- The Hip's song "50 Mission Cap" (From their album Fully Completely) touches on the legend of Bill Barilko, a Leafs player who scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal in 1951 and disappeared on a fishing trip later that year. Though the song is about a Maple Leaf, his favorite team is the Boston Bruins (Harry Sinden, former GM of the Bruins is his God-father).
- Lead singer/song-writer of the band The Tragically Hip.
- Was a goalie in minor hockey and played for a bantam team which won an Ontario championship in 1979.
- Downie and his fellow bandmates started out singing cover songs in bars and quickly became Canada's most popular band. Gord released his first solo album "Coke Machine Glow" in early 2001.
- Graduated from Kingston Collegiate and Vocational Institute (Kingston, ON) in 1982. His bandmates from The Tragically Hip also attended the school. He attended Ernestown Secondary School (Odessa, ON) in Grade 9 and part of Grade 10.
- Studied at Queen's University, Kingston, Ont.
- The Hip's song "Wheat Kings" makes reference to David Milgaard, who spent 22 years in a Canadian prison for a 1969 murder he was eventually found not to have committed.
- The working title for the song "Fireworks" (from the album Phantom Power) was "Bobby Orr", after the great Boston Bruins defenceman. The goal "that everyone remembers" was Paul Henderson's winning goal during the 1972 Canada-Russia hockey series. Orr did not play in the series because of one of his many knee operations.
- His band, The Hip's song, "Heaven Is A Better Place Today", is dedicated to Dan Snyder, the Atlanta Thrasher hockey player who was killed in a car accident last fall. Synder died in October from the wounds he suffered when, as a passenger, he was thrown from teammate Dan Heatley's Ferrari when Heatley lost control of the car, causing it to crash.
- Was diagnosed with an aggressive brain tumor in late 2015 after suffering a seizure. He underwent chemotherapy and radiation therapy. Downie made the decision to record and tour to give the band a proper send off.
- After concluding The Tragically Hip's "Man Machine Poem Tour" in August 2016, Downie went to work on Secret Path (2016), the story of a young indigenous boy who died while running away from a residential school in northern Ontario. Downie's purpose with this project was to call national attention to the social strife faced by Canada's First Nations peoples, which was a result of the Canadian Indian residential school system.
- He became good friends with Pearl Wenjack an indigenous woman whose brother died after escaping from a residential school in Northern Ontario. What Channie didn't know is that his home was 1,000 miles away. Channie died alone and by the side of the railroad tracks after he escaped.
- Resides in Toronto.
- He won several JUNO awards in 2018 for his final solo album Introduce Yerself which was released shortly after he passed away. His brothers Patrick Downie and Mike Downie were on hand to accept his awards on his behalf.
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