Gilbert misses personal interaction with Rangers fans during pandemic

MONTREAL --
Rod Gilbert
is adapting to the new realities of public life, and the New York Rangers legend isn't finding them much to his taste.

"For a social guy like me, social distancing has been pretty tough," Gilbert said this week. "I love to yak and shake hands and hug and tell the fans how much I appreciate them. Not being able to do this is a little depressing, to tell you the truth. I like keeping in touch with fans with phone calls and FaceTime and Zoom calls, but there's nothing like interaction in person.
"I'm doing Zoom calls with 15 or 20 Rangers season ticket-holders every week. They get to ask me questions about my career and my most memorable moments with the Rangers. I love to socialize with fans. They're my family, actually."
In many ways, fans remain Gilbert's lifeblood more than four decades after the last of his 1,065 NHL games, every one played for the Rangers, between 1960-61 and 1977-78.

During 18 seasons in New York, he scored 1,021 points (406 goals, 615 assists), as well as 67 points (34 goals, 33 assists) in 79 Stanley Cup Playoff games. Gilbert retired with 20 Rangers scoring records (alone or shared), trailing only one other right wing, Gordie Howe, in total points; his No. 7 was retired by the team in 1979, the first number so honored by the Rangers.
Gilbert also played a starring role for Canada in the historic eight-game 1972 Summit Series against the Soviet Union.
If social distancing brought about by the coronavirus leaves him yearning for up-close-and-personal time with fans, Gilbert has the realities clearly in perspective. Whenever he's home in his midtown Manhattan condo, he's out on his 33rd-floor balcony at 7 p.m. tapping a hockey stick on the railing to celebrate the countless front-liners, from doctors and nurses to grocery-store clerks and delivery people, who continue to work through the pandemic.

"This virus is sticking around pretty good," the Hockey Hall of Famer said. "These people are risking their lives every day, and it's not over."
The president of the Rangers Alumni Association remains very active in the community for myriad worthy causes. A recent ALL-IN Challenge, a global initiative to raise funds to fight food insecurity among the needy, brought in $15,000 for an upcoming suite-experience Rangers game at Madison Square Garden. Gilbert has also teamed with current Rangers center Mika Zibanejad in recent months to do extensive work for the Robin Hood Relief Fund, benefitting New York non-profit organizations working on the front lines to assist those in need.
On Wednesday, he and his wife, Judy, marked his 79th birthday with a gathering of more than 20 -- but in a responsible way. His siblings, children, grandchildren and a friend who also celebrates a July 1 birthday assembled on a Zoom video call, with family hopping on from north in Montreal, south in Florida and numerous points in between.

"It's a wonderful thing, a call like this," he said. "You get to see everyone at the same time."
Gilbert always gets a kick out of the fact that his native Canada celebrates his July 1 birthday with a national holiday; that the country's birthday is also July 1 is apparently just a coincidence.
He recalled that his late father's birthday was July 1, as is that of a sister-in-law. His birthday also falls a few days before that of a late brother.
"Tough autumns or winters or something," he joked of the early July delivery-room traffic jam. "My dad always took the day off and we celebrated together. Canada Day was, and always is, a special day for me."
For now, Gilbert and his wife are away from the city, two hours east near the tip of Long Island. They were scheduled to move into a new summer home in Sag Harbor, but the pandemic stopped all construction work on that. He's hopeful it will be ready by next summer.

Instead, most of their time is spent on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Gilbert laughs at the 50-year-old board game that Judy recently dug out of a closet. It was one in a series of five done in the early 1970s that featured versions for baseball, basketball, boxing and football.
"Rod Gilbert's Violent World of Pro Hockey" is anything but; players are ranked on charts in offensive and defensive categories, with the puck advanced and shot at the net based on the tumble of dice. It won't soon be confused with anything branded EA Sports NHL.
"I look at that box today and I have no idea what it is," Gilbert said of the game. "I have no idea how it came about. I guess I'd know better what it is if I opened the thing and looked at it. We did all kinds of stuff in my playing days. People send me old ads and pictures of myself and I say, 'Wow, I did that?'
"There's a 500-piece jigsaw puzzle of me and I think 495 of them are the white of the ice. People write to me and tell me where to stick my puzzle."
He laughed again.
"And it's not in the cupboard."
Photos: Getty Images/HHoF Images