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Brian Burke makes first public comments since death of his son a week ago

By Helene Elliott
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Brian Burke, general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the U.S. men’s Olympic hockey team, spoke to reporters Friday for the first time since his son, Brendan, and another young man died in a car crash on a snowy road in Indiana last Friday.

Burke had planned to participate in the Olympic Opening Ceremony on Friday in Vancouver but instead joined the Maple Leafs for their game in St. Louis. He will travel to Vancouver on Saturday.

Brendan Burke, 21, and Mark Reedy, 18, were buried on Tuesday.

-- Helene Elliott

Sports Now
Helene Elliott

Helene Elliott was with the Los Angeles Times’ Sports department from 1989 to 2024, first as a staff writer and then, starting in 2006, as a columnist. She became the first female journalist to be honored with a plaque in the Hall of Fame of a major professional sport as the 2005 winner of the Hockey Hall of Fame’s Elmer Ferguson Award, awarded to writers “who have brought honor to journalism and to hockey.” A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., and graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, she has covered 18 Olympics.

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