‘Beautifully understated’ past Province writer Jim Jamieson dies at 75

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In the halcyon days of the Vancouver Province’s coverage of the Vancouver Canucks in the 90s and 2000s, there was an A-team of writers: The zooty and humorous Jason Botchford, an eternally adversarial Tony Gallagher, Ed Willes, full of fire, ire and eloquence, as well as the encyclopedic Ben Kuzma and prose-full Gord McIntyre.

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And then there was Jim Jamieson. A veteran from the 80s junior only to Gallagher, his Rolodex (that’s a contact list, for those of you under 40) was as deep as his hockey knowledge. Where others relied on bombast, he was quietly social, understated, witty, and rarely injected opinion into his story. He let people, facts and stats tell their own tales.

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Born in New Westminster, Jamieson died on Tuesday at the age of 75, a week after a training accident while cycling on the North Shore.

“Jim was a true professional,” said Jonathan McDonald, his former sports editor at The Province.

“In a department with ‘bigger’ names writing about the Canucks … Jim was my workhorse. He cared about the stories he wrote and he often wrote the meat-and-potato stories that others were reluctant to do. It was a glamour beat and Jim had pretty much zero ego. I loved working with him.”

Jamieson retired from The Province in 2015, after a 30-year career in journalism. Post-retirement, cycling had become his passion. Jamieson had been in training for the Whistler GranFondo, which he’d completed several times, along with the Penticton GranFondo and Tour de Victoria — which he’d planned to ride 140 kilometres in this Saturday.

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He is survived by his wife of 38 years, Nancy Herring, daughter Hannah Jamieson, and son Joe Johnston.

“He loved being in the paper. He was very passionate about like sports and hockey, and he really always wanted to be like the unbiased journalist,” said Hannah. “He was always very clear that even if he had an opinion, that never made its way into any of his reporting.

“He used to get in trouble, my mom would get mad. He’d bring his laptop if we went on vacation, and he’d sneak off and try and read what was happening with the Canucks or keep up even if he wasn’t working. He liked to be very in the loop.”

“That would probably cause some of our grief together, when all of a sudden he was sneaking off,” Nancy added, laughing. “He was trying to find Wi-Fi so that he could check on things.”

READ NOW: The best of Jim Jamieson: Covering the Canucks’ 1994 Game 7 Stanley Cup Final heartbreak

He spent time in the long-ago defunct Province business section, but the bulk of his time was spent in the sports section, covering Canucks and features. The highlights included the Canucks’ runs to the Stanley Cup — he still had a puck from Game 7 at Madison Square Garden — and the 2010 Olympic Games.

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He was an avid outdoorsman, enjoyed hiking with his former newspaper colleagues in their “Wolfpack,” which conquered several of the North Shore mountains. But cycling was his biggest passion, with this year “the peak year of his retirement,” said Nancy.

On a recent vacation that included a stop on Vancouver Island, Jamieson powered up on a long, 18 per cent grade his bike. “He was so proud of himself, because it was the rest of us that had e-bikes,” Nancy said with a laugh. “He was the only one without.”

A celebration of life is planned, but final details and dates have yet to be worked out. Anyone interested in attending can email jadams@postmedia.com.

Tributes from his former colleagues poured in on Wednesday, after news began to circulate through the sports community:

Tony Gallagher was a 15-year vet of The Province before Jamieson joined the paper. They worked together for decades, but it was one Okanagan autumn in Penticton, covering the fledgling Young Stars Classic featuring the Canucks, Jets, Oilers and Flames, when they truly bonded with each other. 

I have one golden memory of Jim, and it involves Jase (Jason Botchford) as well. Back in the golden years of The Province … when the Oilers and the Jets and the Flames and the Canucks all sent their prospects to Penticton. For whatever reason, in the golden years of The Province, we sent three people up there, if you can believe it. 

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Jase found us a place very, very high in Naramata for the three of us to stay for a week. We were there eight or nine days, and we all ate together almost every night. Jase, he insisted on cooking — he prided himself on it. We’d get back (to the house) about 6:30, go out on the deck … it was a beautiful fall. We had some beautiful evenings, we just sat out there and chatted, got to know each other. It was the first time I’d ever had Jim, getting to know him. I’d been to parties with him before and things like that, various outings. Lots of times we would travel. 

But it was such a great memory. He was just a wonderful, wonderful, down-to-earth guy. Very successful in just about everything he touched. He was very understated. I thought, if more reporters were like him, the world would be a better place. Very little editorial, just the facts. I thought in order to form a lead and function of the story, you need to inject slight opinion. But he could.

He was understated, never the life of the party, but just always wonderful company. He always had interesting stories. He’s not afraid to ask questions. He’d come up and ask me stuff all the time, and I would end up asking him a lot of stuff. A marvellous fellow. I mean, just everything about him was beautifully understated.

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Elliott Pap was a sports reporter at the Vancouver Sun during the same time Jamieson worked at The Province, and became close friends with Jamieson — and rivals. 

“Jim and I were born about four months apart — he was the older one — and his daughter Hannah and my son Graham were born two weeks apart. So we found we had a lot in common when we were travelling on the Canucks beat in the 1990s.

The Sun (me) and Province (him) were spirited rivals back then so we always tried to hide our scoops from one another even though we’d meet for a cordial dinner after filing our stories. We’d also share a cab back to the hotel after filing on a game night.

In the pre-internet days, you would have to phone the newsroom in Vancouver to find out what the other guy had written. I always respected Jim’s diligence as a reporter so it was a bit nerve-racking making that call and asking: “What did he have? Did he have anything I didn’t have?”

We both retired in 2015 and, from time to time, we’d meet up for lunch to talk about our kids, our pensions, the Canucks and whatever else was going on. 

Our last lunch was in late April when we met at Cafe Zen on Yew Street near Kits Beach. We always had to sit near the window where he could keep an eye on his bike at all times even though it was safely locked up. A bike was never treated better than a Jim Jamieson bike.

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Jim was also a skilled carpenter while I am pretty hopeless around power tools. I admired his ability to fix things. He once invited me to his house in North Van to watch him rebuild his back deck, perhaps thinking I might learn something. I appreciated his kindness but still shy away from power tools to this day. Jim and I were planning another lunch for Aug. 4th and were texting about it on the second. Sadly, he had his medical incident on the third. 

“Jim was a nice man, dedicated to his family. We will all miss him.”

Frank Luba, former Province writer and member of the hiking ‘Wolfpack.’

My friendship with Jim extends beyond our decades together at The Province.

I was enticed in 1980 to B.C. from Winnipeg to join the late, lamented Columbian — the Lower Mainland’s suburban daily. Jim worked there part-time in the sports department, and although he was a little older than me and not as invested in the newspaper gig as me, it became clear to me that he knew the score.

After the Columbian folded in 1984 and I made my way to The Province, Jim wasn’t far behind. In fact, I think he was actually ahead of me because he became a great beat writer. The attention to detail he had in his personal life was something he brought to whatever beat or assignment he was given.

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When he made a move to the business department, he revealed that same attention to detail and suddenly he was sending stories back from the huge CES show highlighting consumer electronics. That’s not a hockey, it’s a whole different game — which Jim handled superbly.

After retirement, we formed a little hiking group in which Jim participated to swap lies and climb the occasional mountain. He was too kind to mention it, but we were too slow for him. Too much gabbing, maybe.

Road cycling became his passion and he was training for another Gran Fondo when he was taken from us.

I will miss him.

Gord McIntyre, former Vancouver Province sports writer

Jim was one of the hardest-working and meticulous journalists I ever met. I edited his copy for a couple of years and I don’t recall ever once having to correct a mistake.

I followed him on the Canucks beat and not only did I learn a lot about covering the team from him, just being his associate opened a lot of doors for me.

He was an avid cyclist, was in great shape. It was a shock to hear the tragic news.

Carolyn Soltau, Pacific Newspaper Group archivist

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After Kent Spencer’s (former Province writer) funeral in 2017, a group of us went to The Raven afterwards to raise a glass to his memory. That was the first opportunity I had to chat with Jim one on one socially. 

Jim talked to me about the inside world of sports journalism. He said in order to get the real scoop, find the story under the story, to take the temperature of the room and the crowd, you have to be where the event is happening — you can’t get those leads and insight sitting at your desk.

He was realistic about the financial constraints in journalism today. His conversation was not an indictment of modern journalism;, he respected the challenges. But he said you would be surprised how much you learn when you travel to a place, and just go the bar like we are right now. He said ‘I would sit at the bar and start chatting to the person next to me or the bartender and suddenly you get tips, pointed in a new direction, you find the hidden story. It is like a form of social recon.’ And he also talked about how you get the feeling of the city/town and the local atmosphere and that becomes an important ingredient of the story too. 

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That’s a conversation that always stayed with me. As a news librarian, I am “journalism-adjacent” so it was fascinating to hear Jim talk about the craft.

Patrick Johnston, current Vancouver Province columnist and Canucks writer. 

From the moment I arrived at The Province in 2013, Jim Jamieson was somewhat of a mentor to me. His desk was across from mine; he back on the Canucks beat, me a rookie web editor. He was a focused and determined sports writer. I quickly learned from him how vital a lifetime of contacts can be: one of the first stories I watched him assemble found him getting Igor Larionov on the phone just like that. 

That’s how Jim was: he was never flashy, no fuss. Just the story.

We only worked together for two years, but in retirement he and I kept in touch. Usually a phone call every few months, sometimes a coffee, which he generally scheduled around some long bike ride. 

The last time we spoke was in the spring, after the Canucks had rashly banned a reporter from their press box. Like every other reporter I spoke to about that moment, young and old, he was stunned. Our job was to tell the story of what had happened, whether it made the reported-on uncomfortable or not. 

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Like many reporters of his era, Jim had more than a few tales of catching grief from Pat Quinn, the Canucks’ legendary super boss who both appreciated and pushed back on the media. 

But above all else Jim was well-respected by those he covered over the years. He was a big help in the background of my book on Gino Odjick, and when I’d mention to old teammates I’d spoken with Jim, invariably they were pleased to hear it.

I’m just so heartbroken to learn that Jim’s life has been cut short so soon, especially that it happened while he was doing something he truly loved. I’m so sad for his family, of whom he spoke with such love and fondness, especially once I’d started a family of my own. 

I’ll miss our chats, about quizzing him on the depths of Canucks history, about his advice on reporting a story.

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