After his wife died, Harold Ballard moved lock, stock and barrelling personality into an apartment inside Maple Leaf Gardens.
It was a spooky place 鈥 just one small window 鈥 dimly lit, with heavy curtains, a few table lamps giving off an amber glow and dominated by a large portrait of his late wife Dorothy. It felt like a mausoleum.
He had his suite and he had his bunker, from which he watched his 海角社区官网Maple Leafs, once an illustrious franchise, play some of the worst hockey in the history of the NHL. Ballard was responsible for that wreckage. Just as he was single-handedly responsible for the chaos, the tumult, the bedlam and the slapstick that engulfed the team for decades.
There will never be another Harold Ballard. Thank God.
Director Jason Priestley attends “Offside: The Harold Ballard Story” screening held at the Scotiabank Theatre in 海角社区官网on January 18, 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESSBut he filled newspapers 鈥 the sports section, the front page 鈥 in a way matched by few sports impresarios. Possibly the most god-awful owner ever, in any sport, although there鈥檚 a special place in hell for Marge Schott, proprietor of the Cincinnati Reds and devotee of Nazi memorabilia.
I remember late one night walking into the press club in Montreal 鈥 long gone now 鈥 and spotting Ballard at a table with his sidekick King Clancy. Ballard, a diabetic, plunged a syringe of insulin into his thigh, through his pants, and just kept right on talking.
I remember the international furor he created after ordering a message flashed on the scoreboard during a game between the Canadian Olympic team and Moscow Dynamo: 鈥淩emember Korean Airlines flight 007 shot down by the Russians. Don鈥檛 cheer, just boo 鈥 Harold鈥. Although that was actually a moment of moral clarity. The passenger plane had been blown out of the sky by a Soviet fighter jet on Sept. 1, 1983, killing everyone aboard, including eight Canadians.
I remember the firing and unfiring, within days, of Roger Neilson, the cerebral coach, Captain Video for his then groundbreaking use of videotape to analyze games. Ballard pressed for Neilson to make his reappearance behind the bench with a paper bag over his head, then pulling it off for the ta-da! moment, because fans weren鈥檛 aware he鈥檇 been reinstalled. Neilson, to his credit, refused.
I remember Ballard鈥檚 cruelty, his spite, his abuse of players, coaches, general managers and his own adult children.
I remember an enfeebled Ballard, shaking his cane at reporters and TV cameras, spewing a string of profanities.
Yolanda and Harold Ballard attending a 海角社区官网Maple Leafs game.
OFFSIDE:THE HAROLD BALLARD STORYMemories came flooding back while watching 鈥淥ffside: The Harold Ballard Story,鈥 which aired on CBC Sunday night. What a grotesquerie of a man. A misogynist, a misanthrope really, brazen sexist, racist and a bombastic bully. Probably pleased to be memorialized that way too. Impossible for those who didn鈥檛 live through his haphazard regime, the madness of King Harold, who didn鈥檛 suffer under his grubby thumb, to understand what that era was like. Who thinks six straight losses in the first round of the playoffs 鈥 the latter-day ensemble of Leafs 鈥 was the apogee of hockey horror in this city?
Take a look at 鈥淥ffside鈥, the documentary directed by Jason Priestly 鈥 the Canadian actor best known for playing Brandon Walsh on 鈥淏everly Hills, 90210鈥 鈥 on streaming platforms where it鈥檚 still available for viewing, a project that joins the extensive written canon of The Ballard Chronicles. Any restlessness over the as-yet Stanley Cup barren 鈥淪hanaplan鈥 will vanish in a puff of cigar smoke and blue cussing, most of the foulness emerging from Ballard鈥檚 own mouth.
The cast of raconteurs runs from Darryl Sittler and Lanny McDonald, Tiger Williams and Jim McKenny, Wendel Clark and Rick Vaive. Lovely to see as well so many old friends from the hockey beat corps who finally took a stand against Ballard鈥檚 aversion to female sports writers 鈥 we were banned from the dressing room, had to conduct post-game interviews on deadline in the hallway 鈥 by storming the cramped locker room en masse. Ballard鈥檚 angry response was to ban everybody. 鈥淚 should have got one of the hockey sticks and decapitated the bastards.鈥
Sittler, along with Dave Keon 鈥 the linchpin on four Cup triumphs, so brutally mistreated by the miserly Ballard that he bolted to the upstart WHA 鈥 was the archetypical Leaf, loyal to the crest, whilst straining to relay his teammates鈥 frustrations, particularly with the tyrannical fiendishness of Punch Imlach, who鈥檇 returned to 海角社区官网as coach and GM, second time around an utter disaster. At a meeting, Imlach sputtered at Sittler: 鈥淛ust who do you think you are? My captains have always been management and they do what management says.鈥
Sittler had a no-trade contract, so Ballard couldn鈥檛 punish him for the audacity. Instead, he traded away Sittler鈥檚 closest friend, McDonald, who鈥檇 scored the Game 7 overtime goal that eliminated the dynastic New York Islanders in the 1978 quarterfinals 鈥 Toronto鈥檚 last hurrah with a team that had all the elements to continue pushing for a Cup. Dispatching McDonald was pure vengeance by Ballard. Crushed and angry, Sittler tore the 鈥淐鈥 off his jersey. As the Star鈥檚 late hockey writer Frank Orr so brilliantly wrote of Sittler: 鈥淗e was caught between the devil and the deep blue 鈥淐鈥.
Eventually, Sittler would authorize a trade, just to get away from 鈥渢he fat guy upstairs鈥.
That 鈥78 squad was dismantled, dipping the Leafs into a decade of futility. 鈥淓verything just went to s-t after that,鈥 said Vaive, another beleaguered captain.
Tiger on Ballard: 鈥淗e was just a bad person. He was just that snake that lived in the sewer hole.鈥
Also from Orr: 鈥淲aiting for the Leafs to win at this time is like leaving the porch light on for Jimmy Hoffa.鈥
A 鈥渕iserable sonovabitch,鈥 as Ballard called himself, quite proudly.
Long-time 海角社区官网Maple Leafs owner Harold Ballard is shown in this 1986 file photo.
海角社区官网StarToo many deplorable utterings to recite here. But among the most notorious: Telling esteemed broadcaster Barbara Frum that women didn鈥檛 belong on radio and 鈥淵ou know where they鈥檙e at their best, don鈥檛 you? On their back.鈥 He鈥檇 said it many times before.
No way would 鈥渂roads鈥 ever step foot in the Leafs dressing room Ballard vowed, unless they took their clothes off too. When the league-mandated equal access, Ballard was present for the first woman to cross that threshold, warning the players: 鈥淟ook out boys. We鈥檝e got a lizard watcher in here.鈥 There to do her job but, in Ballard鈥檚 crude estimation: 鈥淐ause we鈥檝e got guys in here with c-ks as long as your forearm.鈥
Ballard was a showman who fancied himself a brilliant promoter 鈥 he did bring the Beatles to Maple Leaf Gardens in 1964, finagling a second concert out of the band, for which he鈥檇 already had printed and sold out tickets. And he gave over the stage for a bout between Cassius Clay 鈥 as he was then called 鈥 and George Chuvalo when the future Muhammad Ali was barred from fighting in the U.S. over his religious refusal to be drafted into the Army and be shipped off to kill the Viet Cong.
My pal Bobby Stellick, then the junior PR man, had the patience of Job and an unflagging sense of humour dealing with his boss. Of gold-digger Yolanda, who suddenly latched herself onto Ballard 鈥 and legally took the name Yolanda Ballard, Stellick says she was 鈥渁 low-rent version of the Kardashians or Gabor sisters.鈥 Brother Gord 鈥 in and out as GM amid the turbulence 鈥 describes her as 鈥渕ore obvious than a three-dollar bill鈥.
I could go on and on. Many have. But the most pungent observation was the last line of Ballard鈥檚 obituary, written by the sublime Rex McLeod: 鈥淗e was predeceased by his wife Dorothy and his hockey team.鈥
Good effing riddance.
