In 2014, THN assembled a special-edition magazine on hockey's greatest rivalries. And one of them was the rivalry between the Toronto Maple Leafs and their owner, Harold Ballard.
Hockey has had no shortage of passionate rivalries. And in this story from THN's special-edition "Hockey's Greatest Rivalries" magazine in 2014, we covered the often-bitter, never-boring rivalry between notorious NHL team owner Harold Ballard and his Toronto Maple Leafs. Here's the full story on the roller-coaster relationship between the Leafs and Ballard:
Harold Ballard Vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
Though his name is infamous in Toronto, Harold Ballard is often referred to with bemusement by former employees, even those he mercilessly trashed to get headlines.
Owner of the Maple Leafs from 1972 until his death in 1990, Ballard had first bought into the operation as a part-owner in 1962, along with Stafford Smythe and John Bassett Sr.
But once Ballard and his idiosyncratic ways took hold full time, the Maple Leafs fell into a state of ruin until he passed away. Under his reign, the ‘Buds’ never won a division title, never appeared in the Stanley Cup final and rarely had any semblance of continuity.
Ballard went through 11 coaching changes in 18 years, once firing the legendary Roger Neilson and then offering him his job back if he wore a paper bag over his head. Neilson only accepted the former.
The fact Ballard made his affairs so public was part of his hubris but also an integral part of his memorable personality. He would be very cordial to players and staff to their faces, then turn around and rip them publicly in the press.
“He was the opposite of most bosses today,” said Gord Stellick, who was GM of the team for just one season (1988-89) but was part of the organization since his youth. “He knew that to get Page 1, you had to say something outrageous.”
Bruce Boudreau, coach of Anaheim, was Maple Leafs property during the Ballard era. Boudreau played 134 games in the NHL between stops in the minors. He remembered a nice owner, though he did so cautiously. “He always said hi, he was always smiling,” Boudreau said. “To my face, he was great.”
And therein was the rub.
Stellick recalled one incident on a team flight when, ravaged by injuries, the Leafs had called upon Czechoslovakian import Miroslav Ihnacak to step in. Ballard, a virulent anti-Communist, had helped bring Ihnacak over to North America and freedom from Soviet rule, but he felt had been sold a false bill of goods when the import failed to put up numbers at the NHL level.
As Ihnacak walked down the aisle to get to his seat, Ballard heartily welcomed him onto the flight. Ihnacak responded in kind, thanking Ballard for the opportunity before proceeding down the aisle.
“As he walked away,” Stellick recalled, “Ballard turned to me and said ‘boy, we’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel now, aren’t we?’ ”
Another infamous incident occurred after a member of the press noted to Ballard that star right winger Rick Vaive was up for another contract. Vaive had led the team in scoring two of the past three seasons.
“He told him ‘Vaive would be a mediocre player in a six-team league, I’m not paying him another dime,’ ” Vaive said. “It didn’t bother me – I (eventually) got a raise. It was after my third 50-goal season.”
But that sense of entitlement was the death of Ballard. He was the owner and treated the organization as such. It was his way or the highway and, unfortunately, he didn’t know how to win NHL hockey games.
“The building was his domain,” Stellick said. “He signed the checks, he was front and center. He wanted to win but couldn’t make the sacrifice of not meddling.”
Added Vaive: “We had a lot of good players, but we couldn’t bring in the top hockey people, because he wouldn’t pay them and they wouldn’t work for him.”
Ballard’s legendary cheapness – which defenders point out was offset by his many contributions to charity (which itself was off-set by the fact he was convicted of 47 counts of theft and fraud involving Maple Leafs money in 1972) – also damaged the ability of Maple Leafs players from putting in maximum effort.
In the 1980s, Ballard skirted NHL per diem rules by having flights take off five minutes after the cutoff of 7:30 p.m. “It was only a half day he would have had to pay anyway,” Vaive said. “There would be delays and they weren’t jets back then, they were turboprops. So we would get in to St. Louis or Minnesota at 11 p.m. or midnight. Eventually we sat down and said we would give up the meal money if we could just leave at a decent time, like 4:30 p.m., so we could get rest and go out for a meal. We did that for a while.”
Vaive did admit to a benefit of flying commercial.
“Because we would stay overnight instead of flying right home, guys started hanging out more and getting to know each other,” he said. “It was beneficial to us.”
But even when Ballard began to inch towards modernity, his scowling nature would pull him back to the dark side. The team eventually took charters, but it was a bumpy transition. One night, a stewardess was coming down the aisle with little chocolate bars after dinner. King Clancy, Ballard’s best friend and a longtime Leafs exec, told her Ballard, sitting two rows behind, could only have one because he was diabetic.
“When she came to Ballard, he put his whole paw in, so she slapped his hand and told him ‘you can only have one,’ ” Vaive said. “He cancelled the charter, so we flew commercial the rest of the year.”
Despite his crusty exterior, many of his former charges remember a softer side to Ballard. Stellick recalled a man who could pass for your favorite uncle when he was in a good mood, while Vaive thinks he has an idea of why Ballard was so sour in his final years.
“When King Clancy was alive, Harold was a different person,” Vaive said. “After King passed, he became very grumpy, worse in his dislikes for things. That was his best friend, probably the only friend he had.
“You always hear about when a spouse dies after a long marriage, the other person goes downhill fast? It was very similar.”