Helene Elliott is an American
sportswriter for the ''
Los Angeles Times'' who is a general sports columnist. She is the first female
journalist to receive the
Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award in 2005 for bringing "honor to journalism and to hockey". She served as president of the
Professional Hockey Writers' Association from 1999 to 2001.
One of the first women to cover the sport, Elliott began her career in the late 1970s when many
locker rooms and
press boxes were closed to women, except by court order. As such, she often had to wait for hours after games ended to conduct interviews. She has covered almost all major events in
ice hockey, including nearly every
Stanley Cup Final
The Stanley Cup Finals in ice hockey (also known as the Stanley Cup Final among various media, french: Finale de la Coupe Stanley) is the National Hockey League's (NHL) championship series to determine the winner of the Stanley Cup, North America ...
s since , the "
Miracle on Ice
The "Miracle on Ice" was an ice hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. It was played between the hosting United States and the Soviet Union on February 22, 1980, during the medal round of the men's hockey tourna ...
" defeat of the
Soviet Union national team by the U.S. team in the
1980 Winter Olympics
The 1980 Winter Olympics, officially the XIII Olympic Winter Games and also known as Lake Placid 1980, were an international multi-sport event held from February 13 to 24, 1980, in Lake Placid, New York, United States.
Lake Placid was elected ...
, and the growth of hockey on the
West Coast West Coast or west coast may refer to:
Geography Australia
* Western Australia
*Regions of South Australia#Weather forecasting, West Coast of South Australia
* West Coast, Tasmania
**West Coast Range, mountain range in the region
Canada
* Britis ...
fueled by
Wayne Gretzky's arrival to the
Los Angeles Kings.
In 2006, after many years of covering hockey and Olympic sports, she became a general sports columnist.
Elliott is a graduate of
Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
She is married to author Dennis D'Agostino, a former publicist with the
New York Mets and
New York Knicks
The New York Knickerbockers, shortened and more commonly referred to as the New York Knicks, are an American professional basketball team based in the New York City borough of Manhattan. The Knicks compete in the National Basketball Associat ...
.
In 2015 she was inducted into the
Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.
References
American women sportswriters
Elmer Ferguson Award winners
Living people
Sportswriters from California
Year of birth missing (living people)
American women non-fiction writers
21st-century American women
{{US-sportswriter-stub