Helene Elliott: “Gretzky was like no one we had seen before.”

Press Box Access: A Sports History Podcast

We’re paying a special salute to Helene Elliott by once again publishing my conversation with her in an episode from February 2022. She recently accepted a buyout and ended her stellar 34-plus years at the Los Angeles Times, where she was a sports columnist for the last half of her tenure. Elliott became the first female journalist to be honored by the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport in North America when the Hockey Hall of Fame recognized her in 2005 as winner of the esteemed Elmer Ferguson award. Helene earned widespread respect from her peers and those she covered while also helping to pave the way for other women in sports media during her 47-year career.

In this episode, Elliott recounts how Wayne Gretzky set 61 NHL records and triggered a hockey boom in Southern California as an ambassador for that sport. She also has a funny tale about the Great One’s fear of flying. Elliott tells us why the Stanley Cup is the most difficult trophy to win in sports, how great players rise to the occasion like Mark Messier did for the ’94 Rangers, and what it was like to cover the “Miracle on Ice” at the 1980 Olympics. And we hear how Helene overcame barriers faced by female sportswriters to become a Hall of Famer. Oh, and she has a story about Lenny and Squiggy from the old “Laverne & Shirley” TV show.

Elliott began writing for Los Angeles Times in 1989. She was a beat reporter for the Lakers and Angels, then spent many years covering hockey and Olympic sports before becoming a columnist in 2006. Helene has covered 17 Olympics, the Super Bowl, World Series, NBA Finals, Wimbledon, men’s and women’s World Cup soccer tournaments, and nearly every Stanley Cup Finals since 1980. She won the Best Breaking News Story award from the Associated Press Sports Editors for her story on the labor agreement that ended the NHL lockout in 2005. Her career began at the Chicago Sun-Times in 1977. She moved to New York City in 1979 and wrote for Newsday for the next 10 years before going to the West Coast. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., Elliott is a 1977 graduate of the Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, which inducted her into the Medill Hall of Achievement in 2020.

Follow Elliott on Twitter: @helenenothelen

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