Prominent hockey supporter dies at 73

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This article was published 23/03/2011 (5322 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Dr. Gerry Wilson, the man said to be most responsible for pioneering the arrival of European hockey players to North America, died Tuesday In Winnipeg.

He was 73.

Wilson is credited with recruiting the storied Swedish imports Anders Hedberg and Ulf Nilsson to the World Hockey Association Winnipeg Jets.

He was also patriarch of a family that would produce three generations of National Hockey League centres.

Wilson, who would be team doctor to both the Jets and the Canadian Football League Winnipeg Blue Bombers, was born in Edmonton, but moved to Winnipeg when he was 10. By 14 he had been spotted as a prospect by the Montreal Canadiens.

At six-foot-two and 210 pounds the big blond forward was a behemoth of his hockey era.

But hobbled by recurrent shoulder and knee injuries even as a junior, his National Hockey League career would be limited to only three games with the 1956-57 Stanley Cup champion Canadiens. Years later, he would proudly watch as one of his four sons, Carey Wilson, would carve out a 10-year career in the NHL, and see his grandson, Colin Wilson be drafted in the first round and play for the NHL Nashville Predators.

But even by the fall of 1959 — his NHL dream over — Wilson was on his way to turning his painful experience with sports injuries and repeated surgeries into a different career. The then 22-year-old had already taken a year of pre-med studies at the University of Manitoba when he enrolled for a second-year at the University of North Dakota, which also made him their freshman hockey coach.

Wilson would go on to specialize in orthopaedics and become not only team doctor to the WHA Jets, but a club vice-president.

“Hockey was still always his passion,” said his youngest boy, Greg, who would follow his father’s other career path and become a physician.

It was while doing post-graduate research in Sweden that Wilson met Hedberg, whom the speedy Swede would later credit with being “the main reason”, that he turned down a more lucrative offer from the Toronto Maple Leafs, and joined Nilsson and fellow Swedish star Lars-Erik Sjoberg with Winnipeg in 1974.

“Gerry, at first, did not appear too interested in our hockey.” Hedberg said at the time. “After seeing a few games,” Hedberg added, “he began to show an interest. He then became very interested.”

The combination of Hedberg, Nilsson and Bobby Hull would go on to be the most dominant line on the WHA’s most dominant team of the late 1970s.

Funeral arrangements have not been announced.