The community is mourning the loss of a local sports legend.
The Cobourg and District Sports Hall of Fame announced that Gord Brooks passed away unexpectedly Thursday (Oct 1) at University Hospital in London.
Brooks was inducted into the sports hall of fame in March.
A funeral service is scheduled for Thursday (Oct 8) at 1 p.m., and you can learn more by visiting northviewfuneralchapel.com.
Brooks was 70 years old and leaves behind his wife of 44 years Beth, children and grandchilren.
He is Cobourg’s first National Hockey League player.
He played minor hockey with the Cobourg Church Hockey League, spent the 1967-68 season with Cobourg’s Junior ‘B’ Cougars and played his major Junior ‘A’ years with the Hamilton Red Wings and the London Knights.
At the end of the 1969-70 season, Gord Brooks was drafted 51st overall by the St. Louis Blues, and from 1971 to 1975, Brooks played 70 National Hockey League games with both the St. Louis Blues and the Washington Capitals.
From 1975 to 1980, he played in the North American Hockey League and the American Hockey League, playing for both the Philadelphia Firebirds and Syracuse Firebirds.
In 1977, his team won the Lockhart Cup as American Hockey League champions, in 1978, Brooks won the John B. Sollenberger trophy as the American Hockey League’s scoring champion and was named to the League’s first All-star team.
In 1980, he played part of a season in Klagenfurt, Austria until a knee injury forced him out.
The next year he joined the Saginaw Gears winning an international league championship.
Two years after retiring as a pro, he came back to play Senior hockey for Brantford, winning an Allan Cup.
