PHILADELPHIA – When it came to finding the story behind the story, the late, great Philadelphia hockey journalist Jay Greenberg had no peers.
The western Pennsylvania native and University of Missouri graduate, who passed away some three years ago, followed the Flyers for decades and his coverage was the first place fans went to the morning after games.
Prior to Saturday’s Flyers-Boston Bruins game, the new Jay Greenberg Press Row was dedicated at the Wells Fargo Center.
It’s a fitting tribute to a reporter who was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2013.
Another Hall of Famer, former Flyers defensive great Mark Howe, collaborated on a book (“Gordie Howe’s son: A Hall of Fame Life in the Shadow of Mr. Hockey”) a number of years ago. This is where Howe found out first-hand how profound a writer Greenberg was.
“For me, the easiest experience came from writing the book,” Howe said after the ceremony. “Jay approached me for at least two years. I kept turning him down. He said ‘how about if we dedicate a few chapters to your parents?’
“I said, ‘OK, that I will go for.’ We ended up writing the book and where Jay was flat-out phenomenal was he wrote me a sample chapter to read. He being a decorated writer and me being a high school dropout, I didn’t answer him for about a day and a half.”
That’s when the friendship/relationship really began.
“He called me and said, ‘what’s wrong?’ I said, ‘it didn’t sound like me.’ He said you write something. So I wrote him about three paragraphs, same subject, but through my eyes.”
Greenberg took it from there.
“He wrote another sample chapter and sent it to me the next day,” Howe recalled. “And he nailed it, a hundred percent.
“For him to grasp that so quickly, it was incredible. The transition took all of about 15 seconds and that’s his special gift: To tell a story through someone else’s eyes. That was his gift.”
Most of Greenberg’s extended family was in attendance and took part in the unveiling of a photo display at the main entrance to the Gene Hart Memorial Press Box.
“In that second writing, Jay grasped who I was in an instant,” Howe said. “To me, that’s a special gift. And I’m sure he was able to do that in everything he did.
“I lived it, I experienced it. I was extremely impressed by it.”
