Larry Brooks: The New York Post Columnist Who Owned the Rangers Beat for Five Decades

Larry Brooks passed away on November 13, 2025, aged 75, following a brief illness. He was a hockey writer in New York since 1975 when he first worked for the New York Post in a part-time position as a clerk working overnight shifts.

In between, he has been involved in managing communications for a team he had written about, published a Sunday column which hockey executives read before anything else, presided over the writers’ organization, inducted himself into the Hockey Hall of Fame, and engaged in the most well-known debate in hockey media. He did not tone down at any point.

Larry Brooks at a Glance:

Career record and biographical detail in one place.

Full name	Lawrence Mel Brooks
Known as	Brooksie
Date of birth	26 February 1950
Birthplace	New York City, New York, United States
Died	13 November 2025, in New York City, aged 75
Cause of death	Cancer, after a short illness, as announced by the New York Post
Nationality	American
Profession	Hockey journalist and columnist
Primary employer	New York Post, across two separate stints totalling 38 years
Career span	Roughly five decades in hockey, from 1975 to 2025
First job	Part-time clerk on the overnight shift at the New York Post, 1975
First beat assignment	New York Islanders, 1976
Rangers beat	Took it over for the 1978-79 season, when the Rangers reached the Stanley Cup Final
Career break	Left the Post in 1982 for the New Jersey Devils
Devils role	Senior vice president of communications, 1982 to 1992, including colour commentary on radio
Return to the Post	1993, initially covering the Devils
Signature column	Slap Shots, the Sunday league-wide column he launched in 1995
Back on the Rangers	1996, swapping beats with colleague Mark Everson. He stayed on the Rangers thereafter
Industry role	President of the Professional Hockey Writers Association, 2001 to 2003
Major honour	Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award, Hockey Hall of Fame, 2018 class, inducted in Toronto that November
Best-known feud	Long-running public exchanges with Rangers head coach John Tortorella, 2008 to 2013. The two later reconciled
Physical stats	Not publicly documented. He was a journalist, and no verified figures exist
Family	Son Jordan, daughter-in-law Joanna, and grandchildren
Net worth	Not disclosed. No verifiable figure exists

Who Was Larry Brooks:

Mel Brooks Lawrence was born on 26 February 1950 in New York City. He was a New Yorker who covered New York teams for a New York newspaper for his entire professional career. This is a much rarer occurrence in an industry where people tend to be moved around a lot.

Brooks was known across the sport as Brooksie. People who worked with him described him as being tough on the job and surprisingly nice off the job, and an impressive amount of the tributes following his death have come from young journalists he mentored.

How the Career Started:

Brooks began working at the New York Post in 1975 as a temporary clerk who worked the night shift. This is the most unglamorous route into the newspaper business and Brooks made the best of it.

His first reporting assignment took place in 1976 when he covered the New York Islanders. Following that came his turn as the Rangers beat writer in 1978-79. Timing couldn’t have been any better because that was the year the Rangers made it to the Stanley Cup Finals.

The Decade with the Devils:

In 1982 Brooks did something that very few journalists working in newspapers do. He quit the newspaper and went to the other side of the barricade as the senior vice-president of communications for the New Jersey Devils, from which position he worked until 1992. He also provided colour commentary for the team on the radio.

But the most memorable episode of that decade took place in May 1988, in the Conference Finals, after the fight between Devils coach Jim Schoenfeld and referee Don Koharski when Schoenfeld yelled at him and told him to take one more donut. He got suspended from playing in one game. Brooks stood behind the lectern to support him, and the episode grew so serious that the referees themselves protested a game.

That experience of a front-office executive for a whole decade accounts for much of the power of his future reporting. He actually ran the machine that he described in his stories all his life.

Slap Shots and the Return to the Post:

He rejoined the New York Post in 1993 to cover the Devils. In 1995, he started his column “Slap Shots” which covered the whole league instead of a particular team.

It became the thing. That was where he revealed news, expressed complaints, talked about collective bargaining, shared views about the league and said whatever he wanted to say without sugarcoating anything. Rival reporters would talk about getting the Sunday edition of New York Post only for his column before the advent of the internet age.

In 1996, he switched beats with his colleague Mark Everson to cover the Rangers once again. He remained with the Blueshirts until the end of his career, nearly thirty years.

The Tortorella Feud:

From 2008 to 2013, when John Tortorella was the coach for the Rangers, Brooks and Tortorella went through a series of press conference spats that were appointment viewing. Both were antagonistic, neither backed down, and clips of their showdowns made the rounds.

The part worth noting was how it all ended up. The two had patched things up well before Brooks got sick, and Tortorella called him up as he was dying to see how he was doing. Appearing publicly after the death, Tortorella called him an icon and said that what they might have been butting heads about on any given day never spilled into anything else. A more uplifting tale than the clips let on. People who felt strongly about their work and respected each other for it.

Advocacy and the Hall of Fame:

Brooks was the president of the Professional Hockey Writers Association between 2001 and 2003, during which time he spent most of his efforts lobbying for more player and coach access for the media. Gary Bettman, who Brooks lambasted in print often, referred to him after his death as a true champion for players and journalists who covered the sport.

In 2018, Brooks received the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award from the Hockey Hall of Fame, which is granted by the writers association to journalists who have distinguished themselves through their professional and outstanding contributions to journalism and hockey. This induction took place in Toronto in November of that year.

His response to receiving such an award was typical of how unemotional he could be about himself but emotional about everybody else. Brooks was only concerned that his grandchildren will be proud to see his name on a plaque and it is also special for him to be on the list of writers such as Red Fisher, Frank Orr, Fran Rosa, and Michael Farber.

His Death and the Tributes:

Brooks passed away on 13 November 2025 at the age of 75, after falling ill briefly. This news was reported in the New York Post, and it stated that cancer was the cause of death.

The reaction came from the whole world of hockey. Bettman released a statement from the league. Rangers’ owner James Dolan said something that nobody knew about before – that he and Brooks held private meetings where Brooks was giving him an honest opinion about the franchise and what it should do, and none of this ever reached the press. Henrik Lundqvist told about the daily discussions they had about his goaltending and about the team. Both Rangers and Devils released statements about Brooks’ death, and it was rare for the reporter since it showed two periods of his life. His editors at The Post mentioned that Brooks was honored in the Hall of Fame even before his death.

Larry Brooks’ Family:

Brooks is survived by his son Jordan, his daughter-in-law Joanna, and his grandchildren. He mentioned his grandchildren in public while receiving the Elmer Ferguson Award. Apart from that, the family members have maintained a low-profile nature and we have not proceeded beyond public information.

Final Take:

Larry Brooks began as an overnight clerk in 1975 and ended up becoming a Hall of Famer who had the power to convince the owner of the New York Rangers to take his word for advice in private. Larry Brooks has written about the Islanders, communicated for the Devils for ten years, went back to the Post, and became a part of the Rangers for thirty years writing a Sunday column read throughout the league. Larry Brooks did not pull any punches, and according to everyone who has been under his coverage, that was the reason why they trusted him.

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