Brian Burke’s Hall of Fame impact goes beyond his time as GM
The Hockey Hall of Fame’s class of 2026 was announced on Monday, and longtime NHL executive Brian Burke is among the inductees in the Builder category.
Burke held critical roles in several separate NHL front offices, most notably those of the Vancouver Canucks and Toronto Maple Leafs, but he will be remembered for far more than being the GM who united the Sedin twins in Vancouver or brought Phil Kessel to Toronto.
On Tuesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by host of The Sheet Jeff Marek to discuss the myriad ways Burke made an impact on the sport.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Why don’t we go back to the Hall of Fame thing? Because your boy, Burkie, gets the call to the Hall. I mean, the definition of a hockey lifer, right?
Jeff Marek: 100%, and the definition of a builder too. One of the things, and maybe, honestly, Tyler… you get to a certain age and you realize, okay, who’s left this place better? Who’s just taken and who’s given back? And who’s left the environment, the sport, the leagues, whatever, who’s left them better? Because to me, that’s the definition of what a builder is. And whether it is the NHL, whether it is the Department of Player Safety, let’s not forget, he was one of Gary Betmann’s first assistants. I mean, he ran shotgun. He left Hartford to go work for the league and help grow this sport going from a place where it was kind of like, I don’t want to say like a mom-and-pop shop, but it was a multi-million dollar industry. Now it’s a multi-billion dollar industry. He helped, as Burke would say, ‘I helped shovel out the barn before we could show the horse.’ That’s kind of what Brian Burke did in the NHL, to say nothing of all of his efforts with LGBTQ+, with the women’s hockey league. Brian was always famously about saying things like, ‘Listen, it’s one thing to say you support women’s hockey, put your money where your mouth is, go buy a ticket or even better, go buy season tickets.’ He was always that guy. He always had season tickets for professional women’s hockey as well. He was always a big supporter. And if you look at his background, and again, even if you just like erase everything they did in the NHL, he still made capital-H Hockey a better place overall. Like as Brian now goes into the Hockey Hall of Fame… he will never say that as well, like ‘I improved this, I did that,’ but he was part of all of these improvements in the world of hockey. Like one of the reasons why we’re at the place where we’re at right now is because of Brian Burke. And did you know he made the Sedin trade? I don’t know. He doesn’t like to talk about that very often. Brian doesn’t mention that, doesn’t really mention that, doesn’t want to go out of his way to mention that around this time of year, but he pulled off, you know, maybe the most, the most memorable trade this side of Eric Lindros… So congratulations to Patrick, by the way. His son is going to be on the show today. Brian Burke, he joins me on Wednesday. So looking forward to a little Burke victory lap today.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…