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[crowd cheering]
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You've got to win.
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That's the only-- that's the only thing I know.
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-[Adrienne] At any cost? -At any cost.
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-[Adrienne] Kill the other guy? -Why not?
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Get him out of the road,
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you'll never have to compete with him again.
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[Adrienne] There'll be somebody else
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come up in his place.
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Well, I'll take a shot at him, too.
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[narrator] In 1967, Canada celebrated
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its 100th birthday.
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For many Canadians, it was a time of hope.
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People were confident in looking ahead
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to a future even brighter than the past.
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From coast to coast to coast,
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people were brimming with optimism.
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And in Toronto, there was no reason
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to believe the Maple Leafs’ Stanley Cup victory
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that year would be their last.
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[commentator] Fantastic.
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[crowd cheering]
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[narrator] The Toronto Maple Leafs,
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a beloved and historic hockey franchise,
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continue to enjoy support of fans around the world,
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despite the fact that hockey's highest honor,
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the Stanley Cup,
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has eluded them for generations.
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But it wasn't always that way.
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It's hard to overstate
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just how good the Leafs once were.
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[man] The hockey capital of the world!
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[narrator] And how beloved they were.
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We have the world champions, the Maple Leafs.
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[narrator] But by the early '70s,
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a new boss took control of this storied franchise
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and nothing would ever be the same.
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Who told you that I interfered with the team?
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Never interfered with the team in my life.
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[announcer] Now, there's all sorts of debris
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being thrown onto the ice.
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[man] I had to sit through an entire winter
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of this garbage with the Maple Leafs.
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[Ballard] We haven't played very well.
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Matter of fact, we played lousy.
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This team is never going to get any better.
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[reporter] Spring is the time of year the Leafs fall.
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[Ballard] I honestly feel that I have never done
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-anything that is wrong. -[interviewer] Why don't you
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like Harold Ballard? -[woman] Oh, because
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of what he had to say about women.
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[reporter] The Toronto Maple Leafs won in 1967.
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But since then,
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there's been no show for Harold and his boys.
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He's interested only in making his money,
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-and that's about it. -[narrator] Harold Ballard
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may have turned Maple Leaf Gardens
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into the cash box on Carlton Street,
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but he did so at the expense of its greatest asset.
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Ballard turned the Leafs from perennial cup favorites
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to perennial cellar dwellers.
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His meddling and combative behavior
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ruined the team for a generation and beyond.
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♪ I'll see your face inside a cloud ♪
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♪ See your smile inside a window ♪
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Do I have one word to describe him?
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-Entertaining. -A blowhard, a loudmouth.
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-Cantankerous. -Bombastic as hell.
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-Destructive. -Entitled.
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-Misunderstood. -Tough.
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-Vindictive. -Interesting.
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-Buffoon. -Enigma.
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["One Fine Morning" by Lighthouse plays]
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♪ Yeah, we'll fly, we'll fly
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♪ Yeah, we'll fly
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♪
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[music stops]
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[narrator] Harold Ballard, who came to own the Leafs
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and the Cathedral of Hockey at 60 Carlton Street
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in Toronto, was the custodian
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of a piece of Canadian history.
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A hockey club, founded in 1917 as the Arenas,
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and renamed the St. Pats two years later.
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In 1927, the team was purchased
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and renamed the Maple Leafs
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by Toronto Gravel Baron, Conn Smythe.
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And in 1931, he embarked on construction
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of Maple Leaf Gardens:
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a miracle of architecture
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that was finished in five short months.
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For years, the Leafs flourished and won
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under the tutelage of their proud owner.
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Conn Smythe was a winner
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in almost everything he touched.
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Whether as a prosperous businessman,
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owner of thoroughbred horses,
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or as the man who made the Toronto Maple Leafs
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synonymous with success.
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His legacy was hard for anyone to follow,
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let alone Harold Ballard,
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whom Smythe once referred to as a pirate.
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[Brunt] Conn Smythe, hero of two wars.
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The guy who built the Gardens in the Depression.
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The guy who won all those Stanley Cups.
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The Smythe name is on the Stanley Cup 11 times.
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Nobody else is going to meet that boy.
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Conny was the type of person
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who could be very, very tough.
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He was not an admirer of Harold and made that clear.
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[narrator] No one saw Harold Edwin Ballard
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as the natural successor to Conn Smythe,
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except Harold himself.
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Since the day he was born in Toronto,
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July 30th, 1903,
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he was an ambitious, restless, free spirit
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who learned the business world at his father's knee.
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Sidney Eustace Ballard was a successful manufacturer
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of sewing machines and ice skates,
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and before long, his son, Hal,
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had dropped out of Upper Canada College,
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eventually opening up a manufacturing business
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of his own and invented a machine to cut hotdog rolls
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for Shopsy's Delicatessen, a Toronto landmark.
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But Harold Ballard was never cut out to just be successful.
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He needed excitement.
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He starts out life as a rich man's son.
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He doesn't have a care in the world.
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He was too young for World War One.
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He was too old for World War Two.
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During the Great Depression, he had a Playboy lifestyle.
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He'd dance the night away, you know.
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He-- he never had a worry in his life.
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[narrator] Among other passions,
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Ballard raised miniature speed boats
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known as sea fleas, and was even the flag-bearer
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for Canada's 1928 Winter Olympic team.
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In 1930, Ballard was the manager
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and coach of a minor league hockey team
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named the National Sea Fleas.
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And by 1940, Ballard found success
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as the president of the Toronto Marlboros,
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the Maple Leafs Farm Club,
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where he would forge a lifelong bond
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with Conn's son, Stafford Smythe.
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In 1957, an aging Conn Smythe
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turned over control of his beloved hockey team
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and building to a seven-person committee
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headed by his son Stafford, known as the Silver Seven.
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Newspaper owner, John Bassett,
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was also a member of the committee,
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and despite Conn's disapproval,
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they were soon joined by Ballard,
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who was appointed to fill a vacancy.
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I think there were originally seven owners
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because they were called the Silver Seven,
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but it really became a three-man operation
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with Bassett, Ballard, and, uh, Smythe.
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We used to quake in our boots with John Bassett.
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He was always a stern kind of guy or had this image of that.
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And Stafford was another guy that seemed like a stern guy,
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and Harold was more of the fun-loving guy.
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They all tolerated each other to be part of this troika
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that took over from Conn Smythe.
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[Parrish] The Bassetts were the elite of Toronto,
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and the Smythes weren't far behind.
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And Harold Ballard wasn't very high on that list.
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He had been the third fiddle, the seventh fiddle,
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for a lot of years at that point.
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And I think he wanted to prove that he could do the job,
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that he could get it all done.
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-[crowd cheering] -[upbeat music plays]
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[reporter] Executive Vice President, Harold Ballard.
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How are you, Harold? Do you feel good?
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Oh, couldn't feel better.
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That group ushered in a kind of a renewed era
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of success in Leaf hockey.
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When you look at what happened in,
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you know, the three consecutive cups
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between '62 and '64 and then after a couple of years,
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you know, failing in the playoffs,
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then winning again in '67,
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you know, he was a part of that.
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Well, he was around for four Stanley Cups.
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So, you know, a little bit.
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He was still a part owner, remember, in the good years.
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He loved seeing his team win.
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I was there when they won
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in the three Stanley Cups in a row.
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And there was nobody happier than Harold.
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This is our centennial year
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and we have our centennial project finished.
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-You got it, eh? -Yes, sir.
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-This is the one you want. -This is something.
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And I want to thank the supporters
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of the Toronto Maple Leafs,
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and I want to sympathize with the, uh,
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with our opponents. [chuckles]
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[announcer] The final score of tonight's game.
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Toronto Maple Leafs, three.
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The Montreal Canadiens, one.
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[Iaboni] Being there as a kid at that grade
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and seeing the Leafs come out one by one
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and seeing Terry Sawchuk and Dave Keon
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and all the players wave and all that kind of stuff
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was something that I-- I hope
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that the future, and the current generation
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of Leafs fans and the ones that are old enough to remember
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the championship of '67 experience again.
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[Bennett] When I think of the Maple Leafs,
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I think of my grandfather.
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My grandfather emigrated to Canada in 1967.
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Last year the Leafs won the Cup.
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Leafs win, craze of the city.
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You know, he went to the parade and it really showed him that,
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"Yeah, as much as I may feel different
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from any of the people in this new country,
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I am more alike than I am different."
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And he's been a diehard Leafs fan ever since.
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[narrator] Although Ballard wasn't a huge factor
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in the team's Cup wins in the '60s,
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he definitely made himself useful
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at Maple Leaf Gardens.
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His main job, and true passion,
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was to keep Maple Leaf Gardens full.
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And it was a job he was born to do.
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By 1969, profits had tripled
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to just under $1 million.
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He was not a great hockey man by any stretch.
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He really was at his best in the '60s as a promoter.
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He brought Muhammad Ali to the fight.
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Conn Smythe didn't want
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the Black draft-dodger in Toronto.
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There is one hell of a lot of difference
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in fighting in the ring and going to war in Vietnam.
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You know, and that's what caused
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Conn Smythe to give up his directorship
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was when Muhammad Ali could not find
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a fight in the United States.
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They looked at Canada.
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[Eagleson] Conn Smythe, he was the one that said,
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"I'm-- I’m off the board
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if you're bringing in Cassius Clay."
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He did not like what happened when they let
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Cassius Clay fight George Chuvalo in the Gardens.
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He didn't like a lot of things that Ballard did.
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[narrator] Conn Smythe, in protest,
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sells his remaining 5,100 shares
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of Maple Leaf Gardens LTD and resigns from the board.
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You think of Muhammad Ali,
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uh, not allowed to box, but there is a time
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he was able to get out of the country
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and Harold Ballard facilitated that.
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People here in Canada are nice
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and it's a lot different from where I come from.
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[narrator] With Conn Smythe completely out of the picture,
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there wasn't much to constrain Harold Ballard.
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First on the agenda, removing the portrait
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of Queen Elizabeth to install more seats.
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[Stellick] When the mezzanines came in,
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the Queen was up there.
261
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But he didn't even think about that.
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00:10:56,322 --> 00:10:57,490
But of course, he threw the great quip out.
263
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"She doesn't pay admission,
264
00:10:59,058 --> 00:11:00,226
so why would I let her in the game?"
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So, everybody went on that.
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What he was doing was taking this building that
267
00:11:03,863 --> 00:11:05,765
had been overbuilt.
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I mean, the building was really, really well-- well-constructed.
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He shrunk the seats to get more people in.
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You know, if there was money to be made,
271
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he didn't care who played Maple Leaf Gardens.
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You know, it was not a closed shop
273
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for anyone or no one.
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There was money to be made on a-- on a Muhammad Ali fight.
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I don't think he did it because he had
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a great moral compass or anything like that.
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It was like, "Wow, this is great."
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I mean, the Beatles famous,
279
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you know, supposedly that urban legend, the myth.
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He sold the second show without a contract.
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So he had the Beatles down for two shows.
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And Brian Epstein, the manager, fortunately, fortuitously,
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agreed to play a second show like four hours later.
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[Vaive] I heard the story about when the Beatles came over.
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00:11:43,436 --> 00:11:45,071
They did a concert at the Gardens
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and it was in the summer.
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Folklore goes that Ballard turned off
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the air conditioning, which didn't exist.
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He delayed the concert by an hour and a half.
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Turned the heat on in the building
291
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and turned the water off.
292
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Where is the water fountain at Maple Leaf Gardens?
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00:11:59,118 --> 00:12:00,853
I wouldn't-- I wouldn’t take a drink from one.
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I don't even know where one was.
295
00:12:02,521 --> 00:12:04,223
So, people had to go to the concessions
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to get something to drink.
297
00:12:05,391 --> 00:12:08,127
And it was probably 110 degrees
298
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in the building at point. [laughs]
299
00:12:09,962 --> 00:12:11,997
So, I mean, from that standpoint,
300
00:12:12,031 --> 00:12:15,534
things like that, yeah, that was crazy like a fox.
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00:12:15,568 --> 00:12:17,169
He loved that.
302
00:12:17,203 --> 00:12:19,071
He was, like, decades later, he loved that.
303
00:12:19,105 --> 00:12:22,208
Like, that was his reputation, that he was such a promoter
304
00:12:22,241 --> 00:12:23,909
that he did all these kind of things,
305
00:12:23,943 --> 00:12:25,377
like his business savviness.
306
00:12:25,411 --> 00:12:27,880
I remember once when Billy Joel was playing
307
00:12:27,913 --> 00:12:29,048
and he was doing his sound check.
308
00:12:29,081 --> 00:12:30,349
Billy Joel, I guess,
309
00:12:30,382 --> 00:12:31,851
can be quite irascible too, right?
310
00:12:31,884 --> 00:12:33,452
And he sort of accosts Mr. Ballard,
311
00:12:33,486 --> 00:12:35,221
says something like,
312
00:12:35,254 --> 00:12:36,922
"Hey, what are you doing in here, buddy," or something,
313
00:12:36,956 --> 00:12:38,224
and Mr. Ballard turns to him and goes-- Says,
314
00:12:38,257 --> 00:12:39,492
"I own the fucking building."
315
00:12:39,525 --> 00:12:41,026
And Billy Joel goes, "Okay, great."
316
00:12:41,927 --> 00:12:43,295
You know? [laughs]
317
00:12:43,329 --> 00:12:44,563
That's a pretty solid answer back then.
318
00:12:44,597 --> 00:12:46,132
I own it. [laughs]
319
00:12:46,165 --> 00:12:48,467
In a time when there was no other venue
320
00:12:48,501 --> 00:12:52,371
except the CNE that hosted over 5,000 people in Toronto.
321
00:12:52,404 --> 00:12:54,173
You know, if you were Springsteen
322
00:12:54,206 --> 00:12:55,975
and you weren't playing the CNE in--
323
00:12:56,008 --> 00:12:57,843
in August, you had to play us.
324
00:12:58,377 --> 00:13:00,246
[narrator] For all his rough edges,
325
00:13:00,279 --> 00:13:02,882
Ballard did have someone that kept him grounded.
326
00:13:02,915 --> 00:13:06,051
His beloved wife, Dorothy, the dignified daughter
327
00:13:06,085 --> 00:13:08,254
of a preacher who patiently endured
328
00:13:08,287 --> 00:13:11,190
her husband's antics for 45 years.
329
00:13:11,590 --> 00:13:15,528
Dorothy's passing in 1969 due to cancer
330
00:13:15,561 --> 00:13:18,364
forever left a vacancy in Ballard's life.
331
00:13:18,998 --> 00:13:21,500
[Iaboni] Harold Ballard losing his wife, Dorothy,
332
00:13:21,534 --> 00:13:25,304
in 1969 was a huge turning point in his life.
333
00:13:25,337 --> 00:13:27,606
She meant everything to him, and from the people
334
00:13:27,640 --> 00:13:30,276
that I spoke to as I got to know Harold Ballard
335
00:13:30,309 --> 00:13:34,380
along the way, they told me that he was a different persona
336
00:13:34,413 --> 00:13:36,382
uh, while she was alive.
337
00:13:36,415 --> 00:13:38,117
I think it had a massive impact on him.
338
00:13:38,617 --> 00:13:40,986
Uh, I think he choose a life partner
339
00:13:41,320 --> 00:13:43,589
and when that partner's gone, life changes.
340
00:13:43,622 --> 00:13:45,591
I think that shadow hung over him.
341
00:13:45,624 --> 00:13:49,361
But I think any man at that age has known grief, has known loss.
342
00:13:49,395 --> 00:13:52,298
He was a human being. He wasn't entirely a clown.
343
00:13:52,331 --> 00:13:55,568
When his wife left us, he kind of became...
344
00:13:57,203 --> 00:14:00,039
I know-- More inward and more an executive.
345
00:14:00,706 --> 00:14:02,341
And he thought being an executive
346
00:14:02,374 --> 00:14:04,009
was to have everybody afraid of him.
347
00:14:04,710 --> 00:14:07,379
If you relate to today's world like Trump does.
348
00:14:07,413 --> 00:14:08,581
You know, everybody's scared of him,
349
00:14:08,614 --> 00:14:09,949
everybody’s scared of him.
350
00:14:10,449 --> 00:14:13,152
And that-- that doesn't make a great executive.
351
00:14:13,185 --> 00:14:14,920
He's certainly looked after his wife
352
00:14:14,954 --> 00:14:16,255
every day of his life.
353
00:14:16,288 --> 00:14:18,090
You know, he, uh,
354
00:14:18,123 --> 00:14:20,459
he took flowers there, uh, every day.
355
00:14:20,492 --> 00:14:21,660
Every day.
356
00:14:24,230 --> 00:14:26,632
[narrator] While in mourning, things got worse
357
00:14:26,665 --> 00:14:29,368
when law enforcement became aware
358
00:14:29,401 --> 00:14:34,139
that money was being skimmed from the cash box on Carlton.
359
00:14:34,173 --> 00:14:37,409
An RCMP raid at Maple Leaf Gardens
360
00:14:37,443 --> 00:14:39,345
led to a long investigation.
361
00:14:39,378 --> 00:14:44,116
The result was Stafford Smythe charged with income tax evasion
362
00:14:44,149 --> 00:14:46,418
and accused, along with Ballard,
363
00:14:46,452 --> 00:14:49,521
of illegally taking money from Maple Leaf Gardens
364
00:14:49,555 --> 00:14:53,626
to pay for home renovations and other personal expenses.
365
00:14:54,226 --> 00:14:56,061
It was something to the effect.
366
00:14:56,095 --> 00:14:57,630
It was a public company
367
00:14:57,663 --> 00:15:00,199
and they had appropriated money from the company.
368
00:15:00,232 --> 00:15:02,334
[narrator] June 1969,
369
00:15:02,368 --> 00:15:05,037
John Bassett, chairman of the board,
370
00:15:05,070 --> 00:15:06,538
held a vote to decide
371
00:15:06,572 --> 00:15:08,707
if Staff Smythe and Harold Ballard,
372
00:15:08,741 --> 00:15:11,677
despite neither yet being convicted of anything,
373
00:15:11,710 --> 00:15:13,712
should be removed from their post
374
00:15:13,746 --> 00:15:16,482
as president and executive vice president.
375
00:15:16,982 --> 00:15:21,387
The board voted eight to seven to oust Ballard and Smythe,
376
00:15:21,420 --> 00:15:24,290
with Bassett casting the deciding vote.
377
00:15:24,323 --> 00:15:26,692
Strangely, in a strategic blunder
378
00:15:26,725 --> 00:15:29,261
that would haunt Bassett for years to come,
379
00:15:29,295 --> 00:15:33,098
he allowed Smythe and Ballard to hold on to their shares
380
00:15:33,132 --> 00:15:34,667
and remain on the board.
381
00:15:36,101 --> 00:15:38,170
I think Bassett was in a position
382
00:15:38,203 --> 00:15:40,205
that-- that he couldn't win.
383
00:15:40,239 --> 00:15:44,376
He was a head of a major television network
384
00:15:44,410 --> 00:15:49,214
and also a member of the board of Maple Leaf Gardens.
385
00:15:49,248 --> 00:15:53,319
He felt in conscience that he should force
386
00:15:53,352 --> 00:15:55,621
the resignation of Smythe and Ballard.
387
00:15:57,156 --> 00:15:58,357
Ballard never forgave him
388
00:15:58,390 --> 00:16:00,259
and the first opportunity he had,
389
00:16:00,292 --> 00:16:01,360
they were out of here.
390
00:16:01,393 --> 00:16:04,229
Gone. Period. No debate.
391
00:16:04,263 --> 00:16:06,365
He's a great, uh, glad hander.
392
00:16:06,398 --> 00:16:10,402
And, uh, you know, the drama, that ivory smile.
393
00:16:10,436 --> 00:16:12,438
He looks like a [indistinct] smile
394
00:16:12,471 --> 00:16:14,573
when he tries to win you over with all that.
395
00:16:14,606 --> 00:16:17,643
But when you know Bassett and know him the way I know him,
396
00:16:17,676 --> 00:16:19,144
it's a different story.
397
00:16:20,746 --> 00:16:23,082
[narrator] A mere 18 months later,
398
00:16:23,115 --> 00:16:25,417
at the organization's annual meeting,
399
00:16:25,451 --> 00:16:28,454
Smythe and Ballard exacted their revenge.
400
00:16:28,487 --> 00:16:30,522
As the two largest shareholders,
401
00:16:30,556 --> 00:16:33,058
Ballard and Smythe managed to persuade
402
00:16:33,092 --> 00:16:35,461
the other shareholders to support them.
403
00:16:35,494 --> 00:16:37,596
They regained control of the board,
404
00:16:37,629 --> 00:16:40,299
reinstalling themselves as president
405
00:16:40,332 --> 00:16:42,401
and executive vice president.
406
00:16:42,434 --> 00:16:44,536
Now, in an untenable situation,
407
00:16:44,570 --> 00:16:47,172
Bassett and his loyalists resign.
408
00:16:47,639 --> 00:16:50,075
September 1st, 1971,
409
00:16:50,109 --> 00:16:52,745
he sold his shares to Ballard and Smythe
410
00:16:52,778 --> 00:16:55,814
for almost six million dollars.
411
00:16:55,848 --> 00:16:58,484
Ballard and Smythe had achieved their dream,
412
00:16:58,517 --> 00:17:01,220
complete control of the Toronto Maple Leafs,
413
00:17:01,253 --> 00:17:03,655
but they had no control of their destiny
414
00:17:03,689 --> 00:17:05,524
because it was time to go to trial.
415
00:17:06,025 --> 00:17:08,660
But Stafford never made it to the stand.
416
00:17:08,694 --> 00:17:11,697
He died unexpectedly from complications
417
00:17:11,730 --> 00:17:13,832
due to a bleeding ulcer,
418
00:17:13,866 --> 00:17:16,668
a mere 12 days before the trial.
419
00:17:16,702 --> 00:17:18,537
Only 50 years old,
420
00:17:18,570 --> 00:17:21,640
he had told anyone who'd listen that he would never go to jail.
421
00:17:21,673 --> 00:17:23,642
And he was correct.
422
00:17:23,675 --> 00:17:26,712
Stafford Smythe predeceases Ballard quite suddenly.
423
00:17:26,745 --> 00:17:29,681
When they got rid of Bassett and Stafford died,
424
00:17:29,715 --> 00:17:31,417
then it became for-- for Harold Ballard
425
00:17:31,450 --> 00:17:33,452
to take over and get rid of the Smythe's altogether.
426
00:17:33,485 --> 00:17:34,853
He wanted to make it his team.
427
00:17:34,887 --> 00:17:37,122
[narrator] A 68-year-old Ballard
428
00:17:37,156 --> 00:17:40,826
bought his shares, giving him a 71% controlling interest
429
00:17:40,859 --> 00:17:43,162
in the building and the team.
430
00:17:43,195 --> 00:17:46,532
He then installed himself as president and chairman
431
00:17:46,565 --> 00:17:48,500
of Maple Leaf Gardens LTD.
432
00:17:48,534 --> 00:17:50,803
I think there was a second childhood element
433
00:17:50,836 --> 00:17:52,471
to it, like, "Oh, my God,
434
00:17:52,504 --> 00:17:54,440
I-- The Toronto Maple Leafs fell in my lap.
435
00:17:54,473 --> 00:17:56,341
And you know what? I'm going to have fun.
436
00:17:56,375 --> 00:17:58,143
And I'm going to take it and run with it.
437
00:17:58,177 --> 00:17:59,812
And I'm going to be-- I’m going to be a somebody
438
00:17:59,845 --> 00:18:01,280
and people are going to know
439
00:18:01,313 --> 00:18:02,815
that I own the Toronto Maple Leafs."
440
00:18:02,848 --> 00:18:05,250
[narrator] To buy Bassett and Smythe's shares,
441
00:18:05,284 --> 00:18:09,154
Ballard went nearly $14 million in debt.
442
00:18:09,188 --> 00:18:10,456
He may have told the world
443
00:18:10,489 --> 00:18:12,391
he owned the Toronto Maple Leafs,
444
00:18:12,424 --> 00:18:14,827
but fact was, the banks did.
445
00:18:14,860 --> 00:18:17,729
He owns this much of the Maple Leaf Gardens LTD,
446
00:18:17,763 --> 00:18:20,399
Ballard does, and he's got a chance to buy this much.
447
00:18:20,432 --> 00:18:23,469
Okay? So Don Giffin, who became later on
448
00:18:23,502 --> 00:18:26,405
a prominent director, takes him to the TD Bank
449
00:18:26,438 --> 00:18:28,307
and arranges a loan for this much.
450
00:18:28,340 --> 00:18:29,708
So, he's in over his head
451
00:18:29,741 --> 00:18:31,477
like somebody that's bought a house,
452
00:18:31,510 --> 00:18:33,479
uh, you know, way beyond their means.
453
00:18:34,413 --> 00:18:38,250
[narrator] 1972 was an eventful year in hockey,
454
00:18:38,283 --> 00:18:42,187
with the NHL’s continued expansion to 16 teams
455
00:18:42,221 --> 00:18:44,323
and the emergence of a rival league,
456
00:18:44,356 --> 00:18:46,525
the World Hockey Association.
457
00:18:47,126 --> 00:18:49,862
Life was difficult for Harold Ballard,
458
00:18:49,895 --> 00:18:52,631
who was guilty of having a bad hockey team
459
00:18:52,664 --> 00:18:55,501
and guilty in a court of law.
460
00:18:55,534 --> 00:18:56,802
[interviewer] Mr. Ballard, what are your thoughts
461
00:18:56,835 --> 00:18:58,537
now that the trial is finally over
462
00:18:58,570 --> 00:18:59,872
and you've been found guilty?
463
00:18:59,905 --> 00:19:01,807
I-- actually I don't feel guilty.
464
00:19:01,840 --> 00:19:05,477
But, however, the-- Judge Damon is-- is--
465
00:19:05,511 --> 00:19:07,446
uh, considers that I am guilty.
466
00:19:08,013 --> 00:19:09,915
Uh, and it’s entirely up to him.
467
00:19:09,948 --> 00:19:12,718
I've never, uh, given a jail sentence any--
468
00:19:13,519 --> 00:19:16,555
any thought, it's the furthest from my mind.
469
00:19:16,588 --> 00:19:18,924
But, however, if there's a jail sentence,
470
00:19:18,957 --> 00:19:20,792
there’s a jail sentence, let's face it.
471
00:19:20,826 --> 00:19:22,895
[narrator] Ballard's prison sentencing conflicted
472
00:19:22,928 --> 00:19:25,330
with the upcoming Summit series.
473
00:19:25,364 --> 00:19:28,400
For the first time, the best professional players
474
00:19:28,433 --> 00:19:30,702
from hockey's two superpowers,
475
00:19:30,736 --> 00:19:33,906
Canada and the USSR, went head to head.
476
00:19:34,306 --> 00:19:36,341
Proud Canadian that he was,
477
00:19:36,375 --> 00:19:39,978
Ballard let Team Canada train at Maple Leaf Gardens.
478
00:19:40,012 --> 00:19:43,982
Together with agent/union boss, Alan Eagleson,
479
00:19:44,016 --> 00:19:46,885
he bought the ad rights to the eight-game event
480
00:19:46,919 --> 00:19:48,987
and raked in millions.
481
00:19:49,021 --> 00:19:50,589
[interviewer] Now, what are your plans in terms
482
00:19:50,622 --> 00:19:52,024
of the, uh, Russia-Canada Hockey series?
483
00:19:52,057 --> 00:19:54,359
[Harold] I would like, if it was possible,
484
00:19:54,393 --> 00:19:56,862
if there was any way that they could extend
485
00:19:56,895 --> 00:20:00,432
their decision until after the series is over,
486
00:20:00,465 --> 00:20:02,401
well, I'd be very grateful because I've spent
487
00:20:02,434 --> 00:20:04,570
a tremendous amount of time
488
00:20:04,603 --> 00:20:07,406
on Hockey Canada since its conception.
489
00:20:07,439 --> 00:20:09,408
[narrator] Ballard got his wish.
490
00:20:09,441 --> 00:20:12,878
His sentencing was delayed until after this summit series,
491
00:20:12,911 --> 00:20:14,980
infuriating his critics.
492
00:20:15,013 --> 00:20:17,716
And he was in Moscow to witness possibly
493
00:20:17,749 --> 00:20:21,253
the most famous goal in Canadian hockey history.
494
00:20:23,689 --> 00:20:26,558
But for Ballard, national pride quickly turned
495
00:20:26,592 --> 00:20:28,727
to personal embarrassment.
496
00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:31,697
Upon his return from the Soviet Union,
497
00:20:31,730 --> 00:20:33,599
justice was served.
498
00:20:33,632 --> 00:20:36,368
In October 1972,
499
00:20:36,401 --> 00:20:38,470
he entered Millhaven Penitentiary
500
00:20:38,503 --> 00:20:42,341
to serve a three year sentence after being convicted
501
00:20:42,374 --> 00:20:45,611
of 47 white collar crimes.
502
00:20:45,644 --> 00:20:47,980
I don't actually recall
503
00:20:48,013 --> 00:20:49,915
the first time I met him because,
504
00:20:49,948 --> 00:20:53,719
unfortunately, when I first signed my first contract,
505
00:20:53,752 --> 00:20:55,821
Harold was in jail at that time.
506
00:20:55,854 --> 00:20:58,790
When he was sentenced to prison, I think he was shocked.
507
00:20:58,824 --> 00:21:01,426
I didn't think he felt he would go
508
00:21:01,460 --> 00:21:05,030
because he was this, you know, big, important guy in sports
509
00:21:05,063 --> 00:21:06,698
and owned the Toronto Maple Leafs.
510
00:21:06,732 --> 00:21:08,500
How could they do this to him?
511
00:21:08,533 --> 00:21:11,770
But he went and spent, uh, about a year in Millhaven.
512
00:21:11,803 --> 00:21:13,872
[Donald] The time in prison, you know,
513
00:21:13,905 --> 00:21:16,408
he decided that, "Bleep you,"
514
00:21:16,441 --> 00:21:19,645
you know, "people can say you're a con, you can whatever.
515
00:21:19,678 --> 00:21:21,413
"I'm going to have fun about it, okay?
516
00:21:21,446 --> 00:21:23,448
And all the shots at me, I'm going to fire them back."
517
00:21:23,482 --> 00:21:24,950
He says, "Hey there,
518
00:21:24,983 --> 00:21:26,551
I want to show you what our Canadian prisons--"
519
00:21:26,585 --> 00:21:27,853
And he's got a stack of pictures on his desk.
520
00:21:27,886 --> 00:21:29,354
And he hands them to me, all right?
521
00:21:29,388 --> 00:21:30,689
And I started going through them
522
00:21:30,722 --> 00:21:32,824
and that's Harold in the guards' uniform
523
00:21:32,858 --> 00:21:34,493
with his feet up on the desk.
524
00:21:34,526 --> 00:21:36,528
Got a bottle of beer, a cigar, and color TV.
525
00:21:36,561 --> 00:21:38,664
This is what our Canadian prisons are like, right?
526
00:21:38,697 --> 00:21:40,666
[Harold] Outside the humiliation and disgrace,
527
00:21:40,699 --> 00:21:42,768
it wasn't bad because I had-- I had
528
00:21:42,801 --> 00:21:44,803
a very good time down there at Millhaven,
529
00:21:44,836 --> 00:21:46,538
I had my own room.
530
00:21:46,571 --> 00:21:48,507
It was a high class motel as far as I was concerned.
531
00:21:48,540 --> 00:21:49,641
[Adrienne] You weren't getting tenderloin
532
00:21:49,675 --> 00:21:50,876
three times a week, come on.
533
00:21:50,909 --> 00:21:52,144
[Harold] You think I wasn't, eh?
534
00:21:52,177 --> 00:21:53,779
-[Adrienne] No. -[Harold] Well,
535
00:21:53,812 --> 00:21:55,047
you just keep on thinking, baby,
536
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:56,715
because you're not right. [cackling]
537
00:21:56,748 --> 00:21:59,785
While he was in Millhaven,
538
00:21:59,818 --> 00:22:02,120
Billy, his son, who was a young lawyer,
539
00:22:02,154 --> 00:22:05,157
who articled in our firm for a while,
540
00:22:05,190 --> 00:22:08,427
had taken over the entire operations,
541
00:22:08,460 --> 00:22:12,364
ran it without any hitches or any big problems.
542
00:22:12,864 --> 00:22:15,400
And then Harold came back
543
00:22:15,901 --> 00:22:18,670
and instead of patting him on the back and saying,
544
00:22:18,704 --> 00:22:20,605
"Son, you got a great future
545
00:22:20,639 --> 00:22:22,841
when I'm gone running this organization."
546
00:22:23,141 --> 00:22:24,643
He said, "Get out of here,
547
00:22:24,676 --> 00:22:27,646
I'm back in charge, so bugger off."
548
00:22:27,679 --> 00:22:29,081
I mean, it was that blunt.
549
00:22:29,114 --> 00:22:30,682
I couldn't-- I couldn’t believe it.
550
00:22:30,716 --> 00:22:34,019
And there was always that ill feeling
551
00:22:34,052 --> 00:22:37,456
uh, between father and son as a result.
552
00:22:37,489 --> 00:22:39,057
[Adrienne] You're unrepentant. Totally unrepentant.
553
00:22:39,091 --> 00:22:40,592
Absolutely.
554
00:22:40,625 --> 00:22:42,127
And as far as old Diefenbaker goes,
555
00:22:42,160 --> 00:22:43,895
he got up in the house and said,
556
00:22:43,929 --> 00:22:46,531
"There's a law for the rich and one for the poor."
557
00:22:46,932 --> 00:22:48,967
Uh, you know, I got the tape on that.
558
00:22:49,401 --> 00:22:51,103
That old sucker would steal your eyes out
559
00:22:51,136 --> 00:22:53,004
and put a grape in and tell you, you look better.
560
00:22:54,139 --> 00:22:55,874
God damn. How are you?
561
00:22:55,907 --> 00:22:57,509
[narrator] Ballard was out of prison
562
00:22:57,542 --> 00:22:59,144
after only a year,
563
00:22:59,177 --> 00:23:02,848
and his first order of business was to foolishly ignore
564
00:23:02,881 --> 00:23:05,016
the World Hockey Association.
565
00:23:05,050 --> 00:23:07,986
The WHA, what good can they do for us?
566
00:23:08,019 --> 00:23:10,655
I mean to say we don't need them. They need us.
567
00:23:10,689 --> 00:23:12,824
[narrator] And for Leaf fans, turning his back
568
00:23:12,858 --> 00:23:16,962
on the greatest Leaf of all time was the deepest cut of all.
569
00:23:16,995 --> 00:23:23,635
♪
570
00:23:23,668 --> 00:23:25,570
[Sittler] He was a guy that won the Conn Smythe.
571
00:23:25,604 --> 00:23:28,206
You know, he's the greatest Leaf ever.
572
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:30,609
Yeah, he was kind of born out of town,
573
00:23:30,642 --> 00:23:32,611
so to speak, with Harold and,
574
00:23:32,644 --> 00:23:34,980
you know, the WHA and a number of other guys had left
575
00:23:35,013 --> 00:23:37,082
because Harold didn't want to acknowledge that
576
00:23:37,115 --> 00:23:38,784
there was another league there.
577
00:23:38,817 --> 00:23:40,552
And, uh, rather than do what was right
578
00:23:40,585 --> 00:23:42,788
to build a hockey club, he let a number of guys go
579
00:23:42,821 --> 00:23:44,256
and Keon was one of them.
580
00:23:44,289 --> 00:23:45,924
[Parrish] And the WHA came
581
00:23:45,957 --> 00:23:48,059
and took many of their best young players.
582
00:23:48,093 --> 00:23:49,694
And then Dave Keon,
583
00:23:49,728 --> 00:23:51,229
who had never been a Ballard fan,
584
00:23:51,263 --> 00:23:54,132
going back to the '60s, left in '75.
585
00:23:54,166 --> 00:23:58,203
And then that deteriorated into what went on for 20 or 25 years.
586
00:23:58,236 --> 00:24:02,073
[Eagleson] And Keon was, uh, he was one of the pillars
587
00:24:02,107 --> 00:24:03,909
of the Leafs dynasty,
588
00:24:03,942 --> 00:24:06,812
and that was very sad to see him go.
589
00:24:06,845 --> 00:24:09,881
But he went to Minnesota for twice as much money.
590
00:24:09,915 --> 00:24:13,051
It was a sad end because I think that
591
00:24:13,084 --> 00:24:16,154
David, and rightfully so, deserved more money.
592
00:24:16,188 --> 00:24:18,023
He deserved more respect.
593
00:24:18,056 --> 00:24:21,026
But at the end of the day, it was time for him to sort of
594
00:24:21,059 --> 00:24:23,295
go elsewhere as well, because it wasn't going to work
595
00:24:23,328 --> 00:24:25,897
with the-- with the ownership that was-- was there.
596
00:24:25,931 --> 00:24:28,066
I'll tell you something, uh, Mr. Ballard
597
00:24:28,099 --> 00:24:29,701
is my type of guy.
598
00:24:29,734 --> 00:24:31,303
I know I'm going against the grain saying this.
599
00:24:31,336 --> 00:24:33,839
I've always liked him and, uh, he says what he thinks
600
00:24:33,872 --> 00:24:35,707
and he's good for hockey.
601
00:24:35,740 --> 00:24:38,276
He didn't like the idea of giving money to the players.
602
00:24:38,310 --> 00:24:40,078
I don't know what he was thinking of,
603
00:24:40,111 --> 00:24:42,948
but he could see the other teams were doing it.
604
00:24:42,981 --> 00:24:44,683
If he didn't think the guy was worth
605
00:24:44,716 --> 00:24:46,551
so much money, he wouldn't pay them
606
00:24:46,585 --> 00:24:48,086
and that's why he lost them all.
607
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:50,655
[McKenny] Yeah, it decimated the whole franchise.
608
00:24:51,356 --> 00:24:53,558
Because they-- they had nothing to work with.
609
00:24:53,592 --> 00:24:56,595
Nothing-- nothing to offer other teams to--
610
00:24:56,628 --> 00:24:59,731
to bring in players that could help them win.
611
00:24:59,764 --> 00:25:01,766
We would have won four or five Stanley Cups
612
00:25:01,800 --> 00:25:06,037
in the mid, uh, the mid ’70s for sure.
613
00:25:06,071 --> 00:25:08,006
We would have had as good a team as Montreal had.
614
00:25:08,039 --> 00:25:09,174
No problem.
615
00:25:10,075 --> 00:25:12,577
It soured so many players,
616
00:25:12,611 --> 00:25:15,814
uh, on, uh, thinking
617
00:25:15,847 --> 00:25:18,850
they were a part of this Maple Leaf team
618
00:25:18,884 --> 00:25:21,186
and tradition that should have been
619
00:25:21,219 --> 00:25:22,988
way stronger at that time.
620
00:25:23,021 --> 00:25:25,857
But I think Harold underestimated
621
00:25:25,891 --> 00:25:28,593
the World Hockey Association's power.
622
00:25:28,627 --> 00:25:31,196
[Eagleson] He decided that the WHA wasn't going to last
623
00:25:31,229 --> 00:25:33,765
and he wasn't going to pay the blood money.
624
00:25:33,798 --> 00:25:36,001
That was his position and it hurt the team.
625
00:25:36,701 --> 00:25:39,671
[narrator] Ballard had a talent for making money,
626
00:25:39,704 --> 00:25:43,041
but he refused to spend it on anything.
627
00:25:44,042 --> 00:25:45,911
You combine his cheapness which,
628
00:25:45,944 --> 00:25:47,979
you know, showed up in, you know,
629
00:25:48,013 --> 00:25:49,247
significant hockey ways,
630
00:25:49,281 --> 00:25:50,882
but also in kind of penny ante ways.
631
00:25:50,916 --> 00:25:52,717
He nickeled and dimed like crazy.
632
00:25:52,751 --> 00:25:54,786
But, you know, remember, there's no salary cap
633
00:25:54,819 --> 00:25:55,987
in that era, right?
634
00:25:56,021 --> 00:25:57,822
There's no salary cap at all.
635
00:25:57,856 --> 00:26:00,392
And the Toronto Maple Leafs drove more revenue
636
00:26:00,425 --> 00:26:02,627
by some multiple
637
00:26:02,661 --> 00:26:04,262
than any other team in the National Hockey League,
638
00:26:04,296 --> 00:26:06,197
other than the New York Rangers.
639
00:26:06,231 --> 00:26:08,033
They had an enormous financial advantage
640
00:26:08,066 --> 00:26:09,634
up until the cap.
641
00:26:09,668 --> 00:26:11,903
All through the '80s when they were terrible,
642
00:26:11,937 --> 00:26:14,372
they still had that enormous financial advantage
643
00:26:14,406 --> 00:26:16,207
over everybody else in the NHL.
644
00:26:16,241 --> 00:26:18,243
There was no reason why they couldn't have spent money
645
00:26:18,276 --> 00:26:19,778
where you could spend money.
646
00:26:19,811 --> 00:26:22,881
He wanted to keep things on the cheap
647
00:26:22,914 --> 00:26:26,318
and make sure that there was plenty of money
648
00:26:26,351 --> 00:26:28,386
for himself and-- and the company.
649
00:26:28,420 --> 00:26:29,955
You must have 15 scouts.
650
00:26:30,589 --> 00:26:32,190
[interviewer] Most people around the league say
651
00:26:32,223 --> 00:26:33,825
-Leafs don't have enough. -Well, that's all right.
652
00:26:33,858 --> 00:26:34,993
Uh, who's got more?
653
00:26:36,127 --> 00:26:37,729
[interviewer] Uh, Calgary, Edmonton.
654
00:26:37,762 --> 00:26:39,864
-What have they done? -They're in first place.
655
00:26:39,898 --> 00:26:41,199
That's all right.
656
00:26:41,232 --> 00:26:42,701
Well, they can stay in first place.
657
00:26:42,734 --> 00:26:44,135
Some of their scouts, I wouldn't want.
658
00:26:44,169 --> 00:26:46,304
Our typical hockey office would have
659
00:26:46,338 --> 00:26:48,206
20 times the number of people of that today,
660
00:26:48,239 --> 00:26:50,108
or 15 times the number of people that today.
661
00:26:50,141 --> 00:26:52,877
So it was-- People would always come up and say,
662
00:26:52,911 --> 00:26:55,413
"You're, like, smaller than some junior A operations."
663
00:26:55,447 --> 00:26:57,182
Well, that's kind of the-- You know,
664
00:26:57,215 --> 00:27:00,852
Mr. Ballard ran lean, to say the least.
665
00:27:00,885 --> 00:27:04,289
The reason he felt that he could sell programs
666
00:27:04,322 --> 00:27:07,258
was because there was no name on the back of the sweater.
667
00:27:07,292 --> 00:27:12,030
And he refused to have a name on the back of Leafs sweaters
668
00:27:12,063 --> 00:27:13,198
because he claimed to the league that
669
00:27:13,231 --> 00:27:14,799
that would hurt program sales.
670
00:27:14,833 --> 00:27:17,135
So when the league mandated that all do,
671
00:27:17,168 --> 00:27:19,971
he made sure that the lettering would be there,
672
00:27:20,005 --> 00:27:21,706
but it would be the same color as the jersey.
673
00:27:21,740 --> 00:27:23,041
So you'd never see it.
674
00:27:23,074 --> 00:27:25,110
Harold believed you have to pay 2.50
675
00:27:25,143 --> 00:27:27,712
to buy that program to make it all worth for him.
676
00:27:27,746 --> 00:27:29,180
You know, Guy Kinnear.
677
00:27:29,214 --> 00:27:30,982
You know, we had Guy Kinnear, his boat mechanic
678
00:27:31,016 --> 00:27:33,218
became the trainer of the team because he liked him.
679
00:27:33,251 --> 00:27:34,886
Yeah. He used to give guys NeoCitran.
680
00:27:34,919 --> 00:27:37,922
like, a player would come in with some kind of
681
00:27:37,956 --> 00:27:39,224
a-- a nagging injury or something
682
00:27:39,257 --> 00:27:40,859
and he would give them a NeoCitran.
683
00:27:40,892 --> 00:27:43,261
Uh, because he was a boat mechanic, right?
684
00:27:43,294 --> 00:27:45,130
He didn't know, he was-- he was Ballard's boat mechanic
685
00:27:45,163 --> 00:27:46,765
up at his cottage.
686
00:27:46,798 --> 00:27:49,768
And he liked him, so he made him the trainer.
687
00:27:49,801 --> 00:27:51,302
He gave him the gig.
688
00:27:51,336 --> 00:27:52,837
He became the trainer of the Toronto Maple Leafs
689
00:27:52,871 --> 00:27:55,006
and he had zero, zero medical knowledge.
690
00:27:55,040 --> 00:27:56,241
None.
691
00:27:56,274 --> 00:27:57,909
And he became the trainer
692
00:27:57,942 --> 00:27:59,811
because Harold wanted to look after his guy.
693
00:28:00,945 --> 00:28:02,147
[narrator] His wife gone,
694
00:28:02,180 --> 00:28:04,082
his prison sentence behind him,
695
00:28:04,115 --> 00:28:06,151
he made the peculiar decision
696
00:28:06,184 --> 00:28:10,789
to move into an apartment inside Maple Leaf Gardens.
697
00:28:11,890 --> 00:28:15,093
Along with his unconventional new living quarters
698
00:28:15,126 --> 00:28:17,829
came an unexpected new friend,
699
00:28:17,862 --> 00:28:20,298
legendary Maple Leaf, King Clancy.
700
00:28:20,331 --> 00:28:23,001
[Iaboni] So now you've got him without his wife.
701
00:28:23,034 --> 00:28:25,370
Uh, King becomes the sidekick.
702
00:28:25,403 --> 00:28:27,539
Uh, he moves to Maple Leaf Gardens,
703
00:28:27,572 --> 00:28:28,907
lives there all the time.
704
00:28:28,940 --> 00:28:31,176
His wife had passed and in a--
705
00:28:31,209 --> 00:28:33,111
I think, a seemingly sentimental way,
706
00:28:33,144 --> 00:28:35,513
just said, I'm going to move lock, stock, and barrel,
707
00:28:35,547 --> 00:28:37,382
and I'm going to go a thousand miles an hour
708
00:28:37,415 --> 00:28:38,917
running the Toronto Maple Leafs.
709
00:28:38,950 --> 00:28:40,985
[McKenny] Like, he lived at the Gardens.
710
00:28:41,553 --> 00:28:46,424
He lived, ate, and slept with the Leafs in the gardens.
711
00:28:47,125 --> 00:28:50,562
One-- Once he took it over, he moved from Montgomery Road
712
00:28:50,595 --> 00:28:52,230
out in the West End,
713
00:28:52,263 --> 00:28:54,532
right into the gardens and-- and never left.
714
00:28:54,566 --> 00:28:56,568
[Brunt] He literally was there all the time.
715
00:28:56,601 --> 00:28:58,169
Yeah, he lived in his apartment,
716
00:28:58,203 --> 00:28:59,537
you know, he was either in his apartment
717
00:28:59,571 --> 00:29:01,139
or in his little bunker watching the game
718
00:29:01,172 --> 00:29:02,807
or somewhere within,
719
00:29:02,841 --> 00:29:04,242
walking the halls of that building.
720
00:29:04,275 --> 00:29:05,877
Well, no light.
721
00:29:05,910 --> 00:29:08,947
And one window that was-- Gave some natural light.
722
00:29:08,980 --> 00:29:10,248
But other than that, dark.
723
00:29:10,281 --> 00:29:13,384
Certainly not a comfortable place
724
00:29:13,418 --> 00:29:14,486
from my point of view.
725
00:29:14,519 --> 00:29:16,354
But he seemed to like it.
726
00:29:16,387 --> 00:29:18,389
He didn't have far to go after work.
727
00:29:18,423 --> 00:29:20,325
Like, can you imagine owning a sports franchise
728
00:29:20,358 --> 00:29:21,960
and you live in it?
729
00:29:21,993 --> 00:29:23,228
[Clark] Harold get up and go down to Hot Stove
730
00:29:23,261 --> 00:29:24,963
and grab a bowl of ice cream
731
00:29:24,996 --> 00:29:26,531
in the middle of-- The only one in the building.
732
00:29:26,564 --> 00:29:28,566
I can go up and play the organ in my house,
733
00:29:28,600 --> 00:29:30,568
and his-- his house is Maple Leaf Gardens,
734
00:29:30,602 --> 00:29:33,071
or I'm sitting in the reds eating a bowl cereal.
735
00:29:33,104 --> 00:29:35,440
To me, as a hockey bird, I think that'd be awesome.
736
00:29:35,473 --> 00:29:37,041
This is my house.
737
00:29:37,075 --> 00:29:38,877
And that was basically how we treated it.
738
00:29:38,910 --> 00:29:41,079
And because he lived there, he was the security guard.
739
00:29:41,112 --> 00:29:42,447
He was the night watchman.
740
00:29:42,480 --> 00:29:43,581
He could appear at any point in time,
741
00:29:43,615 --> 00:29:44,883
anywhere in the building.
742
00:29:44,916 --> 00:29:46,284
You know, it's funny, he, uh,
743
00:29:46,317 --> 00:29:48,153
had about four different exits or entrances,
744
00:29:48,186 --> 00:29:50,221
so you never really knew where he was.
745
00:29:51,890 --> 00:29:54,425
I never had a brother. Or sisters.
746
00:29:55,260 --> 00:29:58,163
And consequently, I had to latch on to somebody
747
00:29:58,196 --> 00:30:00,365
and thank God I latched onto King.
748
00:30:00,398 --> 00:30:02,267
But he had to be special to put up with you.
749
00:30:02,300 --> 00:30:04,969
Well, I would say that's probably the reason
750
00:30:05,003 --> 00:30:07,238
that I thought so much of him, because, you know what?
751
00:30:07,272 --> 00:30:08,973
That kind of a son of a bitch I am.
752
00:30:09,007 --> 00:30:11,176
And it takes a--
753
00:30:11,209 --> 00:30:13,178
it takes a pretty good person to put up with me.
754
00:30:13,211 --> 00:30:14,946
[narrator] King Clancy was beloved
755
00:30:14,979 --> 00:30:17,215
by players and fans alike,
756
00:30:17,248 --> 00:30:20,518
but his role with the Leafs wasn't well-defined.
757
00:30:21,052 --> 00:30:25,323
Public relations, interim coach, team mascot.
758
00:30:25,356 --> 00:30:26,524
He did it all.
759
00:30:26,558 --> 00:30:29,127
But Clancy's main responsibility
760
00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:32,397
was to be Harold Ballard's best friend.
761
00:30:32,430 --> 00:30:33,965
[Brunt] King was a delightful guy.
762
00:30:33,998 --> 00:30:35,433
Distracted Harold.
763
00:30:35,466 --> 00:30:37,101
He was kind of, to me, he was more like the,
764
00:30:37,135 --> 00:30:38,670
you know, court jester kind of guy, right?
765
00:30:38,703 --> 00:30:41,573
That kept Harold occupied so he didn't cut off
766
00:30:41,606 --> 00:30:42,874
more people's heads.
767
00:30:43,508 --> 00:30:46,578
And kind of distracted him, made him-- made him smile.
768
00:30:46,611 --> 00:30:48,179
That's kind of-- I always thought
769
00:30:48,213 --> 00:30:49,480
that was kind of King's role.
770
00:30:49,881 --> 00:30:51,583
[King] You know, a lot of people say,
771
00:30:51,616 --> 00:30:53,251
uh, Mr. Ballard is tough.
772
00:30:53,284 --> 00:30:55,587
Mr. Ballard is this. Mr. Ballard is that.
773
00:30:55,620 --> 00:30:57,922
Mr. Ballard, to my way of thinking,
774
00:30:57,956 --> 00:31:00,992
is one of the greatest people that I ever met.
775
00:31:01,025 --> 00:31:02,527
He's a class individual.
776
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:04,162
He says things at times
777
00:31:04,195 --> 00:31:07,098
that he doesn't-- It just-- it just comes out.
778
00:31:07,131 --> 00:31:08,366
[Harold] We look like a couple of those
779
00:31:08,399 --> 00:31:09,667
God damn missionaries, don't we?
780
00:31:09,701 --> 00:31:11,502
Both of them had lost their wives,
781
00:31:11,536 --> 00:31:13,504
so they really didn't have any responsibilities to anybody.
782
00:31:13,538 --> 00:31:15,974
So he replaced his wife with King Clancy
783
00:31:16,007 --> 00:31:18,142
and the two of them, they were just like brothers
784
00:31:18,176 --> 00:31:19,644
who were born at the hip.
785
00:31:20,245 --> 00:31:22,080
[narrator] Ballard had his problems
786
00:31:22,113 --> 00:31:23,615
for a good part of the '70s,
787
00:31:23,648 --> 00:31:27,418
but in 1977, seemingly out of nowhere,
788
00:31:27,452 --> 00:31:30,021
the best Leaf team in a decade emerged.
789
00:31:30,054 --> 00:31:33,224
That unexpectedly remarkable club featured
790
00:31:33,258 --> 00:31:36,261
two of the top goal scorers in the NHL.
791
00:31:36,294 --> 00:31:38,263
A couple of blue-liners who could stack up
792
00:31:38,296 --> 00:31:41,332
against anyone, a hotshot kid in goal,
793
00:31:41,366 --> 00:31:45,069
Dave "Tiger" Williams, and an innovative coach
794
00:31:45,103 --> 00:31:48,306
nicknamed "Captain Video" behind the bench.
795
00:31:48,339 --> 00:31:51,242
He's a very intelligent fella, as far as hockey goes.
796
00:31:51,276 --> 00:31:53,177
Matter of fact, he's an intelligent fella, period.
797
00:31:53,211 --> 00:31:56,714
He's a schoolteacher and he's a great man for detail
798
00:31:56,748 --> 00:31:58,383
and he's a great man for discipline.
799
00:31:58,416 --> 00:32:00,618
And I think he's a great man for everything
800
00:32:00,652 --> 00:32:02,120
that a young fella needs today
801
00:32:02,153 --> 00:32:03,721
and that's the reason I hired him.
802
00:32:03,755 --> 00:32:06,424
They had a really good thing going in the late '70s.
803
00:32:06,457 --> 00:32:09,494
The Leafs were a contender against the Islanders
804
00:32:09,527 --> 00:32:11,329
when they beat the Islanders out.
805
00:32:11,362 --> 00:32:13,197
[announcer] Turnbull clears ahead to McDonald.
806
00:32:13,231 --> 00:32:15,533
McDonald, he scores!
807
00:32:15,566 --> 00:32:17,702
McDonald wins it!
808
00:32:17,735 --> 00:32:19,604
Lanny McDonald and the Leafs win it
809
00:32:19,637 --> 00:32:22,473
two to one in a goal by Lanny McDonald.
810
00:32:22,507 --> 00:32:24,409
[Parrish] The greatest moment in Leaf history,
811
00:32:24,442 --> 00:32:27,545
really, over the last-- Probably going back to 1967.
812
00:32:27,578 --> 00:32:29,213
[McDonald] Unbelievable series.
813
00:32:29,247 --> 00:32:32,750
But our team was so beat up, lost to Montreal
814
00:32:32,784 --> 00:32:38,289
in four straight and we still were close in those games.
815
00:32:38,323 --> 00:32:40,091
[Ralph] They should’ve beat Montreal,
816
00:32:40,124 --> 00:32:41,292
but Börje got hurt.
817
00:32:41,793 --> 00:32:45,063
And once he was done, they were pretty well cooked.
818
00:32:45,096 --> 00:32:47,031
[Cherry] Now, when they beat out the Islanders,
819
00:32:47,065 --> 00:32:48,766
they were only about a player away
820
00:32:48,800 --> 00:32:51,302
from a Stanley Cup. They were a good club.
821
00:32:51,336 --> 00:32:53,338
We knew we were on the right track.
822
00:32:53,371 --> 00:32:57,141
And yet within 365 days of that, it had all fallen apart.
823
00:32:57,175 --> 00:32:59,110
That team could have gone the distance.
824
00:32:59,143 --> 00:33:00,278
And then the next year, of course,
825
00:33:00,311 --> 00:33:01,713
everything was broken up.
826
00:33:01,746 --> 00:33:04,682
And then I think things went south from there.
827
00:33:04,716 --> 00:33:08,753
They just let everybody go and they got nothing.
828
00:33:08,786 --> 00:33:10,421
I'm not paying that guy that money.
829
00:33:10,455 --> 00:33:13,358
I'm not pay-- And the WHA was paying them.
830
00:33:13,391 --> 00:33:14,692
That's when they lost the club.
831
00:33:14,726 --> 00:33:16,194
[narrator] The following season,
832
00:33:16,227 --> 00:33:18,296
the decimated team struggled.
833
00:33:18,329 --> 00:33:20,832
We're not improving the way I thought we would.
834
00:33:20,865 --> 00:33:22,567
[narrator] And Ballard knew exactly
835
00:33:22,600 --> 00:33:25,470
who to blame for the team's woes.
836
00:33:25,503 --> 00:33:26,804
The coach.
837
00:33:26,838 --> 00:33:28,206
[Sittler] Roger Neilson.
838
00:33:28,639 --> 00:33:31,242
Quality man, quality coach.
839
00:33:31,275 --> 00:33:33,444
We loved playing for the guy. Had us prepared.
840
00:33:33,478 --> 00:33:36,848
Neilson was a very different man from Harold Ballard.
841
00:33:36,881 --> 00:33:40,418
He was an intellectual. He read books with no pictures.
842
00:33:40,451 --> 00:33:43,521
He had interests outside hockey.
843
00:33:43,554 --> 00:33:46,657
He tried to bring the 1970s
844
00:33:46,691 --> 00:33:49,794
to Maple Leaf Gardens, which had a fence around it,
845
00:33:50,261 --> 00:33:52,497
concealing the 1930s within.
846
00:33:52,530 --> 00:33:55,133
[Ormsby] And his nickname was "Captain Video" because,
847
00:33:55,166 --> 00:33:58,770
at least for Leafs' purposes, he was using video
848
00:33:58,803 --> 00:34:00,705
to show players, "Here's where you broke down,
849
00:34:00,738 --> 00:34:02,473
here's where you did a great job."
850
00:34:02,507 --> 00:34:05,243
This was all very new to the Toronto Maple Leafs.
851
00:34:05,276 --> 00:34:07,145
So I think, you know, there was some hope
852
00:34:07,178 --> 00:34:08,579
at that point, the late '70s,
853
00:34:08,613 --> 00:34:10,548
that maybe, "Oh, we are going to go on to,
854
00:34:10,581 --> 00:34:11,883
you know, the next century trying to
855
00:34:11,916 --> 00:34:13,618
move ahead of the game a little bit."
856
00:34:13,651 --> 00:34:15,286
The team the year before had gone
857
00:34:15,319 --> 00:34:17,355
to the semifinals and knocked off the Islanders.
858
00:34:17,388 --> 00:34:18,656
And then the next year,
859
00:34:18,689 --> 00:34:20,324
they were struggling to be a 500 team.
860
00:34:20,758 --> 00:34:23,327
So he was anticipating them to get better.
861
00:34:23,361 --> 00:34:24,862
Instead of getting better, they were--
862
00:34:24,896 --> 00:34:26,631
they were hanging on and hanging on.
863
00:34:26,664 --> 00:34:28,900
The style that Roger played was always
864
00:34:28,933 --> 00:34:31,202
a defensive style and it was boring.
865
00:34:31,803 --> 00:34:34,705
And a lot of the people in the media would influence
866
00:34:34,739 --> 00:34:36,407
Harold Ballard's thinking.
867
00:34:36,441 --> 00:34:38,843
"Is this it? Are you going to get rid of them now?"
868
00:34:38,876 --> 00:34:40,578
And whether Ballard said, "Yeah, he's as good as gone,"
869
00:34:40,611 --> 00:34:41,879
you know, I could just see him saying,
870
00:34:41,913 --> 00:34:43,548
"Oh, yeah, he's as good as gone."
871
00:34:43,581 --> 00:34:44,816
Or, "Yeah, there'll be somebody else
872
00:34:44,849 --> 00:34:46,350
behind the bench on Saturday night."
873
00:34:46,384 --> 00:34:47,919
And that-- that's all he needed.
874
00:34:47,952 --> 00:34:50,188
He just needed somebody to fuel that--
875
00:34:50,221 --> 00:34:52,290
You know, to spark the-- the match.
876
00:34:52,323 --> 00:34:53,658
[Cherry] He's one of the best coaches
877
00:34:53,691 --> 00:34:55,860
in the National Hockey, Captain Video.
878
00:34:55,893 --> 00:34:58,629
He works at it night and day, but I don't like his style.
879
00:34:58,663 --> 00:35:00,231
You got to put on a show.
880
00:35:00,264 --> 00:35:02,500
The game is entertainment and he plays
881
00:35:02,533 --> 00:35:04,702
that defensive hockey, defensive hockey,
882
00:35:04,735 --> 00:35:06,437
although they're not doing so well this year.
883
00:35:06,471 --> 00:35:07,805
And it's deadly dull.
884
00:35:07,839 --> 00:35:10,174
Right up to game time, it wasn't clear
885
00:35:10,208 --> 00:35:11,843
who would replace Roger Neilson,
886
00:35:11,876 --> 00:35:15,513
the man fired yesterday as coach of the Maple Leafs.
887
00:35:15,546 --> 00:35:16,781
Now, we're out of a coach.
888
00:35:17,281 --> 00:35:20,384
So, I ran practices along with Lanny and Tiger
889
00:35:20,418 --> 00:35:22,320
for a few days while they're scrambling around.
890
00:35:22,353 --> 00:35:24,722
And again, the media is making a circus of this.
891
00:35:24,755 --> 00:35:26,791
A number of us went to Jim Gregory and said,
892
00:35:26,824 --> 00:35:29,260
"Listen, the best guy for the job for the rest
893
00:35:29,293 --> 00:35:30,962
of the season for sure is Roger Neilson."
894
00:35:30,995 --> 00:35:33,965
The players begged him not to let him go.
895
00:35:33,998 --> 00:35:34,966
Then he says,
896
00:35:34,999 --> 00:35:36,701
"Why don't you come back Saturday and we'll put
897
00:35:36,734 --> 00:35:38,302
a paper bag over your head
898
00:35:38,336 --> 00:35:40,471
and then we'll unveil it after the warm-ups."
899
00:35:40,505 --> 00:35:42,306
So, he wanted Roger to wear this bag.
900
00:35:42,340 --> 00:35:43,841
I remember getting ready to go out on the ice.
901
00:35:43,875 --> 00:35:46,277
The media didn't know, they were gonna just
902
00:35:46,310 --> 00:35:48,446
go behind the bench when the national anthem started.
903
00:35:48,479 --> 00:35:50,948
And there's the coach, Roger Neilson, back.
904
00:35:50,982 --> 00:35:53,384
I remember standing inside the dressing room
905
00:35:53,417 --> 00:35:55,753
waiting for the signal to go, for the start of the game,
906
00:35:55,786 --> 00:35:57,688
and Ballard's there with a bag,
907
00:35:57,722 --> 00:35:59,490
"Yeah, put it on, put it on."
908
00:35:59,524 --> 00:36:01,325
Roger's kinda sheepish looking and we're kind of there--
909
00:36:01,359 --> 00:36:03,828
"Just for real, you know, wear the frigging bag and stand
910
00:36:03,861 --> 00:36:05,663
at the national anthem, then pop it up."
911
00:36:05,696 --> 00:36:07,398
And I remember standing out there
912
00:36:07,431 --> 00:36:10,835
because I was near the dressing room area
913
00:36:10,868 --> 00:36:13,437
and it was just so crowded, you know, media and whatever,
914
00:36:13,471 --> 00:36:15,873
just waiting to see Roger come out.
915
00:36:15,907 --> 00:36:17,675
But that was insane.
916
00:36:17,708 --> 00:36:19,977
They were talking about sending me out first.
917
00:36:21,546 --> 00:36:23,314
[laughs]
918
00:36:23,347 --> 00:36:25,449
And I was-- I was mortified.
919
00:36:25,483 --> 00:36:27,885
But it was almost like a clown act...
920
00:36:29,453 --> 00:36:31,355
to send him out with a bag over his head.
921
00:36:31,389 --> 00:36:33,791
Come on, you don't do those things.
922
00:36:33,824 --> 00:36:36,360
[announcer] Here comes Roger Neilson.
923
00:36:37,094 --> 00:36:39,463
And the crowd is aware of it now.
924
00:36:40,164 --> 00:36:42,667
The crowd did not know that Roger Neilson
925
00:36:42,700 --> 00:36:45,503
would be back on the bench until this very moment.
926
00:36:45,536 --> 00:36:46,804
And they are standing.
927
00:36:47,371 --> 00:36:49,373
Have you ever seen anything like this
928
00:36:49,407 --> 00:36:50,741
in all the years of hockey?
929
00:36:50,775 --> 00:36:52,543
This is like a soap opera here.
930
00:36:52,577 --> 00:36:54,645
[Roger] The same fans have been, uh...
931
00:36:56,347 --> 00:36:58,282
demanding my scalp, all of a sudden
932
00:36:58,316 --> 00:37:01,285
just looking the other way and cheering me like we, uh...
933
00:37:02,753 --> 00:37:05,423
just won the Stanley Cup, so it was quite a thing.
934
00:37:05,456 --> 00:37:06,857
It was really embarrassing.
935
00:37:06,891 --> 00:37:10,995
Uh, But again, to Harold that was the great show.
936
00:37:11,028 --> 00:37:13,965
I can do something and, you know,
937
00:37:13,998 --> 00:37:16,534
then everybody's going to be talking about me.
938
00:37:16,567 --> 00:37:19,303
And I'm going to be sitting in that little box
939
00:37:19,337 --> 00:37:22,039
in the corner of the garden with a big smile on my face
940
00:37:22,073 --> 00:37:23,975
and laughing my butt off.
941
00:37:24,008 --> 00:37:25,409
[Ballard] Those guys don't worry about promotion
942
00:37:25,443 --> 00:37:27,011
or anything like that anyway.
943
00:37:27,044 --> 00:37:29,513
You know, maybe, there's been a lot of fun.
944
00:37:30,081 --> 00:37:31,816
You know, life's not so serious as all that
945
00:37:31,849 --> 00:37:34,385
you can make a few fun things out of it.
946
00:37:34,418 --> 00:37:36,988
It was obviously destructive, and it was obviously cruel,
947
00:37:37,021 --> 00:37:38,589
and it was obviously done on a whim.
948
00:37:38,623 --> 00:37:40,725
It wasn't like there was a plan. [laughs]
949
00:37:40,758 --> 00:37:42,360
You know? There wasn't a plan ever.
950
00:37:42,393 --> 00:37:44,895
He just did whatever the hell he felt like.
951
00:37:44,929 --> 00:37:47,098
It's, you know, it's a toy, right?
952
00:37:47,131 --> 00:37:50,601
[announcer] Roger Neilson back on the Leaf bench once again.
953
00:37:51,035 --> 00:37:54,639
Leaf owner Harold Ballard said he hadn't really fired Neilson.
954
00:37:54,672 --> 00:37:56,440
He just wanted to shake up the team,
955
00:37:56,474 --> 00:37:58,075
which had been in a slump.
956
00:37:58,109 --> 00:37:59,710
Now, listen.
957
00:37:59,744 --> 00:38:01,312
Who told you that I interfered with the team?
958
00:38:01,812 --> 00:38:03,414
[interviewer] Anyone knows that!
959
00:38:03,447 --> 00:38:04,849
No, never interfered with the team in my life.
960
00:38:04,882 --> 00:38:05,950
[interviewer] You've never interfered?
961
00:38:05,983 --> 00:38:07,084
Never interfered.
962
00:38:07,118 --> 00:38:08,753
Never got in the dressing room,
963
00:38:08,786 --> 00:38:10,988
except once when I had the trouble with Neilson.
964
00:38:11,022 --> 00:38:12,990
I went in there and straightened the guys out
965
00:38:13,024 --> 00:38:14,458
for five games, then they went back
966
00:38:14,492 --> 00:38:15,693
to the same old lullaby.
967
00:38:16,227 --> 00:38:18,062
[narrator] After being swept in the playoffs
968
00:38:18,095 --> 00:38:20,865
by Montreal for the second straight year,
969
00:38:20,898 --> 00:38:22,867
Roger Neilsen is fired,
970
00:38:22,900 --> 00:38:26,637
along with highly respected hockey man, Jim Gregory,
971
00:38:26,671 --> 00:38:28,572
the Leafs' general manager.
972
00:38:29,040 --> 00:38:30,841
Jim Gregory was a great hockey man
973
00:38:30,875 --> 00:38:34,378
and a great person, you know, and Harold was fortunate,
974
00:38:34,779 --> 00:38:36,814
in my mind, to have a guy like that running it.
975
00:38:36,847 --> 00:38:38,416
Now, if he just let him do that
976
00:38:38,449 --> 00:38:41,719
and do his things and give him the authority
977
00:38:41,752 --> 00:38:43,921
to spend the money that you might have to spend
978
00:38:43,954 --> 00:38:46,057
to keep an extra player rather than,
979
00:38:46,090 --> 00:38:47,358
you know, cut into it,
980
00:38:48,092 --> 00:38:50,394
uh, we probably would have had more success.
981
00:38:50,428 --> 00:38:52,863
He had the best hockey mind going in Jim Gregory.
982
00:38:52,897 --> 00:38:55,166
He had the most underrated Maple Leafs general manager,
983
00:38:55,199 --> 00:38:58,169
executive, most-- As beloved a guy as there would be
984
00:38:58,202 --> 00:39:00,438
in the National Hockey League in him.
985
00:39:00,471 --> 00:39:02,640
Jim Gregory started working there when he was 21 years old
986
00:39:02,673 --> 00:39:04,508
and Harold Ballard saw him as a kid.
987
00:39:04,542 --> 00:39:06,644
That's the worst thing I ever saw him do.
988
00:39:07,611 --> 00:39:09,113
When he fired Jim Gregory.
989
00:39:09,146 --> 00:39:10,481
We were on our way.
990
00:39:11,282 --> 00:39:15,052
But somehow or other he got enamored with Imlach,
991
00:39:15,486 --> 00:39:17,088
and brought him in.
992
00:39:17,121 --> 00:39:19,724
[narrator] After cleaning house,
993
00:39:19,757 --> 00:39:22,660
Ballard tried to resurrect the Leafs' glory days
994
00:39:22,693 --> 00:39:24,962
by bringing back the man who coached them
995
00:39:24,995 --> 00:39:27,565
to four Stanley Cups in the '60s.
996
00:39:27,598 --> 00:39:29,166
George "Punch" Imlach,
997
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:31,902
was named the new general manager.
998
00:39:32,403 --> 00:39:35,139
Mr. Ballard knows me, and as I pointed out to him,
999
00:39:35,172 --> 00:39:37,675
my success in the hockey business
1000
00:39:37,708 --> 00:39:39,210
with the Maple Leafs and with Buffalo
1001
00:39:39,243 --> 00:39:41,078
was that I ran the show.
1002
00:39:41,112 --> 00:39:43,481
And so if you want me to have the same success,
1003
00:39:43,514 --> 00:39:45,149
then I have to run it.
1004
00:39:45,182 --> 00:39:47,118
Certainly, there's no sense of paying me a lot of money
1005
00:39:47,151 --> 00:39:48,753
and not letting me do the job
1006
00:39:48,786 --> 00:39:50,521
that I'm supposed to be able to do.
1007
00:39:50,554 --> 00:39:53,190
Harold got involved, brought Punch back
1008
00:39:53,224 --> 00:39:55,860
and then everything just went to shit after that.
1009
00:39:55,893 --> 00:39:58,462
Harold went for the bright lights of Punch.
1010
00:39:58,496 --> 00:40:00,498
Punch convinced him on a quick fix.
1011
00:40:00,531 --> 00:40:02,166
[Vaive] Just when things started to get good,
1012
00:40:02,199 --> 00:40:04,568
Harold would step in and do something stupid
1013
00:40:04,602 --> 00:40:06,704
and-- and turn it upside down.
1014
00:40:06,737 --> 00:40:08,172
[reporter] So you're telling us right here and now
1015
00:40:08,205 --> 00:40:09,740
that Imlach will run the hockey team
1016
00:40:09,774 --> 00:40:11,075
without any interference at all from you?
1017
00:40:11,108 --> 00:40:12,176
They won't have any interference,
1018
00:40:12,209 --> 00:40:13,677
as far as I'm concerned.
1019
00:40:13,711 --> 00:40:15,646
We will have talks and suggestions
1020
00:40:15,679 --> 00:40:17,581
to one another, but that's not interference.
1021
00:40:17,615 --> 00:40:19,183
It's a business deal.
1022
00:40:19,216 --> 00:40:21,519
Punch is smart enough and knows enough about hockey
1023
00:40:21,552 --> 00:40:23,821
that he's not going to try and take it all on himself.
1024
00:40:23,854 --> 00:40:25,856
Imlach's hired in September.
1025
00:40:25,890 --> 00:40:29,026
I get a call from the secretary at Maple Leaf Gardens
1026
00:40:29,059 --> 00:40:30,928
that Mr. Imlach would like to see you in his office,
1027
00:40:30,961 --> 00:40:32,997
and I walk into Punch's office.
1028
00:40:33,030 --> 00:40:34,999
And this is the first time I met him, right?
1029
00:40:35,032 --> 00:40:36,700
And this is kind of how the meeting went.
1030
00:40:36,734 --> 00:40:38,736
Um, you go in and there's a board table there,
1031
00:40:38,769 --> 00:40:41,806
and I'm sitting at one end and he's standing up,
1032
00:40:41,839 --> 00:40:43,541
and he goes, "Just who do you think you are?"
1033
00:40:43,574 --> 00:40:45,009
And then he said to me, he says,
1034
00:40:45,042 --> 00:40:46,777
"My captains have always been management,
1035
00:40:46,811 --> 00:40:48,179
and they do what management says."
1036
00:40:48,212 --> 00:40:50,147
And I said, "Well, I believe a captain is
1037
00:40:50,181 --> 00:40:51,849
a go-between between management.
1038
00:40:51,882 --> 00:40:53,951
We're all in this together to work to achieve
1039
00:40:53,984 --> 00:40:56,187
the same common goals," and all that sort of stuff.
1040
00:40:56,854 --> 00:40:58,823
And then the next thing he said, he said,
1041
00:40:58,856 --> 00:41:00,758
"And Alan Eagleson," he says, "he's your player agent."
1042
00:41:00,791 --> 00:41:02,927
He said, uh, "You know, when Eagleson says it's black,"
1043
00:41:02,960 --> 00:41:04,728
he says, "I say it's white."
1044
00:41:04,762 --> 00:41:06,230
And he says, "You're going to be stuck in the middle.
1045
00:41:06,263 --> 00:41:08,199
"There's no gray area here, so I would suggest
1046
00:41:08,232 --> 00:41:10,167
you might want to look at getting another agent.
1047
00:41:10,568 --> 00:41:13,170
And he sayas, "Furthermore, you've got a no-trade contract.
1048
00:41:13,204 --> 00:41:15,072
And I don't believe in no-trade contracts,
1049
00:41:15,105 --> 00:41:16,974
and I'm going to test you in court."
1050
00:41:17,007 --> 00:41:18,742
Some people raised the question
1051
00:41:18,776 --> 00:41:22,213
about whether or not you have lost track
1052
00:41:22,246 --> 00:41:24,582
of the new generation, that you don't relate to them
1053
00:41:24,615 --> 00:41:26,116
as well as you did to the players
1054
00:41:26,150 --> 00:41:27,885
in the '50s and '60s.
1055
00:41:27,918 --> 00:41:30,821
It can't be, uh, funny people doing it their way,
1056
00:41:30,855 --> 00:41:33,224
it’s got to be a team way of doing it,
1057
00:41:33,257 --> 00:41:34,892
and the coaches and the managers,
1058
00:41:34,925 --> 00:41:37,027
they call which way that's got to be done
1059
00:41:37,061 --> 00:41:39,797
and the player has to adjust himself to the team,
1060
00:41:39,830 --> 00:41:41,932
not the team or the rest of the players
1061
00:41:41,966 --> 00:41:45,836
adjusting to the-- the ways one certain person plays.
1062
00:41:45,870 --> 00:41:47,271
You never win that way.
1063
00:41:47,304 --> 00:41:49,273
That's just a fallacy to think you could.
1064
00:41:49,306 --> 00:41:51,842
I think it was clear that Punch Imlach
1065
00:41:51,876 --> 00:41:57,147
in 1979 did not understand the young hockey player of 1979.
1066
00:41:57,181 --> 00:42:00,050
I don't think that's my brilliant observation.
1067
00:42:00,551 --> 00:42:03,020
I think the game had passed him by.
1068
00:42:03,053 --> 00:42:06,857
[Sittler] I'm sure he saw me as a bit of a threat,
1069
00:42:06,891 --> 00:42:08,626
popular guy, a little bit of power,
1070
00:42:08,659 --> 00:42:11,729
and that he wanted to bring his own players in
1071
00:42:11,762 --> 00:42:14,598
and make his own team so that it was Punch’s team.
1072
00:42:14,632 --> 00:42:17,735
[McDonald] Punch did things to upset the guys.
1073
00:42:17,768 --> 00:42:20,704
He would have us come down for two practices.
1074
00:42:20,738 --> 00:42:23,207
You'd come very first thing in the morning,
1075
00:42:23,240 --> 00:42:27,244
in rush hour, and then you'd have to stay downtown
1076
00:42:27,278 --> 00:42:29,947
'til a late afternoon practice
1077
00:42:29,980 --> 00:42:33,083
so he could send you home in rush hour.
1078
00:42:33,117 --> 00:42:36,787
And it was just to tick the guys off.
1079
00:42:36,820 --> 00:42:38,689
He was just a bad person.
1080
00:42:38,722 --> 00:42:42,693
He was just that snake that lived in the sewer hole.
1081
00:42:42,726 --> 00:42:44,628
It was a circus
1082
00:42:45,095 --> 00:42:46,931
where it didn't need to be a circus.
1083
00:42:46,964 --> 00:42:48,732
He was a ringmaster.
1084
00:42:48,766 --> 00:42:51,402
He was a carnival barker, but the tent was already full.
1085
00:42:51,435 --> 00:42:53,837
All he needed to do was hire competent people
1086
00:42:53,871 --> 00:42:55,172
and let them run the hockey club.
1087
00:42:55,205 --> 00:42:56,307
But he couldn't do that.
1088
00:42:57,875 --> 00:42:59,376
[narrator] Selected eighth overall
1089
00:42:59,410 --> 00:43:02,046
in the 1970 NHL draft,
1090
00:43:02,079 --> 00:43:04,248
Sittler was the face of the team.
1091
00:43:04,882 --> 00:43:08,319
Despite his popularity, or because of it,
1092
00:43:08,352 --> 00:43:11,322
Sittler’s relationship with Imlach was rocky,
1093
00:43:11,355 --> 00:43:14,992
which meant his relationship with Ballard was rocky.
1094
00:43:15,726 --> 00:43:19,797
I think, honestly, he respected me as a person.
1095
00:43:19,830 --> 00:43:21,799
He said that publicly a number of times.
1096
00:43:21,832 --> 00:43:23,968
I was a hard working guy, a loyal employee,
1097
00:43:24,001 --> 00:43:25,402
a dedicated Maple Leaf.
1098
00:43:25,636 --> 00:43:28,072
I think Darryl, when he came here from London
1099
00:43:28,105 --> 00:43:30,341
as a first round pick, he did everything
1100
00:43:30,374 --> 00:43:34,678
he possibly could to carry the Leaf colors.
1101
00:43:34,712 --> 00:43:37,281
Once he was named captain, he took it up to the next level
1102
00:43:37,314 --> 00:43:40,918
that he was the team spokesman and it was his job.
1103
00:43:40,951 --> 00:43:44,922
So, he weathered the storm constantly in the media.
1104
00:43:44,955 --> 00:43:47,925
He was always up front, always talking to reporters,
1105
00:43:47,958 --> 00:43:50,728
regardless of what was going on behind the scenes.
1106
00:43:50,761 --> 00:43:52,162
And he rarely let it out.
1107
00:43:52,196 --> 00:43:53,464
Everybody really worked hard tonight,
1108
00:43:53,497 --> 00:43:54,798
really gave it everything they had.
1109
00:43:54,832 --> 00:43:56,467
And we finally beat the Flyers.
1110
00:43:56,500 --> 00:43:58,369
It's good-- it’s good to see, but that's only one game.
1111
00:43:58,402 --> 00:44:01,438
They make it a seven game series that you have to win four in,
1112
00:44:01,472 --> 00:44:03,774
so there’s three more tough ones yet.
1113
00:44:03,807 --> 00:44:05,409
You're the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs
1114
00:44:05,442 --> 00:44:08,212
in 1976, you have a 10-point night,
1115
00:44:08,245 --> 00:44:10,748
you have a five-goal playoff game.
1116
00:44:10,781 --> 00:44:13,150
You scored the winning goal in the Canada Cup.
1117
00:44:13,183 --> 00:44:14,952
I mean, he's a hero.
1118
00:44:15,753 --> 00:44:19,023
[narrator] The tension between Sittler and Imlach exploded.
1119
00:44:19,390 --> 00:44:22,359
Imlach wanted to show the world who was boss,
1120
00:44:22,393 --> 00:44:25,329
so he convinced Ballard to do the unthinkable.
1121
00:44:25,763 --> 00:44:27,865
[Eagleson] I got a call from Ballard, says--
1122
00:44:27,898 --> 00:44:29,233
said, "You're going to Philly."
1123
00:44:29,266 --> 00:44:32,136
And I said, "Harold, we've got a deal.
1124
00:44:32,169 --> 00:44:33,837
And you signed it."
1125
00:44:33,871 --> 00:44:36,874
So, it's no trade, and he's not going anywhere.
1126
00:44:36,907 --> 00:44:39,309
Lanny McDonald is exceptional, I would say.
1127
00:44:41,445 --> 00:44:42,479
Two days later...
1128
00:44:43,480 --> 00:44:45,382
they traded Lanny McDonald.
1129
00:44:46,050 --> 00:44:48,852
Darryl and I, we acted for Lanny too,
1130
00:44:48,886 --> 00:44:53,057
figured it was a way to teach me and Darryl
1131
00:44:53,090 --> 00:44:56,894
that he'll get me some way or the other or get Darryl.
1132
00:44:56,927 --> 00:45:00,964
[rock music playing]
1133
00:45:01,432 --> 00:45:03,967
[McDonald] Friends in Toronto would phone up and say,
1134
00:45:04,001 --> 00:45:06,937
"Oh, my gosh, thank goodness you got traded.
1135
00:45:06,970 --> 00:45:08,872
You're out of the madhouse."
1136
00:45:08,906 --> 00:45:13,210
But that first moment when you get traded, it's devastating.
1137
00:45:13,243 --> 00:45:15,412
I felt things were deteriorating in Toronto.
1138
00:45:15,446 --> 00:45:17,448
I didn't feel that, uh,
1139
00:45:17,481 --> 00:45:20,317
uh, what they were doing to the hockey club was helping.
1140
00:45:20,350 --> 00:45:22,152
I felt they were tearing down the players
1141
00:45:22,186 --> 00:45:25,022
and any time you start tearing down the players, uh,
1142
00:45:25,055 --> 00:45:26,223
you're tearing the heart and soul
1143
00:45:26,256 --> 00:45:28,058
out of your hockey club.
1144
00:45:28,092 --> 00:45:30,260
It's not as if I-- I'm just talking about sour grapes,
1145
00:45:30,294 --> 00:45:33,864
but the fans, uh, are very dissatisfied
1146
00:45:33,897 --> 00:45:35,833
and I can't blame them because, uh,
1147
00:45:35,866 --> 00:45:37,468
that is a hockey dynasty
1148
00:45:37,501 --> 00:45:39,570
and if that goes downhill, the whole league's hurting.
1149
00:45:39,603 --> 00:45:41,271
It was completely out of spite.
1150
00:45:41,305 --> 00:45:44,174
That was Punch when he came back from Buffalo.
1151
00:45:44,641 --> 00:45:47,478
Uh, basically, letting everyone know
1152
00:45:47,511 --> 00:45:49,279
that he was in charge.
1153
00:45:49,313 --> 00:45:52,316
And the best way that he was going to show the world
1154
00:45:52,349 --> 00:45:53,951
that he was in charge, well,
1155
00:45:53,984 --> 00:45:55,519
it was going to break up the two best friends,
1156
00:45:55,552 --> 00:45:57,087
Lanny and Darryl.
1157
00:45:57,121 --> 00:45:59,256
So, if you can't move Darryl,
1158
00:45:59,656 --> 00:46:03,127
then you-- you piss off Darryl by trading Lanny.
1159
00:46:03,160 --> 00:46:06,163
That was the great line by Frank Gore in the Toronto Star,
1160
00:46:06,196 --> 00:46:09,533
that Sittler was caught between the devil and the deep blue C.
1161
00:46:09,900 --> 00:46:12,035
The deep blue letter C on his chest,
1162
00:46:12,069 --> 00:46:14,872
where they couldn't work for this man anymore.
1163
00:46:14,905 --> 00:46:16,373
Sittler understood how to succeed
1164
00:46:16,406 --> 00:46:17,975
in the National Hockey League.
1165
00:46:18,008 --> 00:46:20,944
He understood what it took and the sacrifice
1166
00:46:20,978 --> 00:46:22,412
and the work that all of them did
1167
00:46:22,446 --> 00:46:25,249
to get to be one of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
1168
00:46:25,282 --> 00:46:28,252
And then to see that C and that Leaf
1169
00:46:28,285 --> 00:46:30,287
become an object of ridicule...
1170
00:46:30,921 --> 00:46:32,923
that's got to be not only demoralizing,
1171
00:46:32,956 --> 00:46:34,491
it's gotta be very destabilizing.
1172
00:46:34,525 --> 00:46:38,028
To think I wanted so badly,
1173
00:46:38,061 --> 00:46:40,898
I dreamed so hard to wear this sweater,
1174
00:46:41,365 --> 00:46:42,499
and now it's a joke.
1175
00:46:42,533 --> 00:46:44,201
And what happened there was,
1176
00:46:44,234 --> 00:46:46,937
I'd gone through all these months
1177
00:46:46,970 --> 00:46:50,240
of this crap that was going on behind the scenes.
1178
00:46:50,941 --> 00:46:53,544
And I remember specifically saying to myself,
1179
00:46:53,577 --> 00:46:54,845
as I'm driving...
1180
00:46:55,612 --> 00:46:57,281
home, the morning of the morning skate,
1181
00:46:57,314 --> 00:46:59,183
it's a Saturday morning, and Lanny had been traded.
1182
00:47:00,050 --> 00:47:01,118
"Why am I here?
1183
00:47:01,618 --> 00:47:04,154
I'm here to play hockey. That's my job.
1184
00:47:04,188 --> 00:47:05,923
Punch doesn't respect me.
1185
00:47:05,956 --> 00:47:08,058
There's no communication as a captain.
1186
00:47:08,091 --> 00:47:09,993
So, I'm just going to remove the captain
1187
00:47:10,027 --> 00:47:11,094
and go to my job.
1188
00:47:11,128 --> 00:47:12,396
I'm going to show you,
1189
00:47:12,429 --> 00:47:14,231
make sure that I use this terminology,
1190
00:47:14,264 --> 00:47:16,433
the fat guy upstairs and the rest of Canada...
1191
00:47:17,234 --> 00:47:19,269
that I'm a hockey player, I'm going to play hockey.
1192
00:47:19,303 --> 00:47:20,537
That's what I'm paid to do.
1193
00:47:20,571 --> 00:47:21,939
Went back on the ice and played.
1194
00:47:22,306 --> 00:47:24,374
[McDonald] I love him, I respect him,
1195
00:47:24,408 --> 00:47:27,144
and that was his decision.
1196
00:47:27,177 --> 00:47:29,112
So, I back him completely.
1197
00:47:29,613 --> 00:47:31,114
Darryl did everything.
1198
00:47:32,015 --> 00:47:35,219
In spite of a bunch making life miserable for him.
1199
00:47:35,619 --> 00:47:38,121
Up until the trade of Lanny...
1200
00:47:39,690 --> 00:47:42,659
Darryl's position was impeccable
1201
00:47:42,693 --> 00:47:45,929
and nobody had any complaints whatsoever.
1202
00:47:45,963 --> 00:47:48,265
The only thing that hurt him with the public
1203
00:47:48,298 --> 00:47:51,501
was when he took off the C, but I don't blame him for it,
1204
00:47:51,535 --> 00:47:53,203
I commend him for it.
1205
00:47:53,237 --> 00:47:55,572
[Cherry] Oh, yeah. Harold, he was a vindictive guy.
1206
00:47:56,139 --> 00:47:58,442
You crossed him, you-- you paid the price
1207
00:47:58,475 --> 00:48:00,310
and, uh, Sittler paid the price.
1208
00:48:01,745 --> 00:48:04,414
[narrator] Harold Ballard was a man of convictions.
1209
00:48:04,448 --> 00:48:06,483
And not just the legal kind.
1210
00:48:06,516 --> 00:48:09,653
His blind faith in Punch Imlach cost him dearly,
1211
00:48:09,686 --> 00:48:13,056
and his refusal to pay players what they were worth
1212
00:48:13,090 --> 00:48:16,293
compounded an already terrible situation.
1213
00:48:16,326 --> 00:48:20,230
By 1982, Darryl Sittler's fate was sealed,
1214
00:48:20,264 --> 00:48:22,099
but he was the last to know.
1215
00:48:22,132 --> 00:48:23,400
I was making, well, maybe,
1216
00:48:23,433 --> 00:48:25,435
160, 170 grand a year, whatever it was,
1217
00:48:25,469 --> 00:48:27,604
and other guys were making 250, right?
1218
00:48:27,638 --> 00:48:30,007
So I went to Mr. Ballard and I said,
1219
00:48:30,040 --> 00:48:32,643
"Listen, uh, things have changed somewhat.
1220
00:48:32,676 --> 00:48:35,712
Would you consider, uh, moving forward, um,
1221
00:48:35,746 --> 00:48:37,681
signing me a new contract, and, kind of,
1222
00:48:37,714 --> 00:48:39,650
bringing my status up with these other guys?"
1223
00:48:39,683 --> 00:48:41,351
And I remember him saying to me, "Darryl,
1224
00:48:41,385 --> 00:48:43,987
leave it with me, I'll do whatever I can, right?"
1225
00:48:44,488 --> 00:48:46,556
The secretary calls and she says,
1226
00:48:46,590 --> 00:48:48,125
"Mr. Ballard wants to talk to you."
1227
00:48:48,158 --> 00:48:49,559
"Darryl."
1228
00:48:49,593 --> 00:48:51,261
he says, "I've decided what we're going to do."
1229
00:48:51,295 --> 00:48:53,530
We'll trade you to any city you want to go to.
1230
00:48:54,398 --> 00:48:56,300
Come and see me." Like that.
1231
00:48:56,333 --> 00:48:57,401
Yeah, I traded him.
1232
00:48:58,635 --> 00:49:00,170
And it was a tough thing to do.
1233
00:49:02,539 --> 00:49:04,341
But Darryl wanted another contract.
1234
00:49:05,108 --> 00:49:06,977
And Mr. Ballard wouldn't give it to him.
1235
00:49:08,512 --> 00:49:11,014
He wanted to play out the contract that he had.
1236
00:49:12,516 --> 00:49:15,152
And that's what started the brouhaha.
1237
00:49:15,185 --> 00:49:18,455
And that's why Darryl came and asked for a trade.
1238
00:49:18,855 --> 00:49:20,691
[Sittler] And then through the grapevine, so to speak,
1239
00:49:20,724 --> 00:49:22,526
that Harold's saying, "Ah, we're not trading him,
1240
00:49:22,559 --> 00:49:24,194
we're keeping him, we're just--
1241
00:49:24,227 --> 00:49:26,063
we're just gotta motivate him a little bit."
1242
00:49:26,096 --> 00:49:27,597
or something to that effect, which fueled me more, right?
1243
00:49:27,631 --> 00:49:29,499
Like, okay, if you say you're going to trade me,
1244
00:49:29,533 --> 00:49:31,335
we're going to do a deal
1245
00:49:31,368 --> 00:49:33,036
and don't play these games, right?
1246
00:49:33,070 --> 00:49:35,272
Darryl is, you know, starting to get up in age.
1247
00:49:35,739 --> 00:49:37,341
He's still a good player.
1248
00:49:37,708 --> 00:49:41,244
But to try to get equal value
1249
00:49:41,278 --> 00:49:44,214
when you have to trade somebody and you have...
1250
00:49:45,682 --> 00:49:47,718
a certain amount of clubs to trade,
1251
00:49:47,751 --> 00:49:50,721
you can't trade to everybody because he won't go.
1252
00:49:50,754 --> 00:49:52,422
He's got no trade clause.
1253
00:49:52,456 --> 00:49:54,057
Because of my no trade contracts
1254
00:49:54,091 --> 00:49:56,326
I gave them five teams that they could, uh,
1255
00:49:56,360 --> 00:49:58,328
you know, have the opportunity to negotiate with.
1256
00:49:58,362 --> 00:50:00,630
One was Buffalo, Minnesota, Philadelphia,
1257
00:50:00,664 --> 00:50:02,199
or whatever, right?
1258
00:50:02,232 --> 00:50:04,067
And then they finally came to a deal
1259
00:50:04,101 --> 00:50:06,636
with Philadelphia, and that's how I left town.
1260
00:50:06,670 --> 00:50:09,840
My sense was always that the chaos
1261
00:50:09,873 --> 00:50:14,111
that Harold inspired, incited, created,
1262
00:50:14,144 --> 00:50:18,148
led to just a whirlwind of happenstance
1263
00:50:18,181 --> 00:50:22,152
and things going wrong and people blaming other people.
1264
00:50:22,185 --> 00:50:25,088
To me, the promise of the '70s
1265
00:50:25,122 --> 00:50:28,725
ended with Sittler's trade to Philadelphia
1266
00:50:28,759 --> 00:50:30,694
in January of '82.
1267
00:50:30,727 --> 00:50:33,063
[McDonald] Darryl was the one guy
1268
00:50:33,864 --> 00:50:36,366
that, from start to finish,
1269
00:50:36,400 --> 00:50:40,437
should have worn the Maple Leaf jersey forever
1270
00:50:40,470 --> 00:50:42,773
and never gone anywhere.
1271
00:50:42,806 --> 00:50:46,376
[Brunt] They were on the verge of being very, very good.
1272
00:50:46,410 --> 00:50:47,544
They should have been a contender
1273
00:50:47,577 --> 00:50:49,646
in a playoff team for a long time.
1274
00:50:50,480 --> 00:50:51,815
And instead, you know,
1275
00:50:51,848 --> 00:50:54,184
he attacked the foundation players.
1276
00:50:54,217 --> 00:50:56,353
He, you know, he singled guys out.
1277
00:50:56,386 --> 00:50:59,389
He humiliated them. And to what end?
1278
00:50:59,423 --> 00:51:01,191
Like, there's no-- there's no hockey argument
1279
00:51:01,224 --> 00:51:02,559
for what he did.
1280
00:51:02,592 --> 00:51:04,227
There's absolutely no hockey argument.
1281
00:51:04,261 --> 00:51:05,228
I don't think there's any marketing argument
1282
00:51:05,262 --> 00:51:06,530
for what he did.
1283
00:51:06,563 --> 00:51:07,831
There's not any argument for what he does.
1284
00:51:07,864 --> 00:51:09,633
It was kind of, you know...
1285
00:51:10,634 --> 00:51:12,402
cruelty, right?
1286
00:51:12,436 --> 00:51:14,304
Like, it was just kind of done out of cruelty and spite.
1287
00:51:14,337 --> 00:51:17,441
Harold didn't care about winning necessarily.
1288
00:51:17,474 --> 00:51:20,143
He said he wanted to win, but he cared more about the fact
1289
00:51:20,177 --> 00:51:23,413
that he was not the star of that team.
1290
00:51:23,447 --> 00:51:24,881
It was Roger Neilson,
1291
00:51:24,915 --> 00:51:26,450
it was Darryl Sittler, it was Mike Palmateer,
1292
00:51:26,483 --> 00:51:28,418
it was, like, the players and the team
1293
00:51:28,452 --> 00:51:31,288
became above him and he didn't like that one bit.
1294
00:51:31,321 --> 00:51:35,325
[energetic music playing]
1295
00:51:36,793 --> 00:51:39,596
[narrator] Rick Vaive came to Toronto in 1980
1296
00:51:39,629 --> 00:51:41,431
as part of the trade
1297
00:51:41,465 --> 00:51:44,434
that saw fan favorite Tiger Williams go to Vancouver.
1298
00:51:44,468 --> 00:51:48,705
Vaive became the first Leaf to score 50 goals in a season.
1299
00:51:48,738 --> 00:51:52,309
A feat he achieved in three consecutive years.
1300
00:51:52,342 --> 00:51:54,945
Logic suggested that Vaive deserved a raise.
1301
00:51:54,978 --> 00:51:58,782
But logic and Harold Ballard's wallet were at odds.
1302
00:51:58,815 --> 00:52:01,318
Ricky had just scored 50 for the third time,
1303
00:52:01,351 --> 00:52:04,754
and in one of the papers it said,
1304
00:52:04,788 --> 00:52:06,890
"Vaive scores 50 for the third year,"
1305
00:52:06,923 --> 00:52:08,625
or something like that.
1306
00:52:08,658 --> 00:52:10,760
And his contract was up, and underneath it, it said,
1307
00:52:10,794 --> 00:52:12,696
"Looks like Ballard's going to have to loosen
1308
00:52:12,729 --> 00:52:13,697
his purse strings.
1309
00:52:14,431 --> 00:52:16,399
He turned to Ricky, who was right here.
1310
00:52:16,433 --> 00:52:18,635
My head-- My chin was basically on Rick's shoulder.
1311
00:52:18,668 --> 00:52:20,971
So, you know, Harold was right here and he says,
1312
00:52:21,004 --> 00:52:23,273
"If you think you're getting another
1313
00:52:23,306 --> 00:52:25,408
f'ing dime out of me, you're crazy."
1314
00:52:25,442 --> 00:52:27,944
And sits down. And he was dead serious.
1315
00:52:28,545 --> 00:52:31,715
So, as a young guy, I'm like, "Oof, you know,
1316
00:52:31,748 --> 00:52:33,617
this is the owner talking to the captain
1317
00:52:33,650 --> 00:52:35,685
and it's like, well, it's--
1318
00:52:35,719 --> 00:52:37,754
this stuff's, uh, this stuff's real."
1319
00:52:37,787 --> 00:52:40,490
I don't think he gave a shit about the team.
1320
00:52:40,524 --> 00:52:42,359
I-- I honestly don't.
1321
00:52:42,392 --> 00:52:44,761
I think all he cared about was having people in the seats
1322
00:52:44,794 --> 00:52:45,929
and making money.
1323
00:52:45,962 --> 00:52:48,765
And I-- I don't think he cared
1324
00:52:48,798 --> 00:52:51,735
if we won a Stanley Cup or not, I-- I honestly don't.
1325
00:52:51,768 --> 00:52:53,236
[McKenny] I really feel sorry for the players.
1326
00:52:53,270 --> 00:52:54,804
I know they come to the rink
1327
00:52:54,838 --> 00:52:56,540
and they work as hard as they can
1328
00:52:56,573 --> 00:52:58,275
but you can't get that extra work out of yourself
1329
00:52:58,308 --> 00:52:59,709
unless you know you're gonna get some respect
1330
00:52:59,743 --> 00:53:01,411
for the job that you do, so you gotta have it.
1331
00:53:01,444 --> 00:53:02,779
And if that's not going to be there,
1332
00:53:02,812 --> 00:53:04,347
this team is never going to get any better.
1333
00:53:04,381 --> 00:53:05,916
[Ricky] Dan Maloney was kind of--
1334
00:53:05,949 --> 00:53:08,518
you know, he started out a little bit rough as a coach,
1335
00:53:08,552 --> 00:53:10,987
but he was coming around and-- and-- you know,
1336
00:53:11,021 --> 00:53:12,923
we had a couple of good years under him.
1337
00:53:13,623 --> 00:53:15,692
And then he wanted a two-year contract.
1338
00:53:15,725 --> 00:53:17,494
Harold wouldn't give him any more than one.
1339
00:53:17,527 --> 00:53:19,462
So, he left and went to Winnipeg.
1340
00:53:19,496 --> 00:53:21,731
So, you know, we lost the one guy
1341
00:53:21,765 --> 00:53:24,834
that was kind of sort of starting to get it
1342
00:53:24,868 --> 00:53:27,037
and what it took, talking to the players
1343
00:53:27,070 --> 00:53:28,371
and communicating.
1344
00:53:28,805 --> 00:53:31,041
And then all of a sudden he's gone.
1345
00:53:31,074 --> 00:53:33,310
It was one thing after another.
1346
00:53:33,343 --> 00:53:37,314
It was, like, nonstop nonsense, uh, you know, by Harold.
1347
00:53:37,347 --> 00:53:38,949
It was always hard to countenance that
1348
00:53:38,982 --> 00:53:41,384
because Maple Leaf Gardens
1349
00:53:41,418 --> 00:53:43,453
was such a juggernaut financially.
1350
00:53:43,486 --> 00:53:44,854
It was in the '60s
1351
00:53:44,888 --> 00:53:46,890
when he was part of the Silver Seven.
1352
00:53:46,923 --> 00:53:50,327
It was in the '70s when he became the sole owner,
1353
00:53:50,360 --> 00:53:52,729
and it certainly was through the '80s
1354
00:53:52,762 --> 00:53:55,799
when there wasn't a seat to be had at Maple Leaf Gardens
1355
00:53:55,832 --> 00:53:59,569
and the TV contracts for the time were very lucrative.
1356
00:53:59,603 --> 00:54:01,671
And yet he didn't go out
1357
00:54:01,705 --> 00:54:04,040
and invest that money back in the team.
1358
00:54:04,941 --> 00:54:07,644
[Orr] Waiting for the Leafs to win at this point in time,
1359
00:54:07,677 --> 00:54:10,614
is like leaving on the porch light for Jimmy Hoffa.
1360
00:54:11,214 --> 00:54:13,350
[narrator] The turmoil of the '80s
1361
00:54:13,383 --> 00:54:17,487
made the Stanley Cup of 1967 seem like ancient history.
1362
00:54:17,887 --> 00:54:21,524
But Ballard carried on, confident and cocky,
1363
00:54:21,558 --> 00:54:23,627
more worried about the bottom line
1364
00:54:23,660 --> 00:54:25,362
than the blue line.
1365
00:54:25,795 --> 00:54:28,798
The Leafs of the '80s were a woe be gotten group.
1366
00:54:28,832 --> 00:54:31,501
It was pretty crazy, I mean, over those years
1367
00:54:31,534 --> 00:54:33,403
we drafted some pretty good players,
1368
00:54:33,436 --> 00:54:35,805
but Harold, he ran it.
1369
00:54:36,806 --> 00:54:38,108
First of all,
1370
00:54:38,141 --> 00:54:39,943
he wouldn't pay anybody good money.
1371
00:54:39,976 --> 00:54:41,778
He wouldn't pay for a good general manager
1372
00:54:41,811 --> 00:54:43,780
that could make good decisions.
1373
00:54:43,813 --> 00:54:45,582
So those players that we drafted,
1374
00:54:45,615 --> 00:54:47,083
that were good hockey players,
1375
00:54:47,117 --> 00:54:49,653
they were forced into action at 18 years old
1376
00:54:49,686 --> 00:54:51,821
when most of them weren't physically
1377
00:54:51,855 --> 00:54:54,491
or mentally ready to play in the National Hockey League.
1378
00:54:54,858 --> 00:54:56,893
[Leeman] As a young person, you go...
1379
00:54:58,461 --> 00:55:01,431
"Well, you know, it's not so secure here."
1380
00:55:01,464 --> 00:55:05,001
You-- you want to have the feeling of security
1381
00:55:05,035 --> 00:55:07,437
in your-- in your job.
1382
00:55:07,470 --> 00:55:10,473
You know, you don't want people to be afraid for their job,
1383
00:55:10,507 --> 00:55:12,842
if they make one mistake, like, you know, people are--
1384
00:55:12,876 --> 00:55:14,077
Should be allowed to make mistakes
1385
00:55:14,110 --> 00:55:16,479
and they should be allowed to grow.
1386
00:55:16,513 --> 00:55:18,548
And that was never--
1387
00:55:18,581 --> 00:55:19,883
that was never given to...
1388
00:55:20,984 --> 00:55:22,552
any teams in the '80s.
1389
00:55:22,585 --> 00:55:24,988
[Clark] And being a rookie at 18 in the NHL,
1390
00:55:25,021 --> 00:55:26,589
you're just so happy to be there.
1391
00:55:26,623 --> 00:55:29,025
And half our team was 20 and under at that stage.
1392
00:55:29,059 --> 00:55:31,661
And the other half team, you know, the Ricky Vaives
1393
00:55:31,695 --> 00:55:33,763
and Börje Salmings, they would understand it.
1394
00:55:33,797 --> 00:55:35,098
They were ten years in the league,
1395
00:55:35,131 --> 00:55:37,100
15 years in the league and lived it.
1396
00:55:37,567 --> 00:55:39,469
So they're going, "Oh, here we go again."
1397
00:55:40,103 --> 00:55:42,105
For us, first year guys, we're like,
1398
00:55:42,138 --> 00:55:44,107
"This is awesome, we're playing in the NHL."
1399
00:55:44,140 --> 00:55:46,476
And I was 18 years old. I was just happy to be there.
1400
00:55:46,509 --> 00:55:49,646
[rock music playing]
1401
00:55:49,679 --> 00:55:52,582
[Joshi] So many talented people
1402
00:55:52,615 --> 00:55:56,653
that could have got that team, perennially competitive,
1403
00:55:56,686 --> 00:55:57,987
maybe not Stanley Cup every year,
1404
00:55:58,021 --> 00:56:00,490
but certainly not a laughingstock
1405
00:56:00,523 --> 00:56:01,958
as they were through the '80s,
1406
00:56:01,991 --> 00:56:05,762
were cast aside and it was a mess
1407
00:56:05,795 --> 00:56:08,398
and it just became worse and worse and worse.
1408
00:56:08,932 --> 00:56:10,867
[announcer] For the second time in three years,
1409
00:56:10,900 --> 00:56:14,170
the seats at Maple Leaf Gardens will be empty at playoff time.
1410
00:56:14,204 --> 00:56:17,574
Right now, the organization just doesn't have it.
1411
00:56:17,607 --> 00:56:19,042
[reporter] Are you disappointed in the Leafs?
1412
00:56:19,075 --> 00:56:21,778
-Not really. -[reporter] Why is that?
1413
00:56:21,811 --> 00:56:22,946
I didn't have great expectations for them
1414
00:56:22,979 --> 00:56:24,180
in the first place.
1415
00:56:24,214 --> 00:56:25,515
[reporter] You're a hockey fan?
1416
00:56:25,548 --> 00:56:26,950
Not really.
1417
00:56:26,983 --> 00:56:28,585
[reporter] You don't follow the Leafs at all?
1418
00:56:28,618 --> 00:56:30,019
-Not this year anyway. -[reporter] Why is that?
1419
00:56:30,053 --> 00:56:31,955
Uh, well, they're at the bottom, aren't they?
1420
00:56:31,988 --> 00:56:34,657
Going through those years was very difficult because
1421
00:56:34,691 --> 00:56:36,726
losing really gets to you after a while.
1422
00:56:36,760 --> 00:56:39,095
And it almost becomes a job.
1423
00:56:39,129 --> 00:56:41,231
And it was a job obviously.
1424
00:56:41,264 --> 00:56:43,566
And I got paid pretty good to do it.
1425
00:56:44,134 --> 00:56:46,002
But, you know, at the end of the day,
1426
00:56:46,035 --> 00:56:48,104
you got to have fun, too, I mean, when you go to work,
1427
00:56:48,138 --> 00:56:50,707
you want to have fun and you want to enjoy it.
1428
00:56:51,141 --> 00:56:53,777
And obviously we weren't having a whole lot of fun
1429
00:56:53,810 --> 00:56:55,111
because we weren't winning.
1430
00:56:55,145 --> 00:56:57,580
It's just unfortunate if you come along
1431
00:56:57,614 --> 00:57:00,116
as a young athlete at that time
1432
00:57:00,150 --> 00:57:01,918
and you've worked your whole life
1433
00:57:02,485 --> 00:57:05,088
to be a pro hockey player and you run into this.
1434
00:57:05,655 --> 00:57:08,725
It makes for a-- a rocky road.
1435
00:57:09,192 --> 00:57:10,794
You want to learn how to be a pro,
1436
00:57:10,827 --> 00:57:13,897
you want to see it from, you know,
1437
00:57:13,930 --> 00:57:16,099
the guys that are ahead of you, but, you know,
1438
00:57:16,132 --> 00:57:18,067
when things are happening to them like that,
1439
00:57:18,101 --> 00:57:21,805
how is it that they can pass on their experience?
1440
00:57:22,172 --> 00:57:26,543
It got to the point where the-- Even the fans were so disgusted
1441
00:57:26,576 --> 00:57:27,877
with what they were seeing.
1442
00:57:27,911 --> 00:57:29,078
There was one moment when...
1443
00:57:29,846 --> 00:57:32,549
the fans did something very un-Toronto like.
1444
00:57:32,582 --> 00:57:34,651
[announcer] Now there's all sorts of debris
1445
00:57:34,684 --> 00:57:36,019
being thrown onto the ice.
1446
00:57:37,854 --> 00:57:38,988
[Ormsby] I don't think it was directed
1447
00:57:39,022 --> 00:57:40,523
at the players so much,
1448
00:57:40,557 --> 00:57:43,193
but it was just the whole awful mess
1449
00:57:43,760 --> 00:57:45,728
that the Leafs had become.
1450
00:57:45,762 --> 00:57:47,163
[announcer] We've got a streaker on the ice.
1451
00:57:47,197 --> 00:57:48,932
[Eagleson] There's no question about that.
1452
00:57:48,965 --> 00:57:51,201
Harold was asked to take blame for that
1453
00:57:51,234 --> 00:57:52,936
because he was the owner.
1454
00:57:53,369 --> 00:57:55,205
So he didn't hire the right people.
1455
00:57:55,605 --> 00:57:58,908
And he didn't draft the right players
1456
00:57:58,942 --> 00:58:01,945
and they didn't run the organization.
1457
00:58:01,978 --> 00:58:04,848
So, they had a flow through from their minor team
1458
00:58:04,881 --> 00:58:06,583
up to the big leagues.
1459
00:58:06,616 --> 00:58:09,052
So, there's no question
1460
00:58:09,085 --> 00:58:11,988
that Harold has to take the hit for that.
1461
00:58:12,021 --> 00:58:13,990
[Parrish] I think for a lot of those years...
1462
00:58:14,757 --> 00:58:18,061
there was always the hope that sanity would prevail.
1463
00:58:18,461 --> 00:58:20,697
There was always the hope that
1464
00:58:20,730 --> 00:58:23,766
Harold would bring in someone who was qualified.
1465
00:58:24,534 --> 00:58:26,703
[Joshi] He didn't espouse to the business theory that,
1466
00:58:26,736 --> 00:58:29,105
you know, you need to spend money to make money.
1467
00:58:29,138 --> 00:58:30,740
To him, it was like, "Why?
1468
00:58:30,773 --> 00:58:32,275
Why do I have to do that? The building's full.
1469
00:58:33,042 --> 00:58:35,979
I've got program sales. I've got this. I got that.
1470
00:58:36,412 --> 00:58:39,849
Why do I need to go and pay the hockey executive
1471
00:58:39,883 --> 00:58:41,050
a couple hundred thousand dollars,
1472
00:58:41,084 --> 00:58:42,752
then give him all the control?"
1473
00:58:42,785 --> 00:58:44,320
That was the biggest thing.
1474
00:58:44,354 --> 00:58:47,624
He never gave anybody total autonomy or total control.
1475
00:58:47,657 --> 00:58:49,359
Everything had to go through him.
1476
00:58:49,392 --> 00:58:51,261
[reporter] How comfortable are you with your image
1477
00:58:51,294 --> 00:58:52,896
with Toronto hockey fans?
1478
00:58:52,929 --> 00:58:54,597
A lot of people think you're the problem here.
1479
00:58:54,964 --> 00:58:56,699
[Harold] Well, maybe I am.
1480
00:58:56,733 --> 00:58:58,968
If they want to buy the place, it's open for sale.
1481
00:58:59,002 --> 00:59:00,336
All they have to do is bring money.
1482
00:59:02,372 --> 00:59:04,374
[narrator] Ballard loved chaos
1483
00:59:04,407 --> 00:59:06,976
and reveled in sparring with the press
1484
00:59:07,010 --> 00:59:09,345
or anyone who questioned
1485
00:59:09,379 --> 00:59:12,215
his increasingly inappropriate behavior.
1486
00:59:12,248 --> 00:59:14,651
Now, don't start that fucking camera going.
1487
00:59:14,684 --> 00:59:16,319
Couple of swell looking broads in here.
1488
00:59:16,352 --> 00:59:18,688
Holy Christ, you ought to see the one in the front.
1489
00:59:18,721 --> 00:59:21,257
Talk about a linebacker. Jesus Christ, eh?
1490
00:59:21,291 --> 00:59:23,826
As we have been sucking the hind tit long enough
1491
00:59:23,860 --> 00:59:26,729
and with a few of these kind of guys coming in with--
1492
00:59:26,763 --> 00:59:28,765
We are-- We're-- But don't laugh.
1493
00:59:28,798 --> 00:59:30,800
Goddammit, you can't--
1494
00:59:30,833 --> 00:59:32,936
you can't ignore these kind of things.
1495
00:59:32,969 --> 00:59:35,238
And we've tried, whether you think we have or not,
1496
00:59:35,271 --> 00:59:37,774
with the bullshit that you put in the paper
1497
00:59:37,807 --> 00:59:39,409
telling us how rotten we've been.
1498
00:59:39,442 --> 00:59:42,712
Through his ownership years, he was on the record a lot
1499
00:59:42,745 --> 00:59:44,681
with comments that were misogynistic,
1500
00:59:45,181 --> 00:59:47,350
with comments that were homophobic,
1501
00:59:47,383 --> 00:59:48,918
with comments that were racist.
1502
00:59:49,819 --> 00:59:51,654
I don't think you can,
1503
00:59:51,688 --> 00:59:54,958
even though the times were different than they are today,
1504
00:59:54,991 --> 00:59:56,326
even in those times,
1505
00:59:56,359 --> 00:59:58,294
he was outrageous for those times.
1506
00:59:58,328 --> 00:59:59,862
Get out of here.
1507
00:59:59,896 --> 01:00:02,098
Or you'll get a good kick in the balls.
1508
01:00:02,131 --> 01:00:05,268
If Harold Ballard existed in 2022,
1509
01:00:05,301 --> 01:00:08,104
he would've been canceled, like, very quickly.
1510
01:00:08,137 --> 01:00:11,007
And essentially, this is someone who's incredibly powerful.
1511
01:00:11,040 --> 01:00:14,911
Pick what equity-deserving group he decided to offend.
1512
01:00:14,944 --> 01:00:17,080
And-- You-- And let's just do the bingo.
1513
01:00:17,113 --> 01:00:19,949
He decided to offend them all at different points
1514
01:00:19,983 --> 01:00:22,018
and was not apologetic about it.
1515
01:00:22,051 --> 01:00:23,786
[Khamisa] I don't know if Harold Ballard
1516
01:00:23,820 --> 01:00:25,455
would have been around very long in a present-day lens.
1517
01:00:25,488 --> 01:00:27,423
I don't think he would have had enough leeway
1518
01:00:27,457 --> 01:00:29,325
to have people forgive that
1519
01:00:29,359 --> 01:00:31,194
and allow him to stay in the role that he did.
1520
01:00:31,227 --> 01:00:33,196
You say something like some of the things
1521
01:00:33,229 --> 01:00:35,798
Harold Ballard said back then, you're out of there.
1522
01:00:35,832 --> 01:00:37,433
He was abusive to his players,
1523
01:00:37,467 --> 01:00:39,202
he was abusive to his general managers
1524
01:00:39,235 --> 01:00:40,970
and his coaches.
1525
01:00:41,004 --> 01:00:44,707
And he had this platform that really went unchallenged.
1526
01:00:44,741 --> 01:00:46,909
And he had an incredible interview
1527
01:00:46,943 --> 01:00:48,411
with CBC and Barbara Frum.
1528
01:00:48,444 --> 01:00:50,313
-[Barbara] Hi, Mr. Ballard. -[Harold] Hi.
1529
01:00:50,346 --> 01:00:51,881
-[Barbara] How are you? -[Harold] Well, I'm all right.
1530
01:00:51,914 --> 01:00:53,883
[Barbara] You won a hockey game?
1531
01:00:53,916 --> 01:00:55,451
[Harold] We won two. What's the matter with your addition?
1532
01:00:55,485 --> 01:00:57,053
Why don't you get somebody on there
1533
01:00:57,086 --> 01:00:58,488
that can handle this job, Dick?
1534
01:00:58,521 --> 01:01:00,056
Females on the radio, they're a joke.
1535
01:01:00,089 --> 01:01:02,058
-They're a joke. -[Dick] Hang on.
1536
01:01:02,091 --> 01:01:03,326
[Harold] You know where they're at their best, don't you?
1537
01:01:03,359 --> 01:01:05,028
[Dick] I probably should stay.
1538
01:01:05,461 --> 01:01:07,196
[Harold] Well, lock them up once in a while,
1539
01:01:07,230 --> 01:01:09,132
[indistinct] once in a while.
1540
01:01:09,165 --> 01:01:10,733
-[Barbara] Mr. Ballard-- -[Harold] Would you keep quiet?
1541
01:01:10,767 --> 01:01:12,101
[Barbara] No. This is still my show.
1542
01:01:12,135 --> 01:01:13,803
[Harold] Well--
1543
01:01:13,836 --> 01:01:15,471
[Barbara] I have another question for you.
1544
01:01:15,505 --> 01:01:17,273
[Harold] I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to Dick,
1545
01:01:17,306 --> 01:01:19,008
so when you learn to mind your own business,
1546
01:01:19,042 --> 01:01:20,476
and let me talk to Dick, it'll be fine. Goodbye.
1547
01:01:20,943 --> 01:01:24,514
He basically tells her to shut up on her own show.
1548
01:01:24,547 --> 01:01:26,082
This was him.
1549
01:01:26,115 --> 01:01:27,950
You're renowned for the outrageous things
1550
01:01:27,984 --> 01:01:30,787
you say about women, about racial groups.
1551
01:01:30,820 --> 01:01:32,355
Why do you say things like that?
1552
01:01:32,388 --> 01:01:34,123
Well, that's the way I think.
1553
01:01:34,157 --> 01:01:36,492
And as I said before, I tell people what I think.
1554
01:01:36,526 --> 01:01:38,094
I don't think one way
1555
01:01:38,127 --> 01:01:39,962
and then tell somebody else another way.
1556
01:01:39,996 --> 01:01:41,864
And to follow that up,
1557
01:01:41,898 --> 01:01:46,035
there was a CBC Fifth Estate story done on him in 1980.
1558
01:01:46,436 --> 01:01:48,304
And they had mics hanging around him.
1559
01:01:48,337 --> 01:01:51,140
When he is using the N-word around athletes
1560
01:01:51,174 --> 01:01:52,775
or about athletes, you know?
1561
01:01:52,809 --> 01:01:53,910
[man] Kelly.
1562
01:01:55,545 --> 01:01:58,047
And he's a hell of a-- he's a hell of a player too.
1563
01:01:58,081 --> 01:01:59,248
[Harold] [bleep]
1564
01:01:59,749 --> 01:02:01,918
No. Really? No, wait.
1565
01:02:03,553 --> 01:02:05,888
You don't think that being a [bleep] called Kelly, do you?
1566
01:02:05,922 --> 01:02:07,156
[indistinct].
1567
01:02:08,257 --> 01:02:10,326
[Harold] No. Surely not.
1568
01:02:10,359 --> 01:02:12,061
This was not all for show.
1569
01:02:12,095 --> 01:02:14,797
I believe that's-- that's the man talking like that.
1570
01:02:14,831 --> 01:02:16,232
That's-- that's what he was all about.
1571
01:02:16,265 --> 01:02:18,534
Although, it's not tolerated in today's times,
1572
01:02:18,568 --> 01:02:20,803
I think he's grown up with people,
1573
01:02:20,837 --> 01:02:24,407
or it was a familiar comment and a familiar description.
1574
01:02:24,440 --> 01:02:26,275
And I don't think anybody is going to change him now.
1575
01:02:26,309 --> 01:02:27,577
And if he offends people, he just says,
1576
01:02:27,610 --> 01:02:29,345
"I don't care, I don't give a damn.
1577
01:02:29,378 --> 01:02:31,013
That's the way I feel, and that's the way I think,
1578
01:02:31,047 --> 01:02:32,482
and that's the way I talk.
1579
01:02:32,515 --> 01:02:34,083
If they don't like it, they don't have to do this."
1580
01:02:34,117 --> 01:02:35,418
[interviewer] Does it occur to you
1581
01:02:35,451 --> 01:02:37,053
that they might be deeply offended
1582
01:02:37,086 --> 01:02:38,521
-by your referring-- -Oh, I don't think so.
1583
01:02:38,554 --> 01:02:41,124
You want to get offended at that? That's stupid.
1584
01:02:41,157 --> 01:02:43,059
You couldn't get through a two sentence conversation
1585
01:02:43,092 --> 01:02:45,928
with Harold without it being full of invective
1586
01:02:45,962 --> 01:02:47,997
and, uh, obscenity.
1587
01:02:48,030 --> 01:02:51,801
The first time a female reporter was allowed in the Leaf room.
1588
01:02:52,535 --> 01:02:54,203
And he'd been fighting that with the league
1589
01:02:54,237 --> 01:02:56,239
for a little while, he didn't want any females
1590
01:02:56,272 --> 01:02:58,975
in-- in the-- Reporters in the room.
1591
01:02:59,008 --> 01:03:01,210
So after the game, the guys were gearing down
1592
01:03:01,244 --> 01:03:03,946
and she's standing over here and Harold walks in
1593
01:03:03,980 --> 01:03:05,548
and he sees her
1594
01:03:05,581 --> 01:03:07,350
and it was kind of a calculated move,
1595
01:03:07,383 --> 01:03:10,386
as soon as he's walking past her,
1596
01:03:10,419 --> 01:03:14,223
he turns to the room and he yells out,
1597
01:03:14,257 --> 01:03:17,026
"Look out, boys, we got a lizard watcher in here."
1598
01:03:17,059 --> 01:03:20,530
and keeps walking, and it was like, oh. [chuckles]
1599
01:03:20,563 --> 01:03:23,332
[McKenny] Rosie Dimanno or Christie Blatchford.
1600
01:03:23,366 --> 01:03:24,901
They weren't hockey fans.
1601
01:03:24,934 --> 01:03:26,369
They were just in there doing the job.
1602
01:03:26,402 --> 01:03:28,437
They had to go down and get some interviews
1603
01:03:28,471 --> 01:03:30,072
and to get the interviews,
1604
01:03:30,106 --> 01:03:31,874
they had to go into the dressing room and--
1605
01:03:31,908 --> 01:03:33,876
and Harold said he didn't want to let them in there.
1606
01:03:33,910 --> 01:03:36,345
They come in there, get players half dressed,
1607
01:03:36,379 --> 01:03:38,915
want to bring a broad in, that's the worst thing.
1608
01:03:38,948 --> 01:03:41,017
If the broad comes in while I'm naked,
1609
01:03:41,050 --> 01:03:42,885
I'm going to tell you, it'll take you a lot longer
1610
01:03:42,919 --> 01:03:44,320
to get out than it does to get in.
1611
01:03:44,353 --> 01:03:45,655
And I told her, those are the conditions.
1612
01:03:45,688 --> 01:03:47,590
Take your clothes off and go on in
1613
01:03:47,623 --> 01:03:50,426
because we got guys there with cocks as long as your arm.
1614
01:03:51,494 --> 01:03:53,429
[reporter] We've got to do some bleeping here, guys.
1615
01:03:54,564 --> 01:03:56,065
[reporter] I can't use that, Harold.
1616
01:03:56,098 --> 01:03:57,433
Why? What's the matter with it?
1617
01:03:57,466 --> 01:03:58,901
-[reporter] Harold, it's-- -It's the truth.
1618
01:03:59,435 --> 01:04:01,871
Maybe it'll get him a little more ass somewhere.
1619
01:04:02,405 --> 01:04:04,540
I laughed out loud then, but today...
1620
01:04:05,508 --> 01:04:09,278
you know, there's no chance anybody would air that clip
1621
01:04:09,312 --> 01:04:11,414
or even use it as a quote.
1622
01:04:12,014 --> 01:04:14,350
Legally, they couldn't even put the stuff on TV
1623
01:04:14,383 --> 01:04:15,985
that he was saying. [laughing]
1624
01:04:17,220 --> 01:04:18,988
You take it back to your producers.
1625
01:04:19,021 --> 01:04:21,524
"You want to run this?" "Uh, no, I don't think so."
1626
01:04:21,557 --> 01:04:23,626
[laughing]
1627
01:04:23,659 --> 01:04:26,696
It's never been a correct stance to have, obviously.
1628
01:04:26,729 --> 01:04:29,265
And, uh, it comes with being entitled.
1629
01:04:29,298 --> 01:04:32,235
It comes with being insecure and it comes with,
1630
01:04:32,268 --> 01:04:34,704
you know, being challenged by someone who you feel
1631
01:04:34,737 --> 01:04:37,206
shouldn't have the right voice to challenge you.
1632
01:04:37,240 --> 01:04:39,075
I think, to a certain extent...
1633
01:04:40,243 --> 01:04:43,512
Ballard was smarter than the media
1634
01:04:43,546 --> 01:04:46,249
because he ultimately could play the long game.
1635
01:04:46,682 --> 01:04:50,119
He knew that he was going to be in that position of power
1636
01:04:50,152 --> 01:04:52,588
for years, for generations.
1637
01:04:52,622 --> 01:04:56,192
So that pressure, I think, caused a lot of people
1638
01:04:56,225 --> 01:04:58,060
to go along with Harold
1639
01:04:58,094 --> 01:04:59,428
instead of pushing up against him.
1640
01:04:59,462 --> 01:05:01,364
Harold had decided this is the time
1641
01:05:01,397 --> 01:05:04,667
to make a stand against women in the-- in the locker room.
1642
01:05:04,700 --> 01:05:07,703
And so, I remember the sports editors in Toronto
1643
01:05:07,737 --> 01:05:11,173
and the hockey writers leadership got together
1644
01:05:11,207 --> 01:05:12,575
at a little restaurant down on King Street
1645
01:05:12,608 --> 01:05:14,277
the night before the game, and we decided
1646
01:05:14,310 --> 01:05:15,978
that we were going to take Harold on.
1647
01:05:16,479 --> 01:05:18,514
And the only way to take Harold on was by,
1648
01:05:18,547 --> 01:05:20,316
first of all, by surprise,
1649
01:05:20,349 --> 01:05:22,451
and then two, by a show of force.
1650
01:05:22,485 --> 01:05:25,354
And so, we agreed that the next night
1651
01:05:25,388 --> 01:05:27,223
we would all descend on Maple Leaf Gardens.
1652
01:05:27,256 --> 01:05:29,425
[announcer] Last night, the Toronto chapter
1653
01:05:29,458 --> 01:05:31,560
of the Professional Hockey Writers Association
1654
01:05:31,594 --> 01:05:33,496
stormed the inner dressing room
1655
01:05:33,529 --> 01:05:35,698
to show their displeasure over what they considered
1656
01:05:35,731 --> 01:05:38,134
an unprofessional working environment.
1657
01:05:38,167 --> 01:05:39,502
[Parrish] As soon as the game ends,
1658
01:05:39,535 --> 01:05:41,337
or leading up to the end of the game,
1659
01:05:41,370 --> 01:05:44,140
more people troop out of-- out of the press box
1660
01:05:44,173 --> 01:05:45,608
at Maple Leaf Gardens than I've ever seen,
1661
01:05:45,641 --> 01:05:47,476
head down to the dressing room,
1662
01:05:47,510 --> 01:05:50,646
and ten minutes after the game ends,
1663
01:05:51,047 --> 01:05:53,149
the door is supposed to be open,
1664
01:05:53,182 --> 01:05:54,450
so whoever was the head of the line
1665
01:05:54,483 --> 01:05:56,686
just opens the door and we walk in
1666
01:05:56,719 --> 01:05:58,321
and it was a very tight and cramped
1667
01:05:58,354 --> 01:06:00,089
Leafs dressing room in those days.
1668
01:06:00,122 --> 01:06:02,725
But there's probably 35 of us strong, including women,
1669
01:06:02,758 --> 01:06:05,027
that just walk into the dressing room
1670
01:06:05,061 --> 01:06:06,495
while Harold is in there.
1671
01:06:06,529 --> 01:06:08,264
Harold hasn't come out of the dressing room yet.
1672
01:06:08,297 --> 01:06:09,799
He was standing there with his cane and waving it.
1673
01:06:09,832 --> 01:06:11,534
Get out of here! Get the fuck out of here!
1674
01:06:11,567 --> 01:06:12,702
Get out! Fuck!
1675
01:06:12,735 --> 01:06:14,170
And that will remain
1676
01:06:14,203 --> 01:06:15,638
one of my enduring images of Harold.
1677
01:06:15,671 --> 01:06:18,541
I mean, just ranting and raving with his cane
1678
01:06:18,574 --> 01:06:20,076
and waving it at everybody.
1679
01:06:20,109 --> 01:06:21,744
If I'd have been sensible,
1680
01:06:21,777 --> 01:06:23,379
I should have got one of the hockey sticks
1681
01:06:23,412 --> 01:06:25,047
and decapitated the bastards.
1682
01:06:25,081 --> 01:06:26,449
[reporter] Now, as the letter says,
1683
01:06:26,482 --> 01:06:28,284
"In light of last night's march,
1684
01:06:28,317 --> 01:06:30,820
the entire Leafs dressing room is off limits
1685
01:06:30,853 --> 01:06:33,622
to all female and male reporters."
1686
01:06:33,656 --> 01:06:35,558
[interviewer] Harold, the media in Toronto,
1687
01:06:35,591 --> 01:06:37,293
are they too tough on your hockey club these days?
1688
01:06:37,326 --> 01:06:38,527
Oh, no. They're a bunch of jerks.
1689
01:06:38,561 --> 01:06:40,429
Who worries about what they say?
1690
01:06:40,463 --> 01:06:42,398
Especially that Globe and Mail bunch, they, uh,
1691
01:06:42,431 --> 01:06:44,433
they should be writing, uh, kids books
1692
01:06:44,467 --> 01:06:46,535
or comics or something like that.
1693
01:06:46,569 --> 01:06:48,170
You're still after the guys from the Globe?
1694
01:06:48,204 --> 01:06:49,338
Why no-- why not?
1695
01:06:49,372 --> 01:06:51,240
They're, uh, I mean to say,
1696
01:06:51,273 --> 01:06:53,209
when you talk about halfwits, you have to talk about them.
1697
01:06:53,576 --> 01:06:55,578
[narrator] Ballard never held back his tongue
1698
01:06:55,611 --> 01:06:57,480
for anyone or anything,
1699
01:06:57,513 --> 01:07:00,116
but at that point in his life, the one constant he had
1700
01:07:00,149 --> 01:07:03,152
that kept him somewhat even keeled was King.
1701
01:07:03,185 --> 01:07:06,355
King passed away November 10th, 1986.
1702
01:07:06,389 --> 01:07:08,524
I don't think there's anybody that knew King
1703
01:07:09,191 --> 01:07:11,360
that, uh, won't think about him daily
1704
01:07:11,394 --> 01:07:13,229
or when there's a hockey game on
1705
01:07:13,262 --> 01:07:16,532
because there were so many facets of things that he did,
1706
01:07:16,565 --> 01:07:18,768
not only in hockey, but other things.
1707
01:07:18,801 --> 01:07:21,804
And I never realized how much of a loss
1708
01:07:21,837 --> 01:07:23,706
that's going to be to the building.
1709
01:07:23,739 --> 01:07:25,574
I don't think he will ever get this thing straightened out.
1710
01:07:26,075 --> 01:07:29,245
Harold was okay when King Clancy was alive,
1711
01:07:29,278 --> 01:07:30,780
and then when King passed away,
1712
01:07:30,813 --> 01:07:32,882
he started to go downhill pretty quickly
1713
01:07:32,915 --> 01:07:37,386
and I think he was senile before anybody believed he was
1714
01:07:38,287 --> 01:07:39,822
to be honest with you.
1715
01:07:39,855 --> 01:07:41,857
[Clark] I think that was his last real tie to hockey
1716
01:07:41,891 --> 01:07:43,626
because King Clancy was a lifer
1717
01:07:43,659 --> 01:07:45,661
as far as hockey player, referee, coach.
1718
01:07:45,694 --> 01:07:48,531
He did it all in the game and he'd drive in every morning,
1719
01:07:48,564 --> 01:07:50,800
have breakfast with Harold in the Hot Stove.
1720
01:07:50,833 --> 01:07:53,235
And when King passed, that--
1721
01:07:53,269 --> 01:07:55,538
I think that was the last real connection...
1722
01:07:56,906 --> 01:08:01,143
to hockey in his era of somebody he really trusted.
1723
01:08:01,177 --> 01:08:03,679
[Williams] They sat in that Muppet box there together
1724
01:08:03,712 --> 01:08:05,181
'til the day they both couldn't do it.
1725
01:08:05,214 --> 01:08:06,482
I think it was--
1726
01:08:06,882 --> 01:08:09,485
it was a movie, those two guys as far as I am concerned.
1727
01:08:09,518 --> 01:08:10,886
I love King.
1728
01:08:10,920 --> 01:08:12,788
I mean, I named my daughter after King.
1729
01:08:13,122 --> 01:08:15,291
[Parrish] He was a lonelier figure
1730
01:08:15,324 --> 01:08:17,793
because King humanized Harold.
1731
01:08:17,827 --> 01:08:21,664
King had a sense of humor and got along with everybody.
1732
01:08:22,031 --> 01:08:25,434
And, so, if Harold and he hung out
1733
01:08:25,468 --> 01:08:27,803
and he and Harold were friends, I thought,
1734
01:08:27,837 --> 01:08:29,605
"Well, maybe there is another side to Harold."
1735
01:08:29,638 --> 01:08:32,374
I've never seen it, but maybe there is another side.
1736
01:08:32,408 --> 01:08:34,910
[narrator] Ballard indeed had many different sides
1737
01:08:34,944 --> 01:08:36,679
to his persona,
1738
01:08:36,712 --> 01:08:39,682
but for all his bravado, bluster, and brouhaha,
1739
01:08:39,715 --> 01:08:42,885
something rarely talked about was his philanthropy.
1740
01:08:43,486 --> 01:08:45,221
[man 1] His Ontario game for the physically disabled.
1741
01:08:45,254 --> 01:08:46,755
[man 2] For physically disabled.
1742
01:08:46,789 --> 01:08:48,357
He was involved in swimming and he won three gold medals.
1743
01:08:48,390 --> 01:08:49,658
-Is that so? -Isn't that super?
1744
01:08:49,692 --> 01:08:50,759
Well, that's fine.
1745
01:08:51,560 --> 01:08:53,429
[narrator] Ballard never tried to hide
1746
01:08:53,462 --> 01:08:55,898
his animosity toward the media.
1747
01:08:55,931 --> 01:08:58,234
What he did try to keep secret
1748
01:08:58,267 --> 01:09:00,603
was the amount of money he gave to charity.
1749
01:09:01,170 --> 01:09:04,406
Harold would donate $25,000,
1750
01:09:04,440 --> 01:09:07,843
$50,000, uh, at a time,
1751
01:09:08,110 --> 01:09:09,912
and that was a lot of money back then...
1752
01:09:10,946 --> 01:09:12,548
to Special Olympics.
1753
01:09:13,315 --> 01:09:15,184
On one condition:
1754
01:09:15,718 --> 01:09:20,289
that no one could ever find out where that money came from.
1755
01:09:20,322 --> 01:09:22,625
And we begged Harold, like,
1756
01:09:23,092 --> 01:09:25,461
you need to let us tell this story.
1757
01:09:25,861 --> 01:09:27,429
And he said, "Nope.
1758
01:09:28,030 --> 01:09:29,932
They'll think I've gone soft."
1759
01:09:29,965 --> 01:09:33,936
But the money kept coming, uh, to Special Olympics.
1760
01:09:33,969 --> 01:09:36,238
[Stellick] I think he cared about charity.
1761
01:09:36,272 --> 01:09:38,407
I remember it around Christmas time,
1762
01:09:38,440 --> 01:09:40,809
he would call down to the-- to the vault,
1763
01:09:40,843 --> 01:09:42,444
and that's where the money was kept,
1764
01:09:42,478 --> 01:09:45,848
and they would bring up, like, $50,000 in cash
1765
01:09:45,881 --> 01:09:47,583
and you could see him back there doling it out
1766
01:09:47,616 --> 01:09:49,485
to different envelopes.
1767
01:09:49,518 --> 01:09:50,886
[announcer] A gentleman who's been a big, big help
1768
01:09:50,920 --> 01:09:53,389
to big brothers, Mr. Harold Ballard.
1769
01:09:57,993 --> 01:09:59,728
[Cherry] He did a lot of things for charity
1770
01:09:59,762 --> 01:10:01,664
that nobody knows about.
1771
01:10:01,697 --> 01:10:04,266
He didn't want anybody to think he was a good guy.
1772
01:10:04,300 --> 01:10:05,634
Don't ask me why.
1773
01:10:05,668 --> 01:10:07,036
[announcer] This is unbelievable.
1774
01:10:07,069 --> 01:10:08,671
[Cherry] I remember when the Junior Club
1775
01:10:08,704 --> 01:10:10,973
was over there and they had the big brawl.
1776
01:10:11,006 --> 01:10:12,808
The punch out in Piestany, I think they got--
1777
01:10:12,841 --> 01:10:14,510
He'd give them all gold medals.
1778
01:10:14,910 --> 01:10:17,680
[Joshi] To show his support for what had happened.
1779
01:10:17,713 --> 01:10:21,016
We were all upset, angry at the time,
1780
01:10:21,050 --> 01:10:23,719
but it was Harold Ballard, the owner of the Maple Leafs
1781
01:10:23,752 --> 01:10:27,256
who would make a gesture of that kind of magnitude to this kid.
1782
01:10:29,658 --> 01:10:31,026
Husky [indistinct]
1783
01:10:31,060 --> 01:10:32,861
[indistinct]
1784
01:10:32,895 --> 01:10:35,264
Tigers, eat 'em raw.
1785
01:10:36,131 --> 01:10:37,967
[narrator] After failed attempts to launch
1786
01:10:38,000 --> 01:10:40,836
a new CFL franchise in the early '70s,
1787
01:10:40,869 --> 01:10:43,606
Ballard bought the struggling Hamilton Tiger-Cats
1788
01:10:43,639 --> 01:10:48,344
on the cheap for $1.2 million in 1978.
1789
01:10:48,377 --> 01:10:49,845
During the '80s, they became
1790
01:10:49,878 --> 01:10:52,648
his most successful sports franchise.
1791
01:10:55,017 --> 01:10:57,786
The team made the Gray Cup in 1980,
1792
01:10:57,820 --> 01:11:00,022
'84, and '85
1793
01:11:00,055 --> 01:11:03,659
before finally winning it all in 1986.
1794
01:11:03,692 --> 01:11:05,427
[reporter] Hamilton loves its football team
1795
01:11:05,461 --> 01:11:07,529
and even loves Harold Ballard,
1796
01:11:07,563 --> 01:11:08,897
the man everybody loves to hate.
1797
01:11:10,399 --> 01:11:13,569
[Iaboni] When he won in 1986 with the Gray Cup,
1798
01:11:13,602 --> 01:11:15,704
it was also one of the saddest times
1799
01:11:15,738 --> 01:11:20,009
I've seen Harold Ballard because King Clancy died,
1800
01:11:20,042 --> 01:11:21,744
so his sidekick is gone.
1801
01:11:21,777 --> 01:11:24,880
So at the end of the game, he was there by himself.
1802
01:11:25,381 --> 01:11:26,882
He's finally won a championship
1803
01:11:26,915 --> 01:11:28,684
and he can't share it with anybody.
1804
01:11:28,717 --> 01:11:30,519
There's nobody there. You could tell he was on the--
1805
01:11:30,552 --> 01:11:32,521
on the decline health-wise.
1806
01:11:32,554 --> 01:11:33,856
He was walking very slowly.
1807
01:11:33,889 --> 01:11:35,090
He was having trouble with his feet.
1808
01:11:35,658 --> 01:11:37,459
And I took him downstairs.
1809
01:11:37,960 --> 01:11:40,062
And then, I watched him in the media conference.
1810
01:11:40,095 --> 01:11:43,399
And I'd seen this man since the early '70s,
1811
01:11:43,432 --> 01:11:44,633
until 1986.
1812
01:11:45,000 --> 01:11:46,368
And I'm watching him.
1813
01:11:46,835 --> 01:11:49,705
And I said to myself, "This is sad
1814
01:11:49,738 --> 01:11:53,042
because Harold Ballard can't be Harold Ballard."
1815
01:11:54,009 --> 01:11:55,110
He wasn't himself.
1816
01:11:55,644 --> 01:11:58,414
I mean, he would throw out the odd line.
1817
01:11:58,447 --> 01:12:00,049
But I think the fact that he was missing
1818
01:12:00,082 --> 01:12:01,550
King Clancy not being there
1819
01:12:01,583 --> 01:12:03,152
to see this ultimate championship
1820
01:12:03,185 --> 01:12:05,421
and the fact that he'd won something
1821
01:12:05,454 --> 01:12:07,022
was probably a total shock to him.
1822
01:12:11,593 --> 01:12:14,463
[narrator] Yes, King Clancy passed away that year,
1823
01:12:14,496 --> 01:12:16,432
but Ballard wasn't alone.
1824
01:12:16,465 --> 01:12:18,834
A few years earlier, a mystery woman
1825
01:12:18,867 --> 01:12:21,070
came into his life from out of the blue...
1826
01:12:23,072 --> 01:12:27,009
She showed up unannounced at Maple Leaf Gardens one day
1827
01:12:27,042 --> 01:12:28,444
and never left.
1828
01:12:28,844 --> 01:12:30,846
I remember the first day I saw her.
1829
01:12:31,947 --> 01:12:33,515
It was Mr. Ballard's birthday.
1830
01:12:34,249 --> 01:12:37,786
And she was out in the office with a birthday cake.
1831
01:12:38,487 --> 01:12:42,491
And I remember Stan Obodiac bringing her in
1832
01:12:42,524 --> 01:12:44,927
to see Mr. Ballard with the birthday cake.
1833
01:12:45,427 --> 01:12:46,995
And the rest is history.
1834
01:12:47,029 --> 01:12:48,764
They were perfectly matched.
1835
01:12:48,797 --> 01:12:51,567
Two peas in a pod because she was a con and so was he.
1836
01:12:51,600 --> 01:12:53,001
I tell you how weird it was,
1837
01:12:53,035 --> 01:12:55,137
she called herself Mrs. Ballard for years.
1838
01:12:55,170 --> 01:12:56,805
He never married her.
1839
01:12:56,839 --> 01:12:58,741
She kept him alive. Yolanda kept him alive.
1840
01:12:58,774 --> 01:13:01,143
She was more obvious than a $3 bill.
1841
01:13:01,577 --> 01:13:03,912
Okay, she came in like a bull in a china shop.
1842
01:13:03,946 --> 01:13:06,014
She targeted him, and, uh,
1843
01:13:06,048 --> 01:13:09,485
he wasn't fooled by it, but she was relentless.
1844
01:13:09,985 --> 01:13:12,721
And at the end, he needed, almost, a nursemaid that way.
1845
01:13:13,088 --> 01:13:14,723
Yolanda did a couple of smart things.
1846
01:13:14,757 --> 01:13:17,659
She, uh, bought him the dog, TC Puck.
1847
01:13:17,693 --> 01:13:19,461
He really loved the dog.
1848
01:13:19,495 --> 01:13:20,963
[Stellick] The challenge with that team photo was,
1849
01:13:20,996 --> 01:13:22,731
didn't matter how anyone looked in the photo,
1850
01:13:22,765 --> 01:13:24,733
we had to get TC Puck sitting down.
1851
01:13:24,767 --> 01:13:26,468
You'd set him on the ice
1852
01:13:26,502 --> 01:13:28,604
and his balls would get frozen and he'd jump off.
1853
01:13:28,637 --> 01:13:30,973
And she gave us a towel to put under as hind legs.
1854
01:13:31,006 --> 01:13:33,108
But his third year he sat down, no problem on the ice,
1855
01:13:33,142 --> 01:13:34,676
but because his balls weren't freezing.
1856
01:13:34,710 --> 01:13:36,945
So that was her greatest contribution.
1857
01:13:36,979 --> 01:13:42,151
Harold treated her harshly quite often.
1858
01:13:42,184 --> 01:13:44,019
Do this. Give me that.
1859
01:13:44,052 --> 01:13:47,022
Everybody says, "Oh, she's a gold digger. She did this."
1860
01:13:47,489 --> 01:13:49,558
Harold said, "Ah, what the hell?
1861
01:13:49,591 --> 01:13:50,926
Whatever I give her, I give her."
1862
01:13:50,959 --> 01:13:52,761
I don't know what he left her,
1863
01:13:52,795 --> 01:13:55,497
but I think she became King's replacement.
1864
01:13:56,165 --> 01:13:58,867
Just as King became Stafford's replacement.
1865
01:13:59,334 --> 01:14:03,539
Harold liked someone beside him all the time.
1866
01:14:03,939 --> 01:14:05,107
And she was that.
1867
01:14:05,607 --> 01:14:07,910
[McKenny] I see Yolanda walk across the street
1868
01:14:07,943 --> 01:14:10,112
'cause she lived on Granby Street, just--
1869
01:14:10,145 --> 01:14:11,580
just south of the gardens.
1870
01:14:11,613 --> 01:14:13,081
And she comes across the street.
1871
01:14:13,115 --> 01:14:15,050
I said, "Yolanda, how's it going?"
1872
01:14:15,083 --> 01:14:16,718
And she goes like that.
1873
01:14:16,752 --> 01:14:19,788
And she's got, like, five diamond rings on
1874
01:14:19,822 --> 01:14:22,558
with a great big smile on her face.
1875
01:14:22,591 --> 01:14:24,860
I found her to be an extremely imposing,
1876
01:14:24,893 --> 01:14:28,030
uh, individual who wanted to run his life.
1877
01:14:28,063 --> 01:14:29,898
So, I felt it was a bad thing in his life
1878
01:14:29,932 --> 01:14:32,568
for him to be with her. So, I--
1879
01:14:32,601 --> 01:14:34,536
I think that that was something that--
1880
01:14:34,570 --> 01:14:36,972
that at the end of the day, she was about Yolanda.
1881
01:14:37,339 --> 01:14:38,941
Uh, now, she cared for him.
1882
01:14:38,974 --> 01:14:40,843
I think she-- she did care for him.
1883
01:14:40,876 --> 01:14:43,111
But she also wanted to make sure that--
1884
01:14:43,145 --> 01:14:45,147
that when Harold was gone, that she was taken care of.
1885
01:14:45,180 --> 01:14:47,282
He probably liked all the confrontation
1886
01:14:47,316 --> 01:14:48,917
and all the arguing and all that stuff
1887
01:14:48,951 --> 01:14:50,652
because she never backed down from them.
1888
01:14:51,053 --> 01:14:54,223
She'd argue with him. She wasn't afraid of him at all.
1889
01:14:54,256 --> 01:14:56,892
Once she was official in the will...
1890
01:14:58,060 --> 01:14:59,695
she didn't take any shit off him,
1891
01:14:59,728 --> 01:15:01,029
I'll tell you that.
1892
01:15:01,063 --> 01:15:02,831
[laughing]
1893
01:15:02,865 --> 01:15:04,867
So, there was a general manager's office at the back
1894
01:15:04,900 --> 01:15:06,902
and one time, when I went back there,
1895
01:15:06,935 --> 01:15:08,170
there was Yolanda,
1896
01:15:08,203 --> 01:15:10,005
and she just was in her undergarments
1897
01:15:10,038 --> 01:15:11,940
and she'd snuck out of the apartment to use the phone.
1898
01:15:11,974 --> 01:15:15,244
And I thought, "I don't think this will be the GM's office."
1899
01:15:15,277 --> 01:15:17,212
And then it became a walk in closet for Yolanda
1900
01:15:17,246 --> 01:15:18,313
the next week.
1901
01:15:18,347 --> 01:15:19,948
She had fun early on.
1902
01:15:19,982 --> 01:15:21,717
She was a low-rent version
1903
01:15:21,750 --> 01:15:23,952
of the Kardashians or the Gabor sisters.
1904
01:15:23,986 --> 01:15:25,654
That's what she kind of was.
1905
01:15:25,687 --> 01:15:27,823
She needed money. She needed to get in somewhere.
1906
01:15:27,856 --> 01:15:29,791
The rumor was before she came to the lease
1907
01:15:29,825 --> 01:15:31,627
that she was running a limousine business,
1908
01:15:31,660 --> 01:15:32,928
but people thought it was an escort business.
1909
01:15:32,961 --> 01:15:34,363
They weren't sure.
1910
01:15:34,396 --> 01:15:36,298
But she had all kinds of financial problems.
1911
01:15:36,331 --> 01:15:38,200
You know, that's what made the kids
1912
01:15:38,233 --> 01:15:39,935
even edgier.
1913
01:15:39,968 --> 01:15:41,670
[narrator] As Yolanda and Ballard got closer,
1914
01:15:41,703 --> 01:15:43,105
Ballard's children,
1915
01:15:43,138 --> 01:15:45,741
Bill Harold Jr., and Mary Elizabeth,
1916
01:15:45,774 --> 01:15:47,276
grew increasingly concerned
1917
01:15:47,309 --> 01:15:49,678
about the nature of their relationship.
1918
01:15:49,711 --> 01:15:51,346
[Ormsby] He lived a life with so many cautionary tales
1919
01:15:51,380 --> 01:15:52,648
along the way.
1920
01:15:52,681 --> 01:15:57,085
And at the end, you know,
1921
01:15:57,119 --> 01:16:00,255
the family relationships were strained with his children.
1922
01:16:01,356 --> 01:16:03,392
Dragged out in the courts.
1923
01:16:03,425 --> 01:16:05,961
He's got Yolanda changing her name
1924
01:16:05,994 --> 01:16:07,296
to Ballard legally.
1925
01:16:07,896 --> 01:16:13,101
And then some accounts say she was also, you know,
1926
01:16:13,135 --> 01:16:15,037
thieving from him as well, you know,
1927
01:16:15,070 --> 01:16:17,639
some money was going to her that he didn't know about
1928
01:16:17,673 --> 01:16:20,075
and, you know, [sighs]
1929
01:16:20,108 --> 01:16:22,744
he was losing control of a lot of things,
1930
01:16:22,778 --> 01:16:24,313
not just his own health,
1931
01:16:24,346 --> 01:16:26,815
but maybe the ability to make very good decisions.
1932
01:16:26,848 --> 01:16:29,217
[narrator] Harold Ballard's mental and physical state
1933
01:16:29,251 --> 01:16:30,819
were both on the decline.
1934
01:16:31,253 --> 01:16:34,323
In 1988, Ballard suffered a heart attack
1935
01:16:34,356 --> 01:16:37,292
while vacationing in Florida with Yolanda.
1936
01:16:37,326 --> 01:16:39,227
[reporter] Harold Ballard is resting comfortably
1937
01:16:39,261 --> 01:16:40,929
here at the Miami Heart Institute,
1938
01:16:40,963 --> 01:16:42,230
one of the finest facilities
1939
01:16:42,264 --> 01:16:44,132
for heart attack patients in the U.S.
1940
01:16:44,166 --> 01:16:47,202
We have had presidents here, we've had heads of state,
1941
01:16:47,235 --> 01:16:50,005
we've had a lot of dignitaries and celebrities.
1942
01:16:50,038 --> 01:16:51,907
And I have to say that Mr. Ballard
1943
01:16:51,940 --> 01:16:53,775
has created more interest,
1944
01:16:53,809 --> 01:16:56,945
certainly more phone calls than anyone that I can recall.
1945
01:16:56,979 --> 01:16:58,113
He's doing just fine.
1946
01:16:58,547 --> 01:17:01,183
Just fine. He's, uh, he's up. He's walking around.
1947
01:17:01,216 --> 01:17:04,886
The doctors are-- are really quite surprised.
1948
01:17:04,920 --> 01:17:06,188
But I'm, you know,
1949
01:17:06,221 --> 01:17:07,756
I'm not surprised by anything Harold does.
1950
01:17:07,789 --> 01:17:09,091
[interviewer] What do you mean by that?
1951
01:17:09,124 --> 01:17:10,692
He's just-- He's a...
1952
01:17:12,928 --> 01:17:15,063
His body is as big a character as he is.
1953
01:17:15,097 --> 01:17:16,999
He just-- He comes through these things.
1954
01:17:17,032 --> 01:17:18,834
[narrator] Back in Toronto,
1955
01:17:18,867 --> 01:17:21,370
tension continued to grow within the Ballard clan.
1956
01:17:21,970 --> 01:17:23,805
[news anchor] A judge has declared him
1957
01:17:23,839 --> 01:17:25,307
mentally incompetent.
1958
01:17:25,340 --> 01:17:27,476
So Yolanda Ballard and Ballard's daughter,
1959
01:17:27,509 --> 01:17:29,444
Mary Elizabeth Flynn, went to court
1960
01:17:29,478 --> 01:17:31,413
to fight over who should be guardian
1961
01:17:31,446 --> 01:17:34,116
of Harold Ballard and his multimillion dollar empire.
1962
01:17:34,149 --> 01:17:36,718
Harold needs me.
1963
01:17:37,352 --> 01:17:39,488
Desperately needs me, as I need Harold.
1964
01:17:39,521 --> 01:17:41,123
They're well looked after.
1965
01:17:41,156 --> 01:17:43,058
There's no one eating out of the garbage cans.
1966
01:17:43,091 --> 01:17:44,893
They all have good educations.
1967
01:17:45,661 --> 01:17:48,130
And what they have left in the, uh,
1968
01:17:48,163 --> 01:17:50,198
grab bag when I go, that's up to them.
1969
01:17:50,232 --> 01:17:51,967
They'll fight like hell about it.
1970
01:17:52,000 --> 01:17:54,102
There'll be lawsuits and war, and everything else.
1971
01:17:54,136 --> 01:17:55,737
I don't worry about it.
1972
01:17:55,771 --> 01:17:57,406
I don't try to make favorites of anybody.
1973
01:17:57,939 --> 01:18:00,308
I want them to think I'm a miserable bastard.
1974
01:18:00,342 --> 01:18:02,377
And that's the-- that's the way to run it.
1975
01:18:02,411 --> 01:18:05,514
She was very manipulative and clever
1976
01:18:05,547 --> 01:18:07,015
but could civil heads prevail?
1977
01:18:07,049 --> 01:18:08,483
Could he have called them in and said,
1978
01:18:08,517 --> 01:18:10,819
"You know, let's just give you some money?"
1979
01:18:10,852 --> 01:18:13,922
But instead, it turned into an incredibly acrimonious.
1980
01:18:13,955 --> 01:18:16,858
It was a horrible, horrible time behind the scenes, I'm sure,
1981
01:18:16,892 --> 01:18:20,529
but the displays in public were even worse.
1982
01:18:20,562 --> 01:18:22,364
The Yolanda story,
1983
01:18:22,397 --> 01:18:24,366
where she ran through the Molson Cup press conference
1984
01:18:24,399 --> 01:18:26,001
in her bathrobe and, uh,
1985
01:18:26,034 --> 01:18:29,504
curlers with a strip sirloin stuck to her eye,
1986
01:18:29,538 --> 01:18:33,508
screaming that she'd just been punched in the eye.
1987
01:18:33,542 --> 01:18:35,844
Those of us, 15, 20 of us that were there,
1988
01:18:35,877 --> 01:18:37,746
we were like looking at each other going...
1989
01:18:38,847 --> 01:18:40,248
"Circus is still in town."
1990
01:18:41,016 --> 01:18:42,317
[reporter] Police are investigating
1991
01:18:42,350 --> 01:18:43,885
an alleged assault
1992
01:18:43,919 --> 01:18:45,854
upon Ballard's companion, Yolanda.
1993
01:18:45,887 --> 01:18:48,323
And police have questioned Harold's son, Bill Ballard.
1994
01:18:48,356 --> 01:18:53,095
Bill apparently cold cocked Yolanda, allegedly.
1995
01:18:53,528 --> 01:18:56,198
[reporter] Bill Ballard denied assaulting Yolanda Ballard.
1996
01:18:56,631 --> 01:18:58,900
When he and Yolanda got into a tussle
1997
01:18:58,934 --> 01:19:01,136
in Harold Ballard's office last fall,
1998
01:19:01,169 --> 01:19:05,207
Bill Ballard described Yolanda as being out of control.
1999
01:19:05,240 --> 01:19:07,943
He also said that when she accused him
2000
01:19:07,976 --> 01:19:10,412
of trying to assault her, he retorted...
2001
01:19:15,550 --> 01:19:16,451
Go on!
2002
01:19:18,954 --> 01:19:20,288
What the hell's the matter with you?
2003
01:19:20,322 --> 01:19:21,990
[reporter] It obviously bothers you
2004
01:19:22,023 --> 01:19:23,458
that people are talking about your personal life.
2005
01:19:23,492 --> 01:19:25,193
It's all right.
2006
01:19:25,227 --> 01:19:27,129
They-- they get a lot of fun out of talking about me.
2007
01:19:27,162 --> 01:19:28,530
Let them go ahead.
2008
01:19:28,563 --> 01:19:30,332
Have you ever seen me try and stop them?
2009
01:19:30,932 --> 01:19:32,534
[reporter] No, but it bothers you.
2010
01:19:32,567 --> 01:19:34,269
Well, have you ever see me try and stop them?
2011
01:19:34,669 --> 01:19:36,238
Why the hell don't you get some brains
2012
01:19:36,271 --> 01:19:37,873
and think for yourself?
2013
01:19:37,906 --> 01:19:39,174
[reporter] It's-- You used to say things--
2014
01:19:39,207 --> 01:19:41,209
Ah, get ou-- You guys make me sick.
2015
01:19:41,243 --> 01:19:44,045
[narrator] Bill was eventually convicted of assault
2016
01:19:44,079 --> 01:19:45,547
and fined $500.
2017
01:19:46,248 --> 01:19:50,919
However, for Harold Ballard, his time was coming to an end.
2018
01:19:50,952 --> 01:19:53,255
[Stellick] As far as his condition, it's stable.
2019
01:19:53,288 --> 01:19:55,991
He's a diabetic, and we have to be concerned.
2020
01:19:56,358 --> 01:19:57,926
[reporter] How are you feeling, Harold?
2021
01:19:57,959 --> 01:19:58,994
Not too good.
2022
01:20:00,629 --> 01:20:04,332
[narrator] Harold Ballard passed away on April 11th, 1990.
2023
01:20:04,366 --> 01:20:08,236
[sad piano music playing]
2024
01:20:08,270 --> 01:20:10,238
[news anchor] It was Harold Ballard's last visit
2025
01:20:10,272 --> 01:20:12,174
to Maple Leaf Gardens.
2026
01:20:12,207 --> 01:20:14,409
When the doors opened, Ballard's longtime companion,
2027
01:20:14,442 --> 01:20:17,045
Yolanda Ballard, was given an hour for a private visit.
2028
01:20:17,078 --> 01:20:18,480
[reporter] Yolanda, how are you this morning?
2029
01:20:18,513 --> 01:20:20,215
So sad.
2030
01:20:20,248 --> 01:20:22,284
He was very, very tough at times,
2031
01:20:22,317 --> 01:20:25,420
but, he was uh, he was soft inside too.
2032
01:20:25,453 --> 01:20:27,189
He had a lot of character and, um...
2033
01:20:27,823 --> 01:20:30,158
he had a lot of will and a lot of drive to do
2034
01:20:30,192 --> 01:20:31,459
whatever he wanted to do.
2035
01:20:31,493 --> 01:20:36,097
♪
2036
01:20:36,131 --> 01:20:38,466
[reporter] In life, he was an outrageous character.
2037
01:20:38,500 --> 01:20:40,402
In death, he'd suddenly become
2038
01:20:40,435 --> 01:20:42,938
one of Toronto's most generous philanthropists.
2039
01:20:42,971 --> 01:20:45,941
[Lawyer] And the beneficiary of this estate is charity.
2040
01:20:45,974 --> 01:20:47,409
[reporter] That was the announcement
2041
01:20:47,442 --> 01:20:49,411
from Harold Ballard's lawyer today.
2042
01:20:49,444 --> 01:20:51,079
And the three Ballard children said
2043
01:20:51,112 --> 01:20:53,114
they were expecting it and it's okay.
2044
01:20:53,148 --> 01:20:55,417
They were each millionaires long before their father died.
2045
01:20:57,085 --> 01:20:58,453
We can't spend what we have now.
2046
01:20:58,486 --> 01:21:00,121
So, I mean, how much-- how much is more?
2047
01:21:00,488 --> 01:21:03,525
And, you know, personally, I don't need the money.
2048
01:21:03,558 --> 01:21:05,260
I make a lot on my own. [chuckles] So...
2049
01:21:05,994 --> 01:21:08,363
[reporter] If there is to be a fight over Ballard's will,
2050
01:21:08,396 --> 01:21:10,532
it will come from his longtime companion, Yolanda,
2051
01:21:10,565 --> 01:21:13,168
who's to receive $50,000 a year for life
2052
01:21:13,201 --> 01:21:14,936
or until she marries.
2053
01:21:14,970 --> 01:21:16,371
You know, she got something, I think, in the world.
2054
01:21:16,404 --> 01:21:18,139
But Stavros bought her silence.
2055
01:21:18,173 --> 01:21:19,708
The rumor was that Steve Stavros
2056
01:21:19,741 --> 01:21:21,643
gave her five million dollars and a pair of golds
2057
01:21:21,676 --> 01:21:23,245
to never speak again,
2058
01:21:23,278 --> 01:21:24,946
and she never said a bad word about him.
2059
01:21:25,313 --> 01:21:27,315
Personally [indistinct] get less.
2060
01:21:27,349 --> 01:21:30,051
I think it's sort of, you know, fine--
2061
01:21:30,085 --> 01:21:31,586
A fine settlement.
2062
01:21:31,620 --> 01:21:32,721
[interviewer] Do you see her contesting it?
2063
01:21:32,754 --> 01:21:34,322
[Bill] I--
2064
01:21:34,356 --> 01:21:36,191
A, I don't ever want to see her again,
2065
01:21:36,224 --> 01:21:38,260
but B, there's nothing she does that amazes me anymore.
2066
01:21:38,660 --> 01:21:40,262
[Stellick] I thought for sure
2067
01:21:40,295 --> 01:21:41,396
she was going to burn through that money.
2068
01:21:41,429 --> 01:21:43,031
And you're going to see Yolanda
2069
01:21:43,064 --> 01:21:44,366
on the front page of the Toronto Sun,
2070
01:21:44,399 --> 01:21:46,101
you know, with a cup in her hand
2071
01:21:46,134 --> 01:21:48,637
on a street corner and a cane, you know, saying,
2072
01:21:48,670 --> 01:21:51,006
"The Ballard family screwed me out of everything."
2073
01:21:52,774 --> 01:21:54,409
[narrator] Harold Ballard owned
2074
01:21:54,442 --> 01:21:56,344
one of the most successful franchises
2075
01:21:56,378 --> 01:21:58,346
in the history of the NHL.
2076
01:21:58,747 --> 01:22:01,549
But under his stewardship, the Maple Leafs,
2077
01:22:01,583 --> 01:22:04,185
winners of 13 Stanley Cups,
2078
01:22:04,219 --> 01:22:07,088
but none since 1967,
2079
01:22:07,122 --> 01:22:10,191
endured ten losing seasons in a row.
2080
01:22:10,225 --> 01:22:13,161
From 1979 to 1989.
2081
01:22:13,194 --> 01:22:17,732
♪
2082
01:22:17,766 --> 01:22:19,534
[Brunt] It's amazing he didn't kill this thing.
2083
01:22:19,567 --> 01:22:22,203
He couldn't kill it and expansion couldn't kill it.
2084
01:22:22,237 --> 01:22:24,306
And, you know, millions of options on television
2085
01:22:24,339 --> 01:22:26,041
and online and all that stuff still couldn't kill it.
2086
01:22:26,074 --> 01:22:28,143
It's out there, it's in the genes somewhere still
2087
01:22:28,176 --> 01:22:29,744
that he, you know, he didn't manage to kill it.
2088
01:22:30,345 --> 01:22:34,115
But, you know, I just kind of-- you-- you wonder,
2089
01:22:34,149 --> 01:22:35,750
you know, you could have had some of that, right?
2090
01:22:35,784 --> 01:22:37,485
Like he-- There was-- He could have been that guy.
2091
01:22:37,519 --> 01:22:39,020
He could have been the beloved owner
2092
01:22:39,054 --> 01:22:41,056
of the Toronto Maple Leafs, you know,
2093
01:22:41,089 --> 01:22:43,191
who looked after his alumni and, you know,
2094
01:22:43,224 --> 01:22:45,226
built a strong team, and hired a good coach,
2095
01:22:45,260 --> 01:22:46,728
and let him do his job.
2096
01:22:46,761 --> 01:22:49,064
And, you know, and then miraculously, in 1982,
2097
01:22:49,097 --> 01:22:52,100
they won the Stanley Cup for the first time since 1967
2098
01:22:52,133 --> 01:22:53,501
and the streets filled
2099
01:22:53,535 --> 01:22:55,036
and he could have been that guy, right?
2100
01:22:55,503 --> 01:22:57,472
Wouldn't it have been better, you know?
2101
01:22:57,906 --> 01:22:59,474
Wouldn't that have been better than the story
2102
01:22:59,507 --> 01:23:00,542
we're telling here?
2103
01:23:01,076 --> 01:23:03,578
If the Leafs had won just one Stanley Cup
2104
01:23:03,611 --> 01:23:06,548
under his ownership, he'd be remembered now
2105
01:23:06,581 --> 01:23:09,417
as a funny, irascible old scamp.
2106
01:23:09,451 --> 01:23:11,586
[Vaive] He ran it like a goddamn circus.
2107
01:23:11,619 --> 01:23:13,621
It was-- [laughing]
2108
01:23:13,655 --> 01:23:15,590
Every single day,
2109
01:23:16,057 --> 01:23:19,260
something in a newspaper of some stupid thing
2110
01:23:19,294 --> 01:23:22,397
that he said, you know, was front and center.
2111
01:23:22,430 --> 01:23:24,566
And it wasn't about the hockey team.
2112
01:23:24,599 --> 01:23:26,134
It was just about Harold.
2113
01:23:26,167 --> 01:23:29,304
And that was Harold's goal, I believe,
2114
01:23:29,337 --> 01:23:32,440
was to get on the front page of the sports every single day.
2115
01:23:32,474 --> 01:23:34,576
And he-- and he pretty much managed that.
2116
01:23:34,609 --> 01:23:37,278
His championship was being the guy,
2117
01:23:37,312 --> 01:23:40,749
was being, uh, the face of the franchise,
2118
01:23:40,782 --> 01:23:44,586
which is why when, you know, members of the franchise,
2119
01:23:44,619 --> 01:23:47,455
whether it be famous and beloved captains
2120
01:23:47,489 --> 01:23:51,126
or really smart coaches, pushed up against him,
2121
01:23:51,593 --> 01:23:53,795
they were quickly removed from the franchise.
2122
01:23:53,828 --> 01:23:56,731
So, I think, no question, his motivations
2123
01:23:56,765 --> 01:23:59,601
were to be front and center at all times.
2124
01:23:59,968 --> 01:24:03,805
The last line of the obituary says...
2125
01:24:05,306 --> 01:24:08,143
"Harold Ballard was predeceased
2126
01:24:08,176 --> 01:24:10,745
by his wife, Dorothy, and his hockey team."
2127
01:24:12,147 --> 01:24:14,816
And, uh, maybe that says it best of all.
2128
01:24:16,918 --> 01:24:20,588
[Brunt] Harold was, you know, of a different class.
2129
01:24:20,622 --> 01:24:22,257
He came by his money a different way.
2130
01:24:22,290 --> 01:24:23,658
He didn't play by the rules,
2131
01:24:23,691 --> 01:24:26,261
and he didn't care about the decorum
2132
01:24:26,294 --> 01:24:27,896
expected of somebody in his position.
2133
01:24:27,929 --> 01:24:29,798
And I think he was flipping a middle finger
2134
01:24:29,831 --> 01:24:31,266
to people every day.
2135
01:24:31,299 --> 01:24:32,534
[McKenny] I don't think he ever took
2136
01:24:32,567 --> 01:24:34,402
any Dale Carnegie courses, you know.
2137
01:24:34,936 --> 01:24:37,238
It's my building, it's the only building in town,
2138
01:24:37,272 --> 01:24:38,706
if you don't like it, fuck off.
2139
01:24:39,274 --> 01:24:42,343
That was his idea of PR. [laughs]
2140
01:24:42,377 --> 01:24:43,778
It was his team. He owned it.
2141
01:24:43,812 --> 01:24:46,114
We don't have to like maybe how he did it,
2142
01:24:46,714 --> 01:24:48,283
but it was his.
2143
01:24:48,316 --> 01:24:49,684
[Parrish] When you look at the pantheon
2144
01:24:49,717 --> 01:24:51,553
of sports owners through history,
2145
01:24:51,586 --> 01:24:53,822
who are the greatest ones and who are the worst ones?
2146
01:24:54,255 --> 01:24:58,359
And Harold's name, even today, 30 years after his passing,
2147
01:24:58,393 --> 01:25:00,361
it does get included in that list
2148
01:25:00,395 --> 01:25:02,263
of the worst owners.
2149
01:25:02,297 --> 01:25:03,832
It's because of the combination.
2150
01:25:04,199 --> 01:25:07,168
He wasn't a strong hockey guy, didn't pay
2151
01:25:07,202 --> 01:25:09,204
and didn't hire strong hockey people,
2152
01:25:09,237 --> 01:25:11,806
and he wasn't a very nice man as well.
2153
01:25:11,840 --> 01:25:13,708
I viewed him probably
2154
01:25:13,741 --> 01:25:15,643
in the same level as a grandfather.
2155
01:25:15,677 --> 01:25:18,847
You know, what he wanted from you was--
2156
01:25:18,880 --> 01:25:20,615
was very basic.
2157
01:25:20,648 --> 01:25:23,651
Be willing to die for that crest.
2158
01:25:24,252 --> 01:25:27,655
And when you're bleeding, it better be blue and white.
2159
01:25:27,689 --> 01:25:29,357
Doesn't matter what he...
2160
01:25:30,358 --> 01:25:32,527
I loved him. I loved him.
2161
01:25:32,560 --> 01:25:35,864
I don't think he understood the modern game,
2162
01:25:35,897 --> 01:25:38,700
especially after the series of '72,
2163
01:25:38,733 --> 01:25:41,402
when training changes from what the Russians had taught
2164
01:25:41,436 --> 01:25:42,937
about off ice training,
2165
01:25:42,971 --> 01:25:45,673
when strategy in the game changes,
2166
01:25:45,707 --> 01:25:47,475
when videotape comes in.
2167
01:25:47,509 --> 01:25:49,310
International players, there's guys who speak Swedish
2168
01:25:49,344 --> 01:25:51,713
in the dressing room for crying out loud.
2169
01:25:51,746 --> 01:25:54,349
That's not easy to adapt when you're born in 1903
2170
01:25:54,382 --> 01:25:55,884
in a monocultural city.
2171
01:25:55,917 --> 01:25:59,587
But the people who did adapt won the Stanley Cup,
2172
01:26:00,255 --> 01:26:03,525
and Harold just sat in his booth with old King Clancy.
2173
01:26:04,025 --> 01:26:08,429
And they lost. And they lost, and they lost, and they lost.
2174
01:26:08,463 --> 01:26:09,697
And he's remembered as a loser.
2175
01:26:10,398 --> 01:26:11,966
[reporter] You remind me of the story
2176
01:26:12,000 --> 01:26:13,935
of the circus owner who goes to a small town
2177
01:26:13,968 --> 01:26:15,970
and takes a white horse and paints black stripes on it
2178
01:26:16,004 --> 01:26:17,705
because he said they've never seen a zebra.
2179
01:26:17,739 --> 01:26:19,340
So, this might as well be a zebra.
2180
01:26:19,374 --> 01:26:20,542
-You're right. -[reporter] You're a con artist.
2181
01:26:20,575 --> 01:26:21,976
Well, that's what they call me.
2182
01:26:22,343 --> 01:26:23,611
[interviewer] You don't deny it?
2183
01:26:23,645 --> 01:26:24,712
No, no, no.
2184
01:26:25,547 --> 01:26:27,916
[narrator] Since the demise of Harold Ballard,
2185
01:26:27,949 --> 01:26:30,351
the team has had a handful of ups
2186
01:26:30,385 --> 01:26:32,387
and plenty of downs.
2187
01:26:32,420 --> 01:26:34,289
So, as a millennial, you've certainly heard about
2188
01:26:34,322 --> 01:26:36,524
the Harold Ballard curse
2189
01:26:36,558 --> 01:26:39,661
and how his misgivings
2190
01:26:39,694 --> 01:26:44,599
and, you know, negative acts maybe haunt the franchise
2191
01:26:44,632 --> 01:26:46,834
the same way that the Curse of the Babe
2192
01:26:46,868 --> 01:26:49,771
would have been a thing in baseball.
2193
01:26:49,804 --> 01:26:52,640
I'm hopeful, um, but...
2194
01:26:53,474 --> 01:26:56,744
sometimes even the best of hopes are tested.
2195
01:26:57,145 --> 01:26:58,913
I think they have very smart people
2196
01:26:58,947 --> 01:27:02,517
running the organization, very different minded people
2197
01:27:02,550 --> 01:27:04,719
from a lot of different avenues coming together
2198
01:27:04,752 --> 01:27:07,488
to help build what they hope is a winning team.
2199
01:27:07,855 --> 01:27:09,657
I do feel like there is something
2200
01:27:09,691 --> 01:27:11,359
placed upon this team
2201
01:27:11,392 --> 01:27:12,894
that has prevented them from succeeding.
2202
01:27:12,927 --> 01:27:14,896
They've been so good.
2203
01:27:14,929 --> 01:27:17,065
[narrator] But through it all, Leafs fans the world over
2204
01:27:17,098 --> 01:27:20,602
continue to hope and dream that perhaps
2205
01:27:20,635 --> 01:27:23,638
this will be the season finally
2206
01:27:23,671 --> 01:27:28,042
that the Toronto Maple Leafs break the Ballard curse.
2207
01:27:29,510 --> 01:27:33,548
[rock music
173326
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