Sports columnist Kent 'Cookie' Gilchrist passes at 72

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Sports columnist Kent 'Cookie' Gilchrist passes at 72

Postby radiofan » Sat Jul 17, 2021 8:39 am

Obituary: Former sports columnist Kent 'Cookie' Gilchrist 'spoke to the regular fan'
Longtime sports reporter and columnist Kent 'Cookie' Gilchrist has passed away at 72


Author of the article:Patrick Johnston
Publishing date:Jul 15, 2021


Kent ‘Cookie’ Gilchrist, who covered sports for The Province for 37 years, has died.

He was 72.

According to his longtime friend — and friendly rival columnist at The Vancouver Sun — Mike Beamish, Gilchrist died of cardiac arrest on Wednesday night. He’d been dealing with a respiratory illness since the winter and had suffered a heart attack last month. He’d also battled a collapsed lung and throat cancer in recent years.

Originally from Souris, Man., his family moved to Brandon, Man. in his teens. He was boyhood friends with former Los Angeles Kings and St. Louis Blues head coach Andy Murray and former Everett Silvertips general manager Garry Davidson.

Gilchrist worked at the Brandon Sun and Regina Leader-Post before he moved west in 1973 from the Winnipeg Free Press for a short stint at The Vancouver Sun before moving across the hall at the old Pacific Press building on Granville Street to join The Province in 1974 when an opening came up to cover the B.C. Lions.

“Dave Watters was covering the team for the Sun. As Cookie told it, Dave was such a great football writer that no one from The Province wanted the Lions beat because they didn’t want to have to go up against him,” Beamish recalled on Thursday.

Over the following three-plus decades, Gilchrist covered all manner of sports, but was best known for his coverage of football, curling and golf. He was also avid follower of horse racing.

He was a columnist for The Province for many years before retiring in 2010.

Gilchrist was inducted in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2005, the B.C. Football Hall of Fame in 2017 and was awarded Northwest Golf Media Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 2015.

Current Sun and Province sports reporter Steve Ewen said Gilchrist was a mentor to him from almost the first day he started at The Province in 1994.

Read the full story at: https://theprovince.com/sports/kent-coo ... egular-fan
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