“I will be back.” 

Back in October, when The NY Post announced that their Hall of Fame Rangers beat writer and columnist Larry Brooks would be taking a break to deal with a medical issue, I texted him to check in and see if he was alright. He responded that he would be back. And now, just a few weeks later, that is no longer the case. 

Brooks, 75, passed away on Thursday after a brief battle with Cancer. Even while battling a horrible disease, he still felt he’d be back in action. That was Larry Brooks. The attribute that has been remarked upon by all in their tributes is that, no matter what, Larry was always there. Always present. If a player or coach was mad about something he’d written, Brooks was always present for them to talk to him about it. And he was always present for his fellow writers. 

Larry Brooks was a giant of the industry. A top hockey writer in North America (he did cover other sports, too). Many young writers, myself included, were, at times, nervous about approaching him. But once you got to know him, or, rather, once he got to know you, as Corey Masisak of The Denver Post put it, there was nobody better to talk to. 

If you needed advice on how to handle a particular situation with a player, PR staffer, or coach, Brooks would gladly share his knowledge with you. If you needed to know where to go inside an arena for the first time, he’d show you the way. And if you just wanted to talk sports, especially hockey, he’d gladly talk for hours on the subject. 

I first met Larry Brooks outside of what was then known as The Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, in March 2017. I had started my career as Stan Fischler’s intern in July of 2016, and towards the end of the 2016-17 season, I was given the opportunity to cover the Rangers’ west coast road trip in late March. There was only one problem: I didn’t know my way around the arenas in LA, Anaheim, and San Jose (it was a three-game, four-day road trip). 

So, I was standing outside Staples Center a couple of hours before New York was due to play the Kings and I had no idea where the media entrance was, where to pick up my credentials, or anything. I just knew I needed to go inside. As luck would have it, three media people walked over to a security guard, apparently asking him a question. I quickly and nervously headed over to them, hoping they’d be of some help. I had never met the three of them before, but I instantly recognized Brooks from having seen him on TV in media scrums on the Rangers postgame show. 

I asked the three writers if they knew where I could pick up my credential and where I needed to go once inside the arena. One of the writers quickly deduced I was Stan Fischler’s intern and sarcastically asked me, “Did Stan not tell you where to go?” Before I could retort, Brooks calmly said, “Just follow us,” which I hastily did. There’s no doubt the other two didn’t want me tagging along, but they kept quiet and helped me find my way. 

The last game of the road trip was in San Jose against the Sharks, and the Rangers clinched a playoff berth courtesy of the one point they earned while losing in overtime. In the Rangers’ room after the game, I was interviewing Derek Stepan when Larry walked over, clearly wanting to talk to Stepan one-on-one. I was about to abruptly end my interview when Larry told me to continue. After a couple more moments, we took turns asking Stepan questions before I moved on, and Larry did the rest of his interview without further interference. 

Plenty of other veteran writers would have handled that situation differently and not shown any respect to the rookie intern, but Larry wasn’t like that. 

A few years later, when I was writing my third book, Larry and I went to lunch at a diner in Westchester that he’d selected so that I could interview him about his time covering the Islanders. We talked for a couple of hours about his days covering those legendary Isles teams. He told me about how he and Pat Calabria (Newsday’s young Islanders writer) would often go for drinks with the players after games and how they would double and triple date with the players and their girlfriends/wives. His tales could have been their own book, and there’s no doubt it would have been a best-seller. 

You could always tell that Larry loved what he did, and when you got to know him, you would see his fun-loving side come through. 

The stories go on and on, as evidenced by those shared across social media and in the many, many tributes that have been penned since Thursday. There are not enough words and space in a column to cover them all. So I’ll leave you with this. Larry Brooks was not just a Hall of Fame writer, but also a Hall of Fame person, and somewhere up above, he’s enjoying talking sports and covering the games being played in the rink above the sky.