Helene Elliott
{{short description|American sportswriter}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2024}}
Helene Elliott is an American sportswriter. She worked for the Los Angeles Times from 1989 to 2024. She is the first female journalist to receive the Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award in 2005 for bringing "honor to journalism and to hockey".{{cite web |url=http://www.hhof.com/html/leg_writers.shtml |title=Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award Winners |publisher=Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum |access-date=December 15, 2016 |archive-date=June 5, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160605101440/http://www.hhof.com/html/leg_writers.shtml |url-status=dead }} She served as president of the Professional Hockey Writers' Association from 1999 to 2001.{{cite web|url=http://www.thephwa.com/about-the-phwa/|title=About the PHWA|year=2021|website=Professional Hockey Writers' Association|access-date=January 23, 2021}}
Biography
She was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York to a Jewish family.
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.{{cite web |last1=Barker |first1=Barbra |title=Melissa Ludtke's lawsuit opened door for female sports journalists 40 years ago, but there still is a long way to go |url=https://www.newsday.com/sports/columnists/barbara-barker/melissa-ludtke-barker-mlb-suit-1.21301114 |website=newsday.com |accessdate=March 11, 2019 |date=September 29, 2018}} 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 Finals since {{scfy|1980}}, the "Miracle on Ice" defeat of the Soviet Union national team by the U.S. team in the 1980 Winter Olympics, and the growth of hockey on the West Coast 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 Medill School of Journalism.{{cite news |url=http://www.courant.com/lanews-helene-elliott-20130507-staff.html |title=Helene Elliott |newspaper=Hartford Courant |access-date=December 15, 2016}}
She was married to late author Dennis D'Agostino, a former publicist with the New York Mets and New York Knicks.{{Cite news |last=D'Agostino |first=Dennis |date=November 7, 2005 |title=Hockey to Induct Elliott Into Hall |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-nov-07-sp-hall7-story.html |access-date=March 11, 2019 |work=Los Angeles Times}}
In 2015, she was inducted into the Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.{{Cite web|url=https://scjewishsportshof.com/elliott.html|title = Southern California Jewish Sports Hall of Fame Home}}
On February 16, 2024, Elliott announced that she had accepted a buyout from the Los Angeles Times, with her last day on the job after more than 34 years being scheduled for February 27th of the same year.{{cite news |title=About Helene Elliott |url=https://www.latimes.com/people/helene-elliott |access-date=July 23, 2024 |work=Los Angeles Times}}
References
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Category:Year of birth missing (living people)
Category:American women sportswriters
Category:Elmer Ferguson Memorial Award recipients
Category:Jewish American sportswriters
Category:Los Angeles Times people
Category:Medill School of Journalism alumni