- Rod Gilbert died Aug. 19, 2021, five years ago Wednesday
- Judy Gilbert on the Ground Zero visit her husband never told her about
- Read below for the locket he left behind and video of the Mr. Ranger tribute
Rod Gilbert has been gone five years as of Wednesday.
Judy Gilbert still lives in the Upper East Side apartment she shared with the New York Rangers legend. She talked with Dave Stubbs of NHL.com this week about what surfaces first when she thinks about her husband, and it has nothing to do with the 406 goals.
“I’d say the first thing that comes to mind is Rod’s kindness,” she said. “Beyond kind. If there’s another word, I don’t have it.”
Gilbert played all 1,065 of his regular-season games for one team from 1961 to 1977. His 406 goals and 1,021 points remain Rangers franchise records, and his 615 assists trail only Brian Leetch.
He worked right wing on the GAG Line next to Jean Ratelle and Vic Hadfield, suited up for Canada in the 1972 Summit Series, and did all of it after two back-fusion surgeries.
His No. 7 went to the Madison Square Garden rafters on Oct. 14, 1979, the first number the franchise ever retired. The Hall of Fame took him in 1984.
New York remembers him for the other stuff.
Gilbert pulled on a hard hat after 9/11 and went down to Ground Zero to sit with first responders. He also visited the temporary morgue set up near the site, and he never mentioned it at home. Judy found out years later at dinner with a group of NYPD detectives, one of whom told her that Rod was the only celebrity who showed up there.
“He didn’t tell me half the things he did,” she said.
During the pandemic he stood on his 33rd-floor balcony every night at 7, blasting Frank Sinatra through a speaker and hammering his No. 7 Sher-Wood against the railing for the people keeping the city running.
Take a look at MSG Networks breaking down why the nickname stuck to him:
Gary Bettman spoke for the league that night with a statement on Gilbert’s death:
The Rangers built the Mr. Ranger Award around that side of him in 2021-22, handing it to the player who does the most for his community. Chris Kreider got the first one from Judy at the Garden in April 2022.
Franchise history has been in heavy rotation this week, with Adam Fox’s grandfather Mel turning 100 and asking for one more Cup.
Judy will wear a sterling silver locket on Wednesday. Gilbert had his stepdaughter buy it and hide it while he was sick, and in his final days in hospice, a priest from the Church of St. Monica rode 33 floors up to bless it so Rod could hand it over himself.
Inside were two photos he picked out, one from their 1991 wedding day and one of himself smiling. Four days later he was gone.
