Gino Odjick NHL player died at 52
Gino #Gino
In the end, maybe Gino Odjick’s heart was just too big.
The Vancouver Canucks great died Sunday at 52 of a heart attack.
His longtime friend Peter Leech was with him at the end.
Leech had taken Odjick to a Vancouver medical clinic on Sunday to have bandages on his legs replaced, but there were no signs of any heart distress until the last minute.
“I was there for the whole thing,” he told Postmedia over the phone. “He had a heart attack, couldn’t recover from it. We knew this day was going to come, we didn’t know when. We were hoping much later.”
Leech said that Odjick collapsed moments after being called in for his appointment. The nurses at the clinic moved immediately to treat him, and were joined by firefighters and paramedics in short order.
“He collapsed in the clinic, thank god the nurses were there. They worked on him for 45 minutes,” Leech said. “It was tough to watch.”
“I’ve had a few good cries already. I think it will probably hit me some time later.”
Odjick developed a heart condition in 2014 called amyloidosis, a rare condition that produces protein deposits in the heart. The initial bout nearly killed him.
But Odjick fought back with the help of some first-class medical care.
He had two further bouts with the disease, most recently last year, which required him to go through chemotherapy. It led to him gaining weight and retaining water. He developed an infection in his leg, which required bandages as part of his treatment.
“I watched him go through his heart stuff before, three times before and he came through.”
Leech said Odjick’s heart was what always stood out about him.
“That’s what he had. Unfortunately that big heart gave out,” he said. “He lived life, we always joked.”
“He asked me the other day, how we started talking about this I don’t know, if he passed would his stomach go down. He was worried his stomach would show.”
But Leech said that death wasn’t something Odjick thought much about.
“I didn’t expect this at all. I don’t think he did either,” he said.
Odjick’s parents, Joe and Marie-Antoinette, predeceased him. He leaves eight children and five sisters.
On the ice, Odjick was known as one of the toughest players in the NHL, always ready to drop the gloves and stick up for his teammates.
His mentality was born from his family’s Indigenous heritage, he told Postmedia in 2022 before his induction into the B.C. Sports Hall of Fame.
“ My father was a residential school survivor . He taught us to stick together,” Odjick.
Odjick was raised in Kitigan Zibi, a small reserve next to the town of Maniwaki, Que., a few hours north of Ottawa.
His parents took in foster kids and often had other visitors staying over. The home was open to all.
And hockey was a thing to do, not a passion initially.
But future Stanley Cup-winning coach Bob Hartley, then coaching a nearby Junior A team, spotted Odjick playing in a local league and recruited him to join his team. The Laval Titan, of the Quebec major-junior league, scooped him up next.
Coach Paulin Bordeleau taught him the finer points of the game there, too.
His aggressive play and goal-scoring talents drew the eyes of NHL scouts and the Canucks drafted him in the summer of 1990.
Odjick burst into Canucks lore in November 1990, fighting two Blackhawks in his first NHL game.
“ I was just ready to do my job. I was ready to make a big hit or get in a fight. I just wanted to win,” he said of his playing career.
He played professional hockey until 2002. He once said he read up to 150 books a season.
Odjick was a far better player than many realized. He was known as a goon, but he could hold his own.
When Pavel Bure joined the Canucks in 1991, Odjick became the Russian’s first friend. They were both outsiders, Odjick said, so the pairing made sense.
Odjick’s life wasn’t always easy. He battled with alcohol addiction in his youth. His weight became a struggle as he battled his heart condition.
He had many relationships with many women, producing a number of children.
But everyone who knew him said he was a special character, a man who cared and loved everyone he came in contact with.
As a player Odjick’s best goal-scoring season came in 1993-94, when he spent much of the regular season playing on Bure’s line. He scored 16 goals that year.
“He was a smart player. People don’t give him credit, he had excellent hockey IQ,” former Canucks assistant coach Mike Murphy told Postmedia last year.
Canucks vice-president Stan Smyl was in his final season as a player when Odjick made his debut and skated on his line in that first game.
“He was a friend to me and to you and to all his fans there in B.C. and throughout North America. He was a very special individual on the ice with what he had to do, but off the ice he was one of the most kindest human beings that I’ve met and played with,” Smyl said Sunday.
“The role that he was as a player is one of the hardest roles to play in hockey. And he handled it very well. It’s a role that you, as a player, know what when you have to be, the tough guy and support your teammates. And he was always there for that,” Smyl added. “And he also knew if, when things weren’t going right on the ice or the team wasn’t playing quite up to their calibre that he can go out and stir it up and get the players excited, to get them involved in game and I guess the best way of saying it, he could bring the team into a fight just by being Gino.”
Smyl played 13 years in the NHL and called Odjick one of the greatest teammates he ever had. After retiring, Smyl served as an assistant coach for the Canucks and knew Odjick in that capacity as well.
“He was one of the funniest guys off the ice. He was always joking, always having a laugh in the dressing room. And that’s important to have,” Smyl said. “If there was some pressure situations, Gino knew when to be able to make everyone laugh and ‘let’s be calm about this. We’ll get it done.’”
pjohnston@postmedia.com
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