Caps beat reporter of over 25 years passes

[Allsmokenopancake 0]

From Tim Panaccio at the Philly inquirer...

From his blog over at hockeybuzz.

http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=8651

I seem to be writing far, too many obituaries this year ...

Longtime Washington Capitals beat writer Dave Fay died last night in suburban Maryland.

He had battled cancer of the throat and mouth for more years than I care to remember. It robbed him of much of his speech, but never of his spirit or even that classic, Fay "look" that could stop a grizzly.

He had fought to live so hard this summer so he could be present next fall at his induction in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

When told by USA Today's Kevin Allen of his pending induction, Fay sent members of the induction committee an email that said, it was best therapy he had gotten.

It had given him renewed vigor to live just long enough to walk on that stage in Toronto and wear the famed blue jacket of the Hall.

Sadly, he will be inducted posthumously, with his wife, Pat, accepting at the induction on his behalf.

I met Dave Fay in 1982. My newspaper, the Philadelphia Journal (descendant of Le Journal de Montreal), folded in December of 1981. I went to work for the Washington Times as a national, sports general assignment reporter.

Fay was my immediate editor. A really, old-time pro with copy editing skills that matched his reporting sense. Very gruff, very forceful, but one of the sweetest guys outside the office.

When he wasn't editing sports copy, Fay was covering the Caps. When he wasn't covering the Caps, I was, or someone else.

There are some thing you always remember about where you worked in your lifetime. I remember walking out of the Times' old building off New York Ave. on a late Thursday night with Fay.

The entire place was under MAJOR reconstruction. The massive newsroom was going to be turned into this marvelous, state of the art newsroom that would overlook the National Arboretum.

It's design, incidentally would become the "norm" at many newspapers in the U.S. in the years that followed with open spaces, signs pointing to departments, and just vastness everywhere.

The Moonies owned up. They paid to have Italian marble imported from Italy. It was going to be a $10 million newsroom transformation.

"They're claiming it will be done on Monday morning," Fay told me. We took bets that it would not.

We were wrong.

A crew of hundreds _ no exaggeration _ worked round-the-clock through the weekend on 18-hour shifts. I was amazed. So was Fay.

Money talks. Especially, when you are a newspaper in Washington.

I remember something else. The afternoon I took the job at the Times, I stood on the back entrance with Fay and executive sports editor Doug Lamborne. Fay was the guy who convinced me to come to the Times.

I had worked with hard-driving, energetic editors before and Fay was a complete pro.

Evidence: Pat threw a party at their house and there was all kinds of crap going on with the Caps, Bullets, the arena in Landover, and owner Abe Pollin.

Fay was on the phone, alternating between interviewing Pollin, barbequing, and writing a story for the Times. A consummate beat man, Fay knew you were always on the clock, 24 hours a day.

I left the Times in 1983 to cover the USFL for the Houston Chronicle. Fay was deeply disappointed. He took me to a conference room.

"Why would leave? We're sending you to the Olympics?" he asked.

I told him that my goal was to write for the LA Times and if I could get to Houston, I was more than halfway to LA.

"You ever need anything, just call," he said, sticking out his hand.

I would not see Dave again until the late 1980s when I came back to the Inquirer ( I had been hired me out of college in 1975) and did some back-up work on the Flyers.

"In true Fay style he battled till the end," his wife said in an email this morning. "This time even that look could not stop this disease. He fought a good fight, but now he is at rest."

It saddens all of us he won't make the induction but that doesn't change the fact that I am proud to say I worked under Dave Fay, one of the best editors and hockey beat men of his generation

RIP Mr. Fay

[Allsmokenopancake 0]

Nice tribute from Mike Vogel, the capitals senior writer

http://dumpnchase.wordpress.com/2007/07/18...-fay-1940-2007/

[UMWhockey 0]

good read.... a nice insight to what it is like to be a beat writer for an NHL team. This is the eulogy that Jason LaCanfora gave at his funeral as Jason was the writer for the Post which was the competing paper.

http://capitals.nhl.com/team/app/?service=...rticleid=335178

[D-MaN88 0]

Though I've never had the chance to read any of Dave Fay's articles, it sure seems like he was a guy everyone should get the chance to meet and know and befriend in their lifetime. The world of hockey and the world in general obviously need more people like Dave Fay. RIP and what a touching eulogy.