Brian Burke

Born in Providence, Rhode Island on June 30, 1955, Brian Burke moved to Minnesota at a young age and took up ice hockey.

He earned his Bachelor of Arts in History from Providence College in 1977, while playing ice hockey and as team captain of the NCAA PU Friars.

He then took a hiatus from his studies and signed a professional ice hockey contract with the Philadelphia Flyers prior to the 1977-78 season. He was assigned to their farm team where, in the 1977-1978 season, he won a Calder Cup Championship with the now defunct Maine Mariners.

But Burke quit professional hockey and accepted a place in the prestigious Harvard law School, graduating in 1979 with the traditional American law school degree, a J.D. (the equivalent to N LL.B.), adding an MBA in 1981.

Brian Burke then practiced law in Boston for the next six years, as a hockey player agent representing professional hockey players until joining the Canucks in 1987

In 1987, he joined his fiend and fellow-lawyer Pat Quinn on the staff of the Vancouver Canucks as an executive. In 1992, he became the General Manager of the Hartford Whalers but after a year, joined the head office of the National Hockey League as Vice-President in charge of player discipline.

In 1998, he moved to Canada's West coast as General Manager of the Vancouver Canucks but in 2004, his contract was not renewed. After a year in broadcaster purgatory (TSN), he was appointed General Manager of the Anaheim Ducks, leading the franchise to a Stanley Cup in 2007.

In 2008, he was appointed the general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

REFERENCES:

• Brian Burke statistics, The Hockey Database
• Duhaime, Lloyd, Celebrity Lawyers
• Duhaime, Lloyd, LawFun
• Duhaime, Lloyd, LawMuseum
• Duhaime, Lloyd, The Law's Hall of Fame
• Duhaime, Lloyd, The Law's Hall of Shame