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We met in 1976 while I was writing a play on Les Canadiens for Montreal鈥檚 Centaur Theatre. Ken was a subscriber and agreed to help. At our first meeting he brought a sheaf of notes and many questions about theatre. When the season(s) began, he鈥檇 phone from the road with reports. That fall Quebec elected its first separatist government. The day after he called to describe a 鈥渟trange game last night.鈥� The crowd cheered way more for election results on the scoreboard than their team. It rattled them. That became Act Two.

He took a risk putting his name on the play 鈥� he got an 鈥渁ssist鈥� 鈥� without any control. I only recall one disagreement, over casting Rocket Richard. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 have a fat Rocket,鈥� he said. I argued that unlike film, theatre accommodates such things. The last rehearsal before opening night was calamitous. He was there and drove me to my hotel. He tried bucking me up by recounting some abject playoffs situation that they wound up overcoming.

After retiring early, he wrote his first book, with similar doggedness. 鈥淚 can鈥檛 believe how Ken keeps going back into that room,鈥� said his wife, Lynda, as if he descended into Dante鈥檚 Inferno after lunch. But he made himself into a writer.

He had an acerbic quality that clashed delightfully with his rather bland, perfect image. Journalist/author Roy MacGregor said at a charity hockey game, 鈥淕osh Ken, I never played before a crowd this big.鈥� Ken said, 鈥淟ooks like a book signing to me.鈥� When he played hockey with pals from his old hood, he said, 鈥淭hey used to be really fast and in their own minds, some of them still are.鈥�

In 1997 he took on running the Leafs. It meant learning to deal with heavy duty corporate backstabbing. Sometimes he鈥檇 invite me and my son to practises. Ken and Gideon, who was 5 or 6, would sit behind Eddie Belfour and discuss goaltending. When he left in 2004 to run for the Liberals, he told Gideon he thought he鈥檇 still have enough clout to get us in.

He’d been courted by all parties. When I asked why not the Conservatives, he said, 鈥淲ell, to start with 鈥� the name.鈥� In fact, he told me he鈥檇 voted for the PQ in that traumatic 1976 election, though not because he was a separatist. He wasn鈥檛. He said it was simply the only reasonable choice at that moment.

As federal cabinet minister he created our first national child-care program. He had to take on the austerity fanatics and the inflexible lifelong activists. His chief of staff sent out a departmental memo saying Ken had clearly been right while they, with their pragmatic, compromising admonitions, had been wrong. The program died when the Liberal government fell but child-care campaigners say it laid the basis for the program we now have. It wouldn鈥檛 exist without Ken.

He ran for party leader, lost, and finally lost his seat in 2011. The Harper Tories played the Israel card heavily in his riding. Ken felt the pressure strongly 鈥� and he saw himself as someone not easily pressed. (He鈥檇 dealt with Gary Dornhoefer in the crease).聽The morning after losing, he stood in the rain on a main street in the riding with a sign saying Thank You York Centre.

His last obsession was ending the concussion fiasco in hockey. He felt he could do it by personally embarrassing the NHL鈥檚 frontman for the owners, Gary Bettman. At the end, he hadn鈥檛 succeeded but he hadn鈥檛 given up either.

We weren鈥檛 in touch as much in recent years but I already miss him dreadfully, as will (and somehow not just metaphorically) the country. I spent the night after getting the message that he was gone, trying to convince myself it was a massive AI-driven hoax. By morning I鈥檇 moved from denial to bargaining. I skipped anger, there was too much to be grateful for.