lit a candle 6h agoMy sister rang me from Chicoutimi to say Jeannot Gilbert had died, she used to watch him with the Nordiques. Never saw him play myself but she's gutted, 85 is still too soon she says.
Their story
Jeannot Gilbert was a Canadian professional ice hockey centre who played nine National Hockey League games for the Boston Bruins and later 133 World Hockey Association games for the Quebec Nordiques, after a long American Hockey League career centred on the Hershey Bears. He died on 2 November 2026 in…
Jeannot Gilbert was a Canadian professional ice hockey centre who played nine National Hockey League games for the Boston Bruins and later 133 World Hockey Association games for the Quebec Nordiques, after a long American Hockey League career centred on the Hershey Bears. He died on 2 November 2026 in La Baie, Quebec, aged 85.
Born on 29 December 1940 in La Baie, Quebec, Gilbert played junior hockey with the Barrie Flyers and Niagara Falls Flyers of the Ontario Hockey Association from 1959 to 1961. He made his professional debut in the 1960-61 season with the Kingston Frontenacs of the Eastern Professional Hockey League, and spent much of 1961-62 with the Clinton Comets of the Eastern Hockey League while still attached to the Kingston organisation. On 14 March 1963 he made his NHL debut for Boston against the Chicago Black Hawks and appeared in five games that season. After a full year with the Minneapolis Bruins of the Central Professional Hockey League in 1963-64, he returned for four more Boston games in 1964-65 while playing most of that campaign with the Providence Reds of the AHL.
In 1965 Gilbert joined the Hershey Bears and spent eight seasons there as a productive minor-league forward, the longest continuous chapter of his career. The Pittsburgh Penguins selected him in the 1967 NHL Expansion Draft, though he never played a regular-season game for Pittsburgh and remained with Hershey. In 1973 he moved home to the Quebec Nordiques of the new World Hockey Association. Over two seasons he appeared in 133 WHA games before retiring in 1975. A left-shooting centre listed at 5 ft 10 in and 175 lb, he bridged the late Original Six era, the AHL grind of the expansion years, and the early Nordiques of the WHA.
He died in his hometown of La Baie on 2 November 2026 at the age of 85. English Wikipedia recorded the death the same week; funeral arrangements were listed through Dignity Memorial in Quebec. The cause of death has not been widely reported in English-language sources. Hockey-Reference, Elite Prospects and NHL.com continue to carry his career record.
Biography adapted from English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0); Wikimedia Commons portrait; Hockey-Reference and NHL.com career listings.
Photos
1Jeannot Gilbert with the Quebec Nordiques, 1973
by People Forever
That's kind of her to think of him still after all these years.