“Scoops! Scoops!”
I always knew when I was in the same arena as Greg Millen.
This familiar greeting would echo in a corridor somewhere on the NHL circuit before he even had the chance to take her eyes.
“What’s new, scoops?” What scoops are you working on today? What problem do you move now? “
The dam of questions and accusations would arrive in rapid succession and would inevitably be punctuated by a hearty little laugh. It was Vintage Millsey. Quick to deliver a needle with good heart and always with the last laugh.
At this point, he had already spent more time behind a microphone than he had kept him in the goal in the best hockey league in the world, but he has never lost sight of the player’s point of view.
During the years he worked as Sportsnet analyst on Toronto Maple Leafs games, he never missed an opportunity to kill the Beat reporters when he felt that we were pushing a scenario a little too far or barking the bad tree.
Whether it is myself, Jonas Siegel, Mike Zeisberger or one of the other journalists regularly covering the team, we have always known that Millsey read our work. It was not shy to make it known. The man made sure that he was incredibly well prepared each time he entered the stand to call a game, although he would probably have bristled if I had characterized his noisy consumption of the Toronto media at that time as real research for work.
You have always known when Millsey worked a game.
Not so much by its boy baritone or a signature call on the broadcast, but the coffee overturned in the press box. The man absolutely liked to pull a stuffing and apparently never tired of his old watch: glue a pin at the bottom of a cup of paper coffee before finding a safe place to watch while a journalist without mistrust has groped with a next fleeing cast.
This gag was cited by more than one media member based in Toronto on a “in Memoriam” text chain which began Monday evening after the NHL ALUMNI Association announced that Millen had died suddenly at the age of 67.
His playing career lasted more than 600 games in 14 seasons with Pittsburgh’s Penguins, Hartford Whalers, St. Louis Blues, Quebec Nordiques, Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings in a league that is very like that that exists today. Millsey often told stories about the dangers of traveling commercially in his time and delighted to highlight the various other comforts of creatures that were not available for players in the 1980s.
He continued to occupy one of the most coveted refined seats in sport, working regularly on “Hockey Night in Canada” and winning a place alongside the legendary man Bob Cole de Play-Play-including for the last Cole match at the Bell Center in Montreal on April 6, 2019.
However, what I have always appreciated about Millsey is that he had so many interests beyond the game he loved. He has often spoken with colleagues from his growing family, who includes the wife Ann and the children Caroline, Emily, Allison and Charlie. He was passionate about the master’s degree in leadership he obtained from the University of Guelph in 2014, which led him to external teaching and consultation work.
In recent years, our paths have not crossed almost as frequently.
I was not on the road as much as during the regular season, while Millsey mainly worked for Calgary Flames programs. The last time we exchanged SMS, we wished ourselves a merry Christmas and I told him that I had failed to hear his regular observations Leafs.
“The crew too, but fortunately, my new Calgary family is a good group !!” he replied.
You will notice its use of the family of words in this text. This is how he treated his colleagues.
Which brings me to the other side of Millsey.
At the start of the 2015-2016 season, my mother Linda became unexpectedly and I took a leave of my work covering the beat of the Leafs to help my family manage this situation. My mother ended up fighting for two months after a diagnosis of glioblastoma before dying in January 2016. His funeral took place in my hometown of Cobourg, Ontario, at the start of the NHL Stars weekend in Nashville, which prevented many colleagues from being able to attend.
About the last person I expected to see the doors cross that morning was Millsey, but he was there. He made the 45-minute journey by himself and came to pay tribute to him despite never having met members of my immediate family.
Unless you have gone through this kind of loss yourself, it could be difficult to understand how significant his gesture was for me for an incredibly difficult period. It was massive. It fled me.
And it breaks my heart today to know that Millsey’s family is now sailing on their own waves of sorrow and sadness after having lost it without warning too early.
Let them end up finding comfort in their warmest memories.
Because here is the thing about Greg Millen: under the Curmudgeony veneer which he sometimes adopted and that the ribs of good humor he has always distributed was a man with a heart of gold.
A man of great integrity.
A man who has always found his own unique way of not letting colleagues lose sight of the fact that there are much more important things in life than games or scoops.
(Top Photos: Noah Graham and Graig Abel / Getty Images)
