Hugh Riopelle: He was the real deal

 

It was that smile that got me every time.

When Hugh Riopelle entered a room, whether it was after a golf game, or at a party at the National Press Club of Canada, you couldn't help but notice the giant beaming smile. Where ever he was, you knew Hugh Riopelle was always happy to be there.

He wasn't a big man for a former professional hockey player but he was wiry, nimble, graceful. He had a laugh that could be heard across the room, a big belly laugh with a lilt to it. (Usually with an 'ah ha' to end it.) I never got tired of seeing him work a room, or get up on stage with the National Press and Allied Workers Band to sing one of his favorites, like Alexander's Ragtime Band. 

So I was delighted to see him just a few years ago, still lighting up the stage at the Royal Oak in Kanata, at the age of 90, along with his old NPC band pals. There weren't many of them left but they were startlingly energetic, and still entertaining. After his set, he greeted me with a hug, and we sat at the bar for a little chat. Longtime journalist Mike Duffy came by. The enigmatic horn player Viggo Kanstrup was there wandering around. So was Othmar Stein, the former VP of Daimler Chrysler. 

Just for a brief moment, it felt like the old days, taking me back in time to when I was a young staffer at the Ottawa Journal where I was first introduced to "Rip," as he was called. I needed to get a response from Air Canada about a strike of the airline's machinist union. 

"Get Rip," said grumpy old city desker Jake McLaine. "Here's his home number."

He wasn't there. 

"Call the press club," Jake barked. "If he's not there, try the golf club."

He wasn't any of those places but he did call me back in the middle of the night with a crisp no comment, as I recall. Still, it was a comment. Rip saved my butt, as he did any time I needed to write about Air Canada where he worked in government and public relations. 

First rule of a good p.r. Get back. Give them something. There's always a deadline.

I got to know Hughie a few years later when he invited me and a ragtag group of freelance journalists to join him on Air Canada's inaugural flight to Geneva. We met at the press club, then took our act to the Air Canada lounge, then spent a whirlwind three days exploring Geneva and Interlaken. There was a pub crawl, a ride up the Jungfrau in a rickety cable car, dinners and pastries, and a tour of a winery.

It is was on this trip that I met the gregarious cartoonist Ben Wicks who kept us all in stitches for days.

How do they do this? I asked myself. I was 25 and could hardly keep up with the rest of the crew each of whom had twenty years on me, at least.

He kept us all in line, and on time, much to the delight of the crabby tourism people of Switzerland who could have taken a few lessons on grace under pressure from old Hughie. 

Hugh Riopelle was a gentleman, and a pro at everything he did. He was a devoted husband to Marie, and a great dad. He was fun, He was lively. He was the real deal.

He would do anything for anybody, and often saved the bacon of harried travelers left in the lurch often in the middle of nowhere. There were flights and medical arrangements made for people in distress. He was like Red in the Shawshank Redemption, the guy who could get things done from time to time. 

Air Canada could use a Hugh Riopelle right about now. Quietly competent. Good humored. Utterly unflappable. Always with a story. Often with a shoulder. 

I have never in my life met a nicer, kinder person than Hugh Riopelle. I don't think I ever will. 

(Hugh Riopelle died this week, peacefully, at the age of 95.)

RIP Rip.