Brian Smith (ice hockey)

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For other people with this name, see Brian Smith.

Brian Smith

Brian Smith (September 6, 1940-August 2, 1995) was a Canadian athlete and sportscaster.

Smith was born in Ottawa, Ontario. He was the brother of former professional hockey goaltender Gary Smith.

Smith was a professional hockey player from 1960 to 1973. He began his career in the EPHL, and then played in the AHL from 1964 to 1967. The following season, he played for the Los Angeles Kings in the National Hockey League. In the following season, he played for the Phoenix Roadrunners of the Western Hockey League and the Memphis South Stars of the CHL. He then returned to the NHL with the Minnesota North Stars in 1968-69, and finished his career with the WHA Houston Aeros.

In 1973, Smith joined Ottawa television station CJOH as the station's 6 p.m. sports anchor, a position he held until his death.

On August 1, 1995, Smith was shot in CJOH's parking lot, just minutes after the end of the station's 6 p.m. newscast. He died about 18 hours later, just shy of his 55th birthday, on August 2 in an Ottawa hospital. The gunman, Jeffrey Arenburg, was an escaped mental patient who had gone to CJOH because he thought the station was broadcasting messages in his head. Smith was not the intended target, but was the first broadcast personality that Arenburg saw and recognized coming out of the building.

The incident led to renewed controversy in Canada regarding the existing gun control legislation.^{[citation needed]}

Smith's widow, Ottawa Citizen journalist Alana Kainz, established a scholarship fund in Smith's memory. She later married Canadian software magnate Michael Potter, the CEO of Cognos, in 1999. They divorced in 2001.