player-coach of our opponent, who had played for the old Baltimore Bullets in the NBA. He was a specialist in the two-hand set shot.”

By now, Gillett Jr. seemed ready to dribble a basketball around his conference room.

“I said: "Red, what happened!?’ ” he continued. “He said, ‘George, you won't believe it. You guys had a one-point lead with a few seconds left and I put myself in to make sure no one would do anything dumb and you’d win. But somebody threw me the ball. I was almost at midcourt and I just reacted. I let fly a two-hand set shot. Swish. We beat you by one.

“Red later said that ‘fans looked at us that night like we had just killed Santa Claus,’ but I think the Globetrotters won their next 8,829 straight. I can still hear Red sobbing. I told him: ‘Red, that's fabulous.’ And then we had a press conference – and we got much, much more publicity out of the loss than any of our wins.”

In Gillett Jr.’s view, this wasn’t a loss. It was a public-relations bonanza that had wonderfully fallen out of the sky, his wheels of opportunity in high gear at 2 o’clock in the morning.

Top photo: Canadiens owner George Gillett Jr. cheers with team mascot Youppi! before Montreal’s Bell Centre game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Oct. 13, 2007.