Brian Kilrea signs copies of his autobiography, They Call Me Killer, at Brittons in the Glebe. The coaching legend spent 2,157 games behind the bench for the Ottawa 67’s.
He used to be just a kid at Lisgar Collegiate, looking at his watch and counting the minutes for school to end so he could strap on his skates and get back on a nearby outdoor rink.
Today, at 76, he’s an Ottawa hockey legend – a two-time Memorial Cup winner, a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame and the longest serving coach in Ottawa 67’s history.
Brian Kilrea saw a lot of teenaged hockey players make their way through his dressing room to successful careers on and off the ice.
Through it all, he’s brought with him a love of storytelling that ties together his career in hockey, first as a player and later as a coach.
“You know some guys will tell a story and they may elaborate a little bit more, expand it and try to make it a little bit funnier?” he says.
“I could tell you the same story this year or if I was lucky enough to live 10 more years, I’d tell you the same story. I don’t enlarge to it try to make it even funnier.”
Now he’s taken that love of storytelling out of the dressing room and onto the hardcover.
Kilrea and co-author James Duthie, a TSN broadcaster, detail those stories in a new book released last month, They Call Me Killer.
All the money Kilrea makes from the book, is going to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario.
“If there’s a cheque come to me, I just sign it and send it over," he says.
Kilrea first started hearing hockey stories when he was 16, listening to the older guys on the senior team he played for in Brockville.
Now, 60 years later, he’s got more than enough stories to fill a book.
“When you’ve spent your entire life in hockey, you basically have stories from when you’re 10 years old to when you’re 76," says Duthie.
"So I think there’s probably an encyclopedia’s worth of them in there."Duthie is a long-time friend of Kilrea’s dating back to his time as a sports reporter for CTV in Ottawa.
He spent the summer in Kilrea’s basement, recording the stories for hours on end.
He still doesn’t think he’s heard them all.
The stories in the book range from the funny to the heartfelt.
In one chapter, Kilrea tells how former NHL coach Don Cherry decided he’d rather burn his squeaky clean Pontiac than sell it to someone who would only make it dirty.
In another, he writes a letter to a judge asking that Lance Galbraith, a teenager drafted by the 67’s, be released into his custody so he could have a second chance after being arrested for stealing cars.
Kilrea, known as “Killer” to his friends and legions of former players, says stories have helped him work with his players throughout his career.
“You can’t beat the same drum every time," he says.
"So you go in and you may just tell a story or something to relieve some tension and put some humour into the dressing room." "Sometimes you just wonder if there’s enough fun in the game,”he adds.
In 2009, he retired from coaching after 31 seasons with the 67’s but he remains the team’s general manager.
Kilrea’s still a natural storyteller, though. The laughter starts almost uncontrollably as he casts his mind back to something from his career, his face turning red and his hands reaching for his eyes.And each tale he tells usually brings another one to mind.
“There’s just one other story just while we were talking,” he’ll say as one story comes to an end and another begins.
They Call Me Killer is published by John Wiley & Sons. $29.95.