December 21, 1940: F. Scott Fitzgerald Dies

December 21, 1940: F. Scott Fitzgerald dies of a heart attack in Los Angeles, where he had gone to write for movies. He was 44 years old.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald had been born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota. He became known as part of the "Lost Generation" writers, disillusioned by their experiences in World War I, and willing to critique American society where mainstream writers went out of their way to praise it.

Although he wrote many short stories, including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 1922, he only published 5 novels. This Side of Paradise was published in 1920, and was a runaway success. The Beautiful and the Damned came in 1922, and was considerably less successful. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, and did well at the time, but not well enough that people then would have considered it an all-time classic.

Fitzgerald stuck to writing short stories for a while, then went back to novels with Tender Is the Night in 1934. It didn't sell well. He moved west, thinking writing screenplays would make him a lot of money. He was right. But he had begun working on another novel, The Last Tycoon. It was unfinished at the time of his death. Edmund Wilson, a writer and literary critic who was a close friend, finished it and published it.

As with many creative people, death was a great career move for Fitzgerald. He could no longer disappoint people with weak new product, and what little he left behind left people wondering what more he could have done. His books became popular among U.S. soldiers in World War II. By the 1950s, the nostalgia wave for the "Roaring Twenties" was underway, and Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda Sayre, the archetypal "flapper," became icons. The other 4 novels are afterthoughts: It is The Great Gatsby that everyone remembers.

He was played by Gregory Peck in Beloved Infidel in 1959, Richard Chamberlain in Last of the Belles (which focused on Zelda) in 1974, Jason Miller in F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood in 1976, Timothy Hutton in Zelda in 1993, Malcolm Gets in Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (about the Algonquin Round Table, of which he was a semi-member) in 1994, Jeremy Irons in Last Call in 2002, Tom Hiddleston in Midnight in Paris in 2011, David Hoflin in Z: The Beginning of Everything in 2016, and Guy Pearce in Genius in 2016.

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December 21, 1940 was a Saturday. Rock singer Frank Zappa was born on this day. That he was born the day Scott Fitzgerald died must mean something.

Baseball was out of season. College football was between the regular season and the bowls. The NFL season was over. And there was no NBA yet.

But there were 2 games played in the NHL.  The New York Americans played the Toronto Maple Leafs to a tie, 2-2 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. And the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at the Boston Garden. 

December 12, 1933: Eddie Shore vs. Ace Bailey

A colorized photo of Ace Bailey, included in a composite photo

of a Maple Leafs' Centennial Team, 2016

December 12, 1933: Perhaps the ugliest game in National Hockey League history is played. But it led to one of the game's greatest moments.

The Boston Bruins were hosting the Toronto Maple Leafs at the Boston Garden. The Bruins still had most of the players who had led them to the 1929 Stanley Cup, including 2 of the greatest defensemen the game has ever known, Eddie Shore and Aubrey "Dit" Clapper. The Leafs, winners of the Cup in 1932, had another, Francis "King" Clancy.

This game, which the Leafs would win 4-1, was in the 2nd period. The Leafs had taken 2 quick penalties, and sent Clancy, defenseman George "Red" Horner, and right wing Irvine Wallace "Ace" Bailey out to defend the 5-on-3 Bruin power play.

Shore, who helped the Bruins win the Stanley Cup in 1929, rushed up the ice. Clancy, charitably listed at 5-foot-7 and 155 pounds, and a winner of the Cup with the Ottawa Senators in 1922, '23 and '27, and with the Leafs in '32, followed him, and checked him into the boards.

Shore got up, and, in his daze, he figured the closest Leaf player to him must have been the one who did it. He guessed wrong: The closest Leaf player to him was Bailey. Shore hit him from the side, and he landed head-first on the ice.

Horner skated over, knowing full well that it wasn't Bailey who had checked Shore, and yelled, "What did you do that for, Eddie?" Shore, not realizing the enormity of what he had done, gave Horner a big grin. What happened next is in dispute: The first source I saw on the story said that Horner hit Shore over the head with the blade of his stick. Another source said that Horner punched Shore, knocking him out in an instant.

Whatever the truth was, Shore was also out cold. The Boston crowd booed the hell out of Horner, who was already known as one of the dirtiest players in the game. But so was Shore, who, with his attitude, his receding hairline, and the fact that he was admired but not especially liked, was practically the Ty Cobb of hockey.

But it quickly became apparent that Bailey was hurt worse. Both men regained consciousness, and were carried off the ice together. Shore apologized. Bailey seemed to forgive him, saying, "It's all part of the game," and then passed out again.

Bailey was taken to Boston City Hospital. He was diagnosed with a fractured skull and an extradural clot on the brain. His father, listening to the game on the radio in Toronto, packed a gun, and immediately boarded a train for Boston, intending to kill Shore.

Leafs owner Conn Smythe found out about this, and talked to his general manager, Frank Selke. Selke had a friend working with the Boston Police, who met Bailey's father at the hotel, and talked him out of the murder plot.

Nevertheless, the BPD said they would charge Shore with manslaughter if Bailey died. Within 24 hours, he underwent 2 spinal taps to relieve intracranial pressure. There was at least one news report that Bailey had died. But, through several procedures, he came out of his coma after 10 days. He hung on, through Christmas and New Year's. In mid-January 1934, he was released from the hospital.

NHL President Frank Calder suspended Horner for 6 games, and Shore indefinitely. Once he was confident that Bailey was going to live, Calder set Shore's suspension at 16 games, or 1/3rd of the season at the time (48 games). Bailey never played again.

Walter Gilhooly, sports editor of the Ottawa Journal, recommended that a benefit game be played, to offset Bailey's loss of income. Calder agreed. The Leafs would host the game, and put their team out against a team made up of players from the rest of the League, 2 from each of the other 8 teams then in it.

The game was played at Maple Leaf Gardens on February 14, 1934. Here were the lineups:

* From the Toronto Maple Leafs, coached by Dick Irvin, once a great player, and the father of eventual Hall of Fame broadcaster Dick Irvin Jr.: Number 1, goaltender George Hainsworth, formerly a star with the Montreal Canadiens; 2, defenseman Red Horner; 3, defenseman Alex Levinsky; 4, defenseman Clarence "Hap" Day; 5, center Andy Blair; 7, defenseman King Clancy; 8, left wing Harold "Baldy" Cotton; 9, right wing Charlie "the Bomber" Conacher; 10, center Joe Primeau; 11, left wing Harvey "Busher" Jackson; 12, left wing Hector "Hec" Kilrea; 14, center Bill Thoms; 15, right wing Ken Doraty; 16, right wing Charlie Sands; 17, left wing Frank "Buzz" Boll.

NHL All-Stars, coached by Lester Patrick of the New York Rangers, also once a great player:

* From the Chicago Black Hawks: 1, goaltender Charlie Gardiner; and 7, defenseman Lionel Conacher, brother of Charlie.

* From the Boston Bruins: 2, defenseman Eddie Shore; and 9, center Nelson "Nels" Stewart, better known as a Montreal Maroon.

* From the Ottawa Senators: 3, right wing Frank Finnigan; and 17, defenseman Al Shields.

* From the Montreal Canadiens: 4, left wing Aurele Joliat; and 16, center Howie Morenz. Morenz, known as "the Babe Ruth of Hockey" -- like Ruth, he had several nicknames -- normally wore 7, but Lionel Conacher was considered the greatest all-around athlete in Canada, and had priority.

* From the Detroit Red Wings: 5, left wing Herbie Lewis; and 14, right wing Larry Aurie.

* From the New York Rangers: 6, defenseman Ivan "Ching" Johnson; and 15, right wing Bill Cook. Somebody decided that the Irish-Canadian Johnson looked Chinese, and nicknamed him Ching. He had seniority over Aurie, who also wore 6; but Lewis had seniority over Cook, who wore 5 with the Rangers.

* From the Montreal Maroons: 10, center Reginald "Hooley" Smith; and 18, right wing Jimmy Ward.

* From the New York Americans: 11, center Norman Himes; and 12, defenseman Norman "Red" Dutton.

Before the game, the other teams' players posed at center ice in their regular sweaters. Then they were given white jerseys with "NHL" on them. And the Leafs had special jerseys, too, with "ACE" on them.

The selection of Shore was controversial. When he skated up to receive his Number 2 jersey, the crowd of 14,074 was silent. Then he skated over to the Leafs bench, where Bailey was sitting in a suit, long coat and fedora. Shore offered his hand, and Bailey shook it. The crowd roared, and the players tapped their sticks on the ice, in what was already a long-established hockey salute.

The ceremony concluded with Smythe giving Bailey his Number 6 jersey, and announced that it would be retired.

Bailey dropped a puck for a ceremonial faceoff, and the game began. Charlie Conacher already had an injured knee, and left the game early. Other than that, there wasn't much hitting, and no penalties were called. Cotton and Jackson scored to put the Leafs up 2-0, before Stewart scored to make it 2-1 Leafs at the end of the 1st period.

Jackson scored again early in the 2nd period. Morenz and Finnigan scored to tie it up. But it was all Leafs the rest of the way: Day scored halfway through the 2nd, and Kilrea, Doraty and Blair scored in the 3rd. The Leafs won, beating the entire rest of the NHL, 7-3.

The game raised $20,909 for Bailey's family, about $426,000 in 2022 money. Bailey applied to the NHL to be a referee, but was turned down. Smythe hired him to work in the team's front office. He worked there, in one capacity or another, until a later owner, Harold Ballard, already perhaps the most hated man in the history of Canadian sports, fired him in 1986. Bailey lived until 1992.

A later player, Garnet Bailey, no relation, played in the NHL from 1969 to 1978, and was known as Ace Bailey. He was working as a scout for the Los Angeles Kings when he died in the destruction of United Airlines Flight 175 at the South Tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Shore continued to play with the Bruins through their 1939 Stanley Cup win. In 1940, he bought the minor-league Springfield Indians of Massachusetts, and remained their owner until his death in 1986. Both he and Bailey were elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Bailey wanted the benefit game to become an annual event, for injured players. That didn't happen. But additional benefit games were held for the families of Morenz, who died of heart trouble in 1937, and the Canadiens' Albert "Babe" Siebert, who drowned in 1939. Both of those games were played at the Montreal Forum: The former was a combined Montreal team, Canadiens and Maroons, against the rest of the NHL. The Maroons folded in 1938, so it was just the Canadiens against the rest of the NHL in Siebert's benefit. Both times, the NHL All-Stars won. In 1947, the NHL finally established an annual All-Star Game.

*

December 12, 1933 was a Tuesday. Baseball was out of season, although this was also the day of what would now be called a "fire sale" by the Philadelphia Athletics. I have a separate entry for that event.

The NBA hadn't been founded yet. The NFL was going to play its 1st official Championship Game the following Sunday, and the Chicago Bears won it, 23-21 over the New York Giants.

There were 3 other games played in the NHL that night:

* The New York Americans beat the New York Rangers, 3-0 at the old Madison Square Garden, which was still fairly new at the time. The company that ran the Garden owned the Rangers, and the Amerks were tenants, so any win the tenants had over the landlords was considered big.

* The Detroit Red Wings beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 4-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit.

* And the Montreal Canadiens and the Ottawa Senators played to a 1-1 tie at the Ottawa Auditorium.

November 12, 1942: Bep Guidolin: The NHL's Youngest Player

November 12, 1942: The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Boston Bruins, 3-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Gaye Stewart scores 2 goals for the Leafs, Jack McLean 1. Former Leaf Frank "Buzz" Boll scores the only goal for the Bruins.

Among the players for the Bruins was left wing Bep Guidolin. He was 16 years, 11 months and 2 days old. He remains the youngest player ever to enter an NHL game.

Armand Guidolin (no middle name) was born on December 9, 1925, in Thorold, Ontario, outside Niagara Falls. When he was a boy, the family moved considerably further north, to Timmins, Ontario. He was the youngest child in the family, and his Italian mother pronounced "baby" as "beppy." This got shortened to "Bep."

He was just 5-foot-8, 175 pounds, and not yet 17 years old. But the manpower drain caused by World War II had already thinned NHL rosters, especially since Canada was still part of the British Empire. The Bruins' entire main front line of Milt Schmidt, Woody Dumart and Bobby Bauer, which had led them to the 1939 and 1941 Stanley Cups, were now serving with the Royal Canadian Air Force.

That line, all Canadians of German descent, were known as the Kraut Line. Come the war, the name was changed to the Kitchener Line, for their common Ontario hometown. There was precedent: Kitchener, outside Hamilton, had long been home to German immigrants and their families, and had been known as Berlin until World War I. The name was changed to memorialize Lord Kitchener, the highest-ranking British officer killed in that war, and whose image on recruiting posters predated America's Uncle Sam "I WANT YOU for U.S. Army" posters by a year.

Despite his youth and size, Guidolin had already distinguished himself on the ice. The previous season, he had led the Oshawa Generals to win the Ontario Hockey Association title, and got them to the Final of the Memorial Cup, the championship of Canadian junior hockey, where they lost to a team from Manitoba, the Portage La Prairie Terriers.

Guidolin played in 42 games for the Bruins that 1942-43 season, helping them reach the Stanley Cup Finals, where they lost to the Detroit Red Wings. He remained with them through the 1947 season, played the next with the Wings, then played 4 more with the Chicago Black Hawks. He scored 107 goals in NHL play, topping out at 17 in 2 seasons, and, in those "Original Six" days, with only 120 NHL playing jobs available, was still playing in hockey's high minors until 1961, at age 35.

In 1958, while still playing, he coached the Belleville McFarlands (of Belleville, Ontario, hometown of Bobby Hull) to the Allan Cup, the championship of senior amateur hockey in Canada. In 1965, the Bruins brought him back, to coach the Generals, including a teenage phenom named Bobby Orr. In 1966, once again, this time as head coach, Guidolin got the Generals to the Final of the Memorial Cup but lost it, this time to the Edmonton Oil Kings.

Midway through the 1972-73 season, Tom Johnson stepped down as coach of the Bruins, then the Stanley Cup holders, and Guidolin was named to replace him. He became the 1st NHL head coach ever to win his 1st 5 games. He got them to the 1974 Stanley Cup Finals, losing to the Philadelphia Flyers. He coached the expansion Kansas City Scouts in the 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons, and was still coaching in professional hockey as late as 1984. He died on November 24, 2008, at age 82.

*

November 12, 1942 was a Thursday. Only 1 other game was played in the NHL: The Montreal Canadiens beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 5-2 at the Montreal Forum. The New York Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings were not scheduled.

There were no other scores on this historic day: Baseball season was over, football was in midweek, and the NBA hadn't been founded yet.

November 12, 1931: Maple Leaf Gardens Opens

November 12, 1931: Maple Leaf Gardens opens in Toronto, replacing the Mutual Street Arena. It will be home to the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League for the next 67 seasons.

The Leafs lost the 1st game there, 2-1 to the Chicago Black Hawks. (That team always spelled "Black Hawks" as 2 words, until 1986, when their original charter was found, and they discovered that it had been written as 1 word, "Blackhawks," and that's how they've officially been listed ever since.) Charlie Conacher, the Leafs' biggest star at the time, scored the arena's 1st goal, but it wasn't enough. The Leafs did, however, go on to win the Stanley Cup that season, clinching on home ice.

They also won the Cup while playing at the Gardens in 1942, 1945, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951, 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967 -- clinching on home ice in '42, '47, '49, '51, '63, '64 and '67. In addition, the New York Rangers clinched the Cup by beating the Leafs at the Gardens in 1933 and 1940, the Detroit Red Wings in 1937, and the Montreal Canadiens in 1959 and 1960.

Leafs player Irvine "Ace" Bailey had been injured by Eddie Shore of the Boston Bruins in a game in Boston in 1933, and never played again. On February 12, 1934, the Gardens hosted a benefit game for him: The Leafs against a team of players from all the other teams in the League. When Shore skated over to the Leafs' bench, where Bailey was in street clothes, and shook hands with him, the Gardens erupted in cheers. The Leafs won the game. In 1947, the Leafs beat an All-Star team from the rest of the League again in the 1st official NHL All-Star Game.

The Gardens became known as "The Shrine of Hockey," with CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, broadcasting Hockey Night in Canada from the building on most Saturday nights, first on radio, and then, starting in 1952, on television. It helped to make the Gardens -- even more than Parliament Hill in Ottawa or the Montreal Forum -- the most famous building in Canada.

On November 1, 1946, the Gardens hosted the 1st game in the league that would become the National Basketball Association. But the Toronto Huskies lost it to the New York Knicks, and only lasted that 1 season before folding. Pro basketball would return, briefly: From 1971 to 1975, the Buffalo Braves (the team now known as the Los Angeles Clippers) played 16 "home games" there, and the Toronto Raptors played 6 home games there in 1997, '98 and '99 when the SkyDome (now the Rogers Centre) was unavailable.

Also due to a scheduling conflict, the Rangers played their 1950 Stanley Cup Finals games at Maple Leaf Gardens, possibly costing them the Cup, as they lost to the Red Wings. In the World Hockey Association, the Ottawa Nationals had to move their 1973 Playoff games there, and the Toronto Toros played the 1974-75 and 1975-76 seasons there, before being forced to a smaller arena by the onerous rent charged by Leafs owner Harold Ballard, who, because of his presiding over the declines of both the Leafs and the CFL's Toronto Argonauts, became the most hated man in Canada.

Ballard was cheap, he was evil, and he was crooked. Smythe wasn't flat-out evil, but he was imperious, and he was certainly cheap. At one end of the Gardens was a large portrait of Canada's head of state, the British monarch. From 1931 to 1936, this was King George V. For much of 1936, it was King Edward VIII. Then, until 1952, it was King George VI. Finally, it was Queen Elizabeth II.

In 1968, the seating capacity at the Gardens was raised from 13,718 to 16,316. This was done through installing narrower seats, and removing the Queen's portrait so that more seats could be installed. Smythe, who had sold the team to a consortium including his son Stafford Smythe and Ballard, said of the new seats, "Only a young man could sit in them, and only a fat old rich man could afford them."

As for the removal of the portrait of the woman to whom Canadian citizens still paid a share of their taxes (and still do, to this day), Ballard pointed out that, in spite of a visit to the building in 1951, before she became Queen, she didn't pay admission to games: "She doesn't pay me. I pay her. Besides, what the hell position can a queen play?"

Maple Leaf Gardens hosted Game 2 of the 1972 "Summit Series" between Canada and the Soviet Union, a 4-1 win for Canada. It also hosted minor-league hockey: The Toronto Lions of the Ontario Hockey Association, 1931-39; the Toronto Marlboros (or "Marlies") of the OHA and its successor, the Ontario Hockey League, 1931-89; the Toronto Young Rangers of the OHA and the OHL, 1937 to 1948; the Toronto Knob Hill Farms of the Metro Junior A League, in the 1962-63 season; and the Toronto St. Michael's Majors (or "St. Mike's") of the OHL, 1997-2000.

Lacrosse is not considered a major sport in America. In Canada, where it was invented, it is considerably bigger. Canada's National Lacrosse League had the Toronto Tomahawks playing at the Gardens in 1974, and the Toronto Rock in the 1999-2000 season. The Gardens also hosted professional indoor soccer, the "pinball" version of "the beautiful game": The Toronto Blizzard in the 1980-81 and 1981-82 seasons, and the Toronto Shooting Stars in 1996-97.

The Gardens was 1 of 16 buildings to have hosted both Elvis Presley and The Beatles. Because Elvis' manager, Colonel Tom Parker, was an illegal immigrant from the Netherlands, a fact not known during Elvis' lifetime, Elvis could only leave the North American continent to fulfill his U.S. Army obligation from 1958 to 1960. He sang at the Gardens on April 2, 1957. It was the only building to host The Beatles on all 3 of their North American tours: September 7, 1964; August 17, 1965; and August 17, 1966.

It also hosted boxing and "professional wrestling," with Killer Kowalski making that "sport" popular in his native Canada. On March 29, 1966, Muhammad Ali defended the Heavyweight Championship of the World there, defeating Canada's heavyweight champion, George Chuvalo.

Conn Smythe, who had served in the Canadian Army during both World Wars, and enjoyed being called "Major Smythe," resigned from the Gardens' board of directors over the decision to host a fight featuring a man who had already been making statements about how he would refuse to accept being drafted to fight in the Vietnam War. Smythe said of the owners, including his son, that they had "put cash ahead of class."

They could do that because the Leafs were a gold mine. From 1946, when the boys came back from World War II, until 1999, the Leafs never played to an unsold seat. This was in spite of the fact that, after the closing of the dynasty coached and managed by George "Punch" Imlach on May 2, 1967, the Leafs never appeared in another Stanley Cup Finals game at the Gardens -- and still haven't. The building, whose address was 60 Carlton Street, became known as the Carlton Street Cashbox.

The Gardens outlasted the somewhat enlightened despot Smythe, and the tyrant Ballard. It outlasted the Great Depression, World War II, and the high tide of the conflict between the Canadian federal government and Quebec nationalists. It outlasted the League of Nations, the Third Reich, the British Empire and the Warsaw Pact.

It outlasted 20 Mayors of Toronto, 12 Premiers of Ontario (equivalent to the Governor of a State), 10 Prime Ministers of Canada, and 1 Flag of Canada. (The current Maple Leaf Flag replaced the old "Red Ensign" in 1965.) It outlasted Maple Leaf Stadium (home of the minor-league baseball team that gave the NHL Maple Leafs their name), the Mutual Street Arena, the original Varsity Stadium, and Exhibition Stadium.

It outlasted the Montreal Maroons, the New York Americans, the California Golden Seals, the Cleveland Barons, the Atlanta Flames (now the Calgary Flames), the Kansas City Scouts and the Colorado Rockies that they became (now the New Jersey Devils), the Minnesota North Stars (now the Dallas Stars), the Quebec Nordiques (now the Colorado Avalanche), the original version of the Winnipeg Jets (now the Arizona Coyotes), the Hartford Whalers (now the Carolina Hurricanes), and the entire World Hockey Association.

It outlasted the NHL's other "Original Six" arenas, some by plenty: New York replaced "the old Madison Square Garden" with "the new Madison Square Garden" in 1968, Detroit replaced the Olympia Stadium with the Joe Louis Arena in 1979, Chicago replaced the Chicago Stadium with the United Center in 1994, Boston replaced the Boston Garden with the FleetCenter (now the TD Garden) in 1995, and Montreal replaced the Montreal Forum with the Molson Centre (now the Bell Centre) in 1996.

While not home to "Original Six" teams, the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium and the St. Louis Arena were contemporaries, and they were also replaced before 1999. Considerably newer arenas were replaced in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Minnesota, Vancouver, Atlanta, Ottawa, Tampa and the San Francisco Bay Area. (And the ones in Minnesota and Atlanta were demolished before the Gardens closed.)

But nothing lasts forever. The ownership group for the NBA's Raptors didn't like playing in the huge SkyDome, and wanted to build their own arena, the Air Canada Centre, next to Toronto's Union Station. Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, owners of the Leafs and the Gardens, knew that there was only so much that could be done to modernize the Gardens, and increasing seating capacity, including adding more luxury boxes, was impossible. So they bought the Raptors, and had the plans for the ACC to be altered so that it could host hockey as well. (In 2018, the building was renamed the Scotiabank Arena.)

On February 13, 1999, the Toronto Maple Leafs played their last game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Not only was the opponent the same as in the 1st game in 1931, the Chicago Blackhawks, but a member of each team that played in that 1st game was on hand for a ceremonial puck drop: George "Red" Horner of the Leafs, and Harold "Mush" March of the Hawks. (March died in 2002, Horner in 2005.) As they did in the 1st game, the Hawks won, 6-2. Derek King scored the Leafs' last goal, while Bob Probert, better known for his fighting and his drug abuse, scored the last goal overall.

The Gardens didn't close immediately. It still hosted amateur hockey and professional lacrosse, and the British rock band Oasis gave a concert there in 2000. The last "sporting event" there came in 2004, a re-creation of prizefights of eventual Heavyweight Champion James Braddock for the film Cinderella Man, taking advantage of the Gardens' old-time appearance.

But MLSE didn't want to own a dormant building, and they also didn't want to sell the old arena to anyone who would use it as a competing arena. In 2000, after a massive renovation, the Montreal Forum reopened as a mall, with stores, a movie theater, and other entertainments. It was suggested that the same be done with the Gardens. But a feasibility study showed that it couldn't be done: If the bowls of seating were removed, the exterior walls would collapse.

In 2004, Loblaw Companies, Canada's largest food retailer, bought the Gardens for $12 million. In 2009, they made a deal with Toronto's Ryerson University to renovate the building, to make the playing area a rink with 2,796 seats, while the rest of the building would host retail space.

In 2011, the new Loblaw's store finally opened, with a red dot on the floor marking the original location of centre ice. In 2012, the Mattamy Athletic Centre at the Gardens opened, and has been home to Rynearson's hockey team ever since. From 2013 to 2017, it also hosted the Toronto Predators of the Greater Metro Junior A Hockey League.

*

November 12, 1931 was a Monday. The baseball season was over. There was no Monday Night Football in the NFL until 1970. There was no NBA at all until 1946, with the Gardens hosting the 1st game. But there were 2 other NHL games played that night. The New York Rangers beat the Montreal Canadiens, 4-1 at the Montreal Forum. And the New York Americans beat the Detroit Falcons, 5-2 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. The Falcons were renamed the Red Wings the next year.

November 3, 1954: The Debut of Godzilla

The original Japanese version

November 3, 1954: The New York Yankees begin a tour or Japan, and draw a record crowd of 64‚000 when they play the 1st game against the All-Japan Stars at Nippon Life Stadium in Osaka.

On the 25-game tour, 3rd base prospect Andy Carey slugs 13 home runs‚ and catching prospect Elston Howard bats .468 on the 25-game tour. Each has thoroughly impressed the Yankee brass, and both get promoted to the Yankees for 1955 -- in Howard's case, making him the 1st black player for the Yankees in a regular-season game.

But the Yankees are not the biggest thing to hit Japan on this date. On the same day, the film Gojira premieres, directed by Ishirō Honda, and distributed by Toho Company, Limited. It is the debut of the creature known in the English-speaking world as Godzilla.

The name Godzilla is a romanization of the original Japanese name Gojira (ゴジラ), which is a combination of two Japanese words: gorira (ゴリラ), meaning "gorilla"; and kujira (クジラ), meaning "whale." The word alludes to the size, power and aquatic origin of the creature. As developed by Toho, the monster is an offshoot of the combination of radioactivity and ancient dinosaur-like creatures, indestructible and possessing special powers, including the ability to shoot a radioactive beam out of its mouth.

The Godzilla costume was worn by actor Haruo Nakajima. In the film, Godzilla is an ancient sea creature that has been mutated by atomic testing in the Pacific Ocean, and progresses to attacking fishing boats, threatening Japan's food supply and economy; to attacking islands, and finally the home islands themselves, including the capital of Tokyo.

Japanese authorities estimate him at 50 meters tall (about 164 feet, the size of a 20-story building). After depth charges, fighter jets, tanks and an electrified fence along the coast fail to stop the creature, an "oxygen destroyer" is used, cutting off its air supply, and, apparently, killing it.

This film was released in America in 1956, under the title Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (The exclamation point was the producers', not mine.) For American audiences, scenes were added with Raymond Burr as an American observer. In 1985, Godzilla 1985 was released, a sequel to the original, and Burr reprised the role.

The franchise has now reached 32 films in Japan, with a 33rd planned for a 2023 release. In 1962, King Kong vs. Godzilla was released, and the legendary giant ape beats the big lizard. Among the monsters, or kaiju (meaning "strange beast") that Godzilla later battles are Mothra, a giant moth, in 1964; Ghidorah, a 3-headed winged dinosaur, also in 1964; Rodan, a flying dinosaur, also in 1964; Ebirah, a giant lobster, in 1966; Hedorah, a "smog monster," in 1971; Megalon, a giant beetle, in 1973; and Mechagodzilla, a giant robot version of Godzilla, in 1974.

An all-American version came out in 1998, depicting Godzilla not as an upright dinosaur, but as a bent-over, "more realistic" creature, which attacks New York, rips the roof off Madison Square Garden, and lays eggs there. The eggs hatch, and the "baby Godzillas" are occupied eating all the concessions in the arena, buying the American military time, as the genderless, asexual Godzilla is lured into the Brooklyn Bridge, tangled in its cables, and destroyed along with the bridge. Finally, a jet drops a bomb on The Garden, killing all of the baby Godzillas. Except one last egg remains, and hatches as the film ends...

This film was seriously panned by the critics. But no legend stays off the big screen forever. A separate American franchise began in 2014, and has released 3 films, with a 4th planned for 2024. This is the Legendary Pictures "Monsterverse," and includes the 2021 film Godzilla vs. Kong. This time, to emphasize the studio's insistence that Godzilla, now 393 feet high, nearly 50 stories high, is the absolute "King of the Monsters," Godzilla won, but Kong, now 337 feet, still helped him beat the other monsters in the film.

The Monsterverse's Godzilla

Ishirō Honda and Raymond Burr both died in 1993. Haruo Nakajima died in 2017.

A 2024 episode of the YouTube series Epic Rap Battles of History featured "Nice" Peter Shukoff voicing Godzilla, and "Epic" Lloyd Ahlquist voicing King Kong.

*

November 3, 1954 was a Wednesday. Baseball season was over. Football was in midweek. The NBA season had begun, but no games were scheduled for this day. One game was played in the NHL: The Detroit Red Wings and the Toronto Maple Leafs played to a 1-1 tie at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

British rock singer Adam Ant was born on this day. So was Kathy Kinney, who played Mimi Bobek on The Drew Carey Show.

November 1, 1946: The 1st NBA Game

The 1946-47 New York Knicks

November 1, 1946: The the 1st NBA game is played, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. (Until 1949, the National Basketball Association was known as the Basketball Association of America, or the BAA.) A crowd of 7,090 -- about half of capacity -- attends, and the New York Knickerbockers beat the Toronto Huskies, 68-66.

For the Knicks, coached by Neil Cohalan, 41, and formerly head coach at Manhattan College:

* Number 6, guard Ossie Schectman, 27, from Kew Gardens, Queens, and Long Island University in Brooklyn, where he was coached by Hall-of-Famer Clair Bee, scored the 1st NBA basket, and ended up with 11 points on the night.

* Number 9, guard Leo Gottlieb, about to turn 26, from The Bronx, never went to college, led all scorers with 14.

* Number 7, forward Stan Stutz, 26, from Worcester, Massachusetts, and the University of Rhode Island, scored 9.

* Number 5, forward Ralph Kaplowitz, 27, from The Bronx, where he was a teammate of Gottlieb at DeWitt Clinton High School, and also played for Hall-of-Famer Howard Cann at New York University, scored 7.

* Number 11, center Jake Weber, 28, from Rushville, Indiana, and Purdue University, scored 6. At 6-foot-6, he was the tallest player on the team.

* Number 12, Hank Rosenstein, 26, from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and played for Hall-of-Famer Nat Holman at City College of New York, scored 5.

* Number 15, guard Dick Murphy, 25, from College Point, Queens, and played for Cohalan at Manhattan College, scored 5.

* Number 4, forward Nat Militzok, 23, from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, and Cornell University, scored 5.

* Number 14, forward Tommy Byrnes (not to be confused with Yankee pitcher Tommy Byrne), 23, from The Bronx, another Clinton High graduate but too young to have played with Gottlieb and Kaplowitz, scored 4.

* Number 8, Sidney "Sonny" Hertzberg, 24, from Flatbush, Brooklyn, and a CCNY teammate of Rosenstein, scored 2.

* And guard Bob Mullens, on his 24th birthday, from Staten Island, and Fordham University played but, scored none. In a weird twist of fate, before the season was out, Mullens would be traded to the Huskies. So would Militzok.

So that's 11 players, only 2 of them from outside New York City, 3 of them Irish and the rest Jewish. This would not have been odd for a college team from New York at that time, so it's not odd for the 1st real major league team from The City.

For the Huskies: Ed Sadowski scored 18, George Nostrand 16, Charlie Hoefer 8, Mike McCarron (from Elmhurst, Queens, and Seton Hall) 6, Ray Wertis 6, Dick Fitzgerald 6, his brother Bob Fitzgerald (both from Elmhurst, and Fordham) 4, Harry Miller (from West Orange, New Jersey, and Seton Hall) 1, Frank Fucarino (from Astoria, Queens, and an LIU player) 1, Roy Hurley none, and Hank Biasatti none. (I wonder if anyone attended the game thinking they were actually getting a recent college star, Stanford's Hank Luisetti.)

Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, site of the 1st NBA game

This film purports to be from that first game. Is it? It could be: The teams are the Knicks and the Huskies, and the Huskies are wearing white as home teams tend to do in basketball. However, the Knicks did make 2 more visits that season, winning both, on December 20, 1946 and March 28, 1947, so this film could be from any of those 3 games.

The Knicks are 1 of only 2 charter NBA teams still playing in their current city. The other is the Boston Celtics. These 2 teams have just started their 76th season. The Celtics started their 1st on November 2, 1946, losing to the Providence Steamrollers, 59-53 at the Rhode Island Auditorium in Providence.

Neither, however, is pro basketball's oldest franchise. The Philadelphia SPHAs were founded in 1917, as the team of the South Philadelphia Hebrew Association. They, too, were a charter BAA/NBA team, as the Philadelphia Warriors. They are still playing today, as the Golden State Warriors, having moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1962. On November 7, the Warriors made their debut, beating the Pittsburgh Ironmen, 81-75 at the Philadelphia Arena.

The Knicks went 33-27, good enough to make the Playoffs. The Huskies went 22-38, going through 4 head coaches, the last being former New York Yankees 3rd baseman Red Rolfe, who lasted the longest, going 17-27. They missed the Playoffs, and went out of business after just 1 season. The NBA did not return to Toronto until 1995 with the Raptors.

Maple Leaf Gardens, built for the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs in 1931, closed in 1999, the last of the NHL's "Original Six" arenas in use. It has been converted into retail space, like its great rival, the Montreal Forum.

Also missing the Playoffs: The Celtics, who took a few years to get going; the Providence Steamrollers, named for a 1920s football team, and went out of business after the 1948-49 season; the Detroit Falcons, who folded after that 1st season; and the Pittsburgh Ironmen, whose 15-45 record was the worst in the league, and also folded after the 1st season.

The NBA has never returned to Pittsburgh, although the Pipers won the 1st ABA Championship, in 1967-68. The Ironmen's most notable attribute is that their players included Petar Maravich, known as "Press" because he had delivered The Pittsburgh Press newspaper as a boy. If his name sounds familiar, it's because, 20 years later, at Louisiana State, he was the head coach, and his players included his son, Peter Press Maravich, a.k.a. Pistol Pete.

In the 1st Round of the Playoffs, the Knicks defeated the Cleveland Rebels, who folded after that 1st season. The Warriors eliminated the St. Louis Bombers, who lasted through the 1949-50 season.

In the Semifinals, the Warriors eliminated the Knicks. And the Chicago Stags beat the Washington Capitols, whose 49-11 record had been the best in the league. They lasted through the 1950-51 season.

In the Finals, the Warriors beat the Stags, 4 games to 1, clinching the title on April 22, 1947, at the Philadelphia Arena: Warriors 83, Stags 80. Joe Fulks of the Warriors was the league's 1st scoring champion.

As I mentioned, Ossie Schectman of the Knicks scored the 1st NBA basket. He died on July 30, 2013, at the age of 94. He was the last surviving player from the original Knicks, and, as far as I can tell, the last surviving player from the NBA's 1st season.

*

November 1, 1946 was a Friday. Ric Grech, who played bass guitar with the British bands Traffic and Blind Faith, was born on this day.

Baseball season was over. No football games were played. And no other pro basketball games were played.

The 2 Canadian teams in the National Hockey League, the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens, played each other to a 1-1 tie at the Montreal Forum. Gus Bodnar put the Leafs ahead with a power play goal, with 5:22 left in the 1st period. But with 9:55 left in regulation, George Allen (no relation to the Pro Football Hall of Fame coach of the same name) tied the game for the Habs. 

October 21, 1953: "The Conservative Mind" Is Published

Kirk usually favored cigars, rather than a pipe, as seen here.

October 21, 1953: The Conservative Mind, edited by Russell Kirk, is published by Regnery Press, still basking in its publication, 2 years earlier, of William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale.

A 34-year-old native of the suburbs of Detroit, Kirk was heavily influenced by Our Enemy, the State, a far-right book written by Albert Jay Nock, published in 1935. In his own book, Kirk developed what he called six canons of conservatism:

1. A belief in a transcendent order, which he described variously as based in tradition, divine revelation, or natural law;
2. An affection for the "variety and mystery" of human existence;
3. A conviction that society requires orders and classes that emphasize natural distinctions;
4. A belief that property and freedom are closely linked;
5. A faith in custom, convention, and prescription; and
6. A recognition that innovation must be tied to existing traditions and customs, which entails a respect for the political value of prudence.

Number 1 seems to suggest that, for conservatives, a belief in God, or in some form of higher power, is necessary. This would lead to the linking of conservatism and evangelical Christianity, which has harmed both the philosophy and the religion. Number 2 sounds more like a tenet of liberalism than one of 21st Century conservatism.

Numbers 3 and 4 seem to mark conservatism as a political philosophy of, by and for rich people. Numbers 5 and 6 tie in with a classic tenet of conservatism, outlined in the years leading up to the English Civil War of the 1640s, in which he would die, by Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, for whom the British islands off the coast of Argentina would be named: He wrote, "Where it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change."

In the book, Kirk included writings by Edmund Burke, John C. Calhoun and Benjamin Disraeli, as politicians whose work he considered to be conservative. But he also included George Washington, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton among their numbers, which is dubious.

He included writings by authors he considered conservative, including Sir Walter Scott, George Santayana and T.S. Eliot, which makes sense; but also Alexis de Tocqueville, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Robert Frost, which most certainly does not. (In 1961, the elderly Frost spoke at the Inauguration of President John F. Kennedy.)

Unlike Friedrich Hayek's 1944 The Road to Serfdom, and Milton Friedman's 1962 Capitalism and Freedom, The Conservative Mind hardly mentions economics at all. Kirk grounded his version of conservatism in tradition, political philosophy, literary efforts, and religious faith, rather than free-market economic reasoning.

Whittaker Chambers called The Conservative Mind the most important book of the 20th Century. Conservative newspaper columnist James J. Kilpatrick called it the best and clearest exposition of the conservative philosophy. Along with The Road to Serfdom, Capitalism and Freedom, and Chambers' 1952 memoir Witness, it became required reading for right-of-center Americans thereafter.

Kirk died in 1994. The following year, the conservative magazine The Weekly Standard began publication, and started a Conservative Hall of Fame. Its 1st 2 inductees were Ronald Reagan and Russell Kirk -- before either Buckley, Hayek, Milton Friedman, Chambers or Kilpatrick.

But the times were changing: The conservative intellectual "revolution" led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich, based on the writings of Kirk and Buckley and on the 1980s' "Reagan Revolution," was about to fall apart, replaced by the evangelical conservatism of George W. Bush, and, later still, by the narcissistic kleptocracy of Donald Trump

*

October 21, 1953 was a Friday. The baseball season had ended 14 days earlier, when the New York Yankees won Game 6 to clinch the World Series over the Brooklyn Dodgers. Football was in midweek. The NBA season started 9 days later. There was 1 game played in the NHL: The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 1-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

October 13, 1947: The 1st NHL All-Star Game

October 13, 1947: The National Hockey League hosts its 1st official All-Star Game, at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto.

There had been 3 unofficial all-star games, all benefits:

* In 1934, also at Maple Leaf Gardens, for Maple Leaf player Irvine "Ace" Bailey, who had suffered a career-ending injury. The Leafs beat a team made up of players from all the other teams in the League.

* In 1937, at the Montreal Forum, for the family of the late Montreal Canadiens superstar Howie Morenz. The Canadiens and the Montreal Maroons combined to face a team from the other teams of the League, which won.

* And in 1939, also at the Forum, for the family of the late Canadiens star Albert "Babe" Siebert. The Maroons having folded in the interim, it was just the Canadiens against the rest of the League. The late 1930s was a rare period when the Canadiens were actually a bad team, and they lost this one.

Unlike what would later be called Major League Baseball, which had its All-Star Game at roughly the midpoint of its season, and the National Football League, which had its Pro Bowl after the season, the NHL decided that its All-Star Game would be at the beginning of its season. Its setup would parallel the Chicago College All-Star Game, which began the football season with the defending NFL Champions and a team of recently graduated college stars playing at Soldier Field in Chicago.

(This game ran from 1934 to 1976. When the National Basketball Association first played an All-Star Game in 1951, it followed the baseball model and did it in midseason.)

And so, the 1st NHL All-Star Game would be the holders of the Stanley Cup, the Maple Leafs, against a team made up of players from the other five of the "Original Six" teams.

The Leafs: 1, goaltender Walter "Turk" Broda; 2, defenseman Bob Goldham; 3, defenseman Wally Stanowski; 4, left wing Harry Watson; 5, right wing Don Metz; 7, center Norman "Bud" Poile; 9, center Ted "Teeder" Kennedy; 10, center and team Captain Syl Apps; 12, right wing Bill Ezinicki; 14, defenseman Vic Lynn; 15, right wing Howie Meeker; 16, left wing Gaye Stewart; 17, left wing Joe Klukay; 19, defenseman Gus Mortson; 20, defenseman Jimmy Thomson; 21, defenseman Bill Barilko, and 22, center Fleming Mackell.

Broda, Watson, Poile, Kennedy, Apps would be elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame, which would eventually give Meeker its Foster Hewitt Award for broadcasters. Head coach Clarence "Hap" Day and general manager Conn Smythe would also be elected. Barilko, famously, would switch to Number 5, and score the goal that won the 1951 Stanley Cup, and then died in a plane crash 4 months later, getting the number retired.

The rest of the League:

* From the Boston Bruins: 1, goaltender Frank Brimsek, a native of Eveleth, Minnesota, and the only non-Canadian in the game; and the entire "Kraut Line": 14, left wing Woody Dumart; 15, center Milt Schmidt; and 17, left wing Bobby Bauer.

* From the Montreal Canadiens: 1, goaltender Bill Durnan (both he and Brimsek wore 1 on the night); 3, defenseman Emile "Butch" Bouchard; 9, right wing Maurice "the Rocket" Richard; and 17, defenseman Ken Reardon. Canadiens head coach Dick Irvin Sr. coached this team as well.

* From the Detroit Red Wings: 2, defenseman Jack Stewart; 4, defenseman Bill Quackenbush; and 11, left wing Ted Lindsay (better known for wearing 7).

* From the Chicago Black Hawks (the name began to be written as one word, "Blackhawks," in 1986): 5, center Max Bentley; 6, right wing Bill Mosienko; and 7, left wing Doug Bentley, Max's brother.

* And from the New York Rangers: 8, right wing Grant Warwick; 10, center Edgar Laprade; and 18, left wing Tony Leswick. Of all the players on this All-Star Team, only Warwick and Leswick have not yet been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. Leswick went on to score the Cup-winning goal in overtime of Game 7 for the 1954 Red Wings.

The NHL All-Stars. Top row, left to right:

Frank Brimsek, Woody Dumart, Dick Irvin, Butch Bouchard,

Ken Reardon, NHL President Clarence Campbell,

Jack Stewart and Bill Durnan. Middle row, left to right:

Milt Schmidt, Tony Leswick, Max Bentley, Grant Warwick,

Maurice Richard, Doug Bentley, and Canadiens trainer Ernie Cook.

Bottom row, left to right: Bill Quackenbush, Bill Mosienko,

Bobby Bauer, Ted Lindsay and Edgar Laprade.

The Leafs, as home teams usually did at the time, wore their white sweaters with blue trim. The All-Stars wore red sweaters, with a white and red NHL shield as their team logo.

Richard's sweater (Americans would say "jersey")

Richard and Lindsay had already fought often in regular-season games. Irvin put them on a line together. (This was after Toe Blake's injury broke up the Canadiens' "Punch Line" with Richard and Elmer Lach, but before the formation of the Wings' "Production Line" with Lindsay, Sid Abel and Gordie Howe.) In his memoir, Richard said that he and Lindsay did not speak a word to each other for the course of the game.

Reardon, the Canadiens' main tough guy, was involved in 2 incidents in the 2nd period. First, he laid a dirty cross-check on Goldham, resulting in a cut on Goldham's forehead. Later, he got into a stick-swinging incident with Ezinicki and Mortson.

Watson opened the scoring, at 12:29 of the 1st period. Ezinicki assisted on that goal, and put the Leafs up 2-0 just 1:03 into the 2nd period. Max Bentley got the All-Stars onto the board about 3 minutes later, but Apps made it 3-1 Leafs just 22 seconds after the restart.

Warwick, arguably the least talented player in the entire game, scored midway through the 2nd. Within 1:26 of the start of the 3rd period, Richard scored a spectacular unassisted goal to tie the game, and Doug Bentley scored to put the All-Stars up 4-3. That's how it ended.

The Leafs would end up winning the Cup in 1948, anyway. And again in 1949. And again in 1951, after the Wings won it in 1950. This completed a great run for Toronto: From 1942 to 1951, 10 seasons, they won 6 Cups.

Up until the 1966-67 season, the format remained defending Champions vs. the rest of the League at the beginning of the season. An exception was made for 1951 and 1952, when it was "Team #1" vs. "Team #2." But that season, the last of the "Original Six" lineup, the game was moved to midseason. So there was an NHL All-Star Game in 1965 and 1967, but not in 1966.

The defending Champs vs. the rest of the League format lasted until 1968. Over that stretch, Toronto went 2-4-1, Montreal went 3-4-1, Detroit went 2-0-1, Chicago went 0-1; and neither New York nor Boston won a Cup, so neither were All-Star hosts.

From 1969 to 1997, the format was an East (or Prince of Wales Conference) team against a West (or Clarence Campbell Conference) team. From 1998 to 2002, the format was North America vs. The World -- basically, Canada and the U.S. vs. Europe, as no player from a country outside North America or Europe was named to any roster. North America led this format, 3-2. East vs. West was restored from 2003 to 2009. All told, the East led, 21-9-1.

In 2011, 2012 and 2015, two captains were chosen, and they chose up sides, like it was a kids' game in the street. (The NBA has also tried this for its All-Star Game.) Since 2016, the NHL has made Divisional teams, which doesn't really work since there are now 6 Divisions.

The anomalies were 1979, replaced by a Challenge Cup between an NHL All-Star Team and a Soviet All-Star Team; 1987, replaced by the same format under the name Rendez-Vous '87; 1995 and 2005, canceled due to the team owners locking the players out; 2006, 2010 and 2014, canceled due to NHL players being allowed to play in the Winter Olympics (though this was not done in 1998, 2002, 2018 or 2022); and 2020, canceled due to the COVID-19 epidemic.

Howie Meeker was the last living player from the 1st NHL All-Star Game, living until November 8, 2020, at the age of 97.

*

October 13, 1947 was a Monday. As I said, this game started the NHL season, so there were no other games played in the League that day. The forerunners of the NBA, the Basketball Association of America and the National Basketball League, hadn't started their seasons yet, either. There was no Monday Night Football in those days. And the baseball season had ended a few days earlier, with the New York Yankees having beaten the Brooklyn Dodgers in the World Series.

In fact, the only other major league game on this historic day also took place in Toronto -- and that's if you count the top flight of Canadian football as "major league." It wasn't even the Canadian Football League, as that wouldn't be founded until 1958, although both of the teams involved would be charter members.

The game was in the Interprovincial Rugby Football Union. The game was played at Varsity Stadium, on the campus of the University of Toronto. And Ontario rivals, the Toronto Argonauts and the Hamilton Tigers, played to a 6-6 tie. In 1950, the Tigers would merge with the Hamilton Wildcats, and form the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, or "Ticats," and they maintain their rivalry with the "Argos" to this day.

In fact, they are 2 of the oldest professional sports teams in North America: The Tigers had been founded in 1869, making them older than any team in the "Big Four" North American sports leagues; while the Argos were founded in 1873, making them older than any team except the Ticats, the Chicago Cubs (1870) and the Atlanta Braves (founded as the Boston Red Stockings in 1871).

Also, rock singer Sammy Hagar, the 2nd lead singer of Van Halen, was born on this day.

September 2, 1971: The Tyranny of Harold Ballard

September 2, 1971: Harold Ballard becomes the majority owner of the NHL's Toronto Maple Leafs, and their arena, Maple Leaf Gardens. He is on his way to becoming the most hated man in Canada.

Edwin Harold Ballard was born in Toronto on July 30, 1903 -- just 71 days before Walter O'Malley, who would become the most hated man in American sports. At some point, Ballard reversed his names, and became "Harold Edwin." His father manufactured ice skates, and that would be his entry into hockey. He was assistant manager of the Varsity Grads team from the University of Toronto that represented Canada at the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, winning the Gold Medal.

A member of the Toronto National Yacht Club, in 1930, it appointed Ballard manager of their team in the Ontario Hockey Association, the Toronto National Sea Fleas, winning the Allan Cup in 1932. He then became the head coach, and he became hated by hockey players for the first time. In 1934, he became manager of the OHA's West Toronto Nationals, with former Maple Leafs star Clarence "Hap" Day as coach, and they won the Memorial Cup in 1936. In 1940, Day was named Leafs coach, and recommended Ballard to run their top farm team, the Toronto Marlboros, and he led them to the 1950 Allan Cup and the 1955 and 1956 Memorial Cups.

In 1957, Conn Smythe stepped down as Leafs general manager, and a group known as the Silver Seven took control, including Ballard and Smythe's son, Stafford Smythe. In 1961, Conn Smythe sold most of his shares in the company running the team and the arena, Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd., to 3 men: Stafford, Ballard, and the owner of the Toronto Telegram newspaper, John Bassett. But since Ballard gave Stafford most of the money for his share, he essentially had Stafford under his control.

In 1958, the Silver Seven hired George "Punch" Imlach as the Leafs' head coach and general manager. The result was 4 Stanley Cups: 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967. But Imlach had built a veteran team, in a philosophy that later Washington Redskins coach George Allen would call "The Future Is Now."

With the assent of Ballard, Bassett and Stafford Smythe, and with little choice as the NHL was expanding for 1967-68, Imlach broke the team up, and tried to build a new dynasty. But between the changes in the League and those in the organization, he had little chance, and after an embarrassing Playoff exit in 1969, the last year of his contract was bought out.

Conn Smythe may have been the most patriotic man in Canada, as devoted to the head of state, the monarch of Great Britain, as he was to Parliament in Ottawa. Smythe had ordered a huge portrait of King George VI hung at one end of the Gardens during World War II, kept it there after the war, and replaced it with one of Queen Elizabeth II upon the King's death in 1952. Ballard wanted to increase the Gardens' seating capacity, and did by taking down the Queen's portrait and installing new seats. When asked about it, Ballard mentioned his taxes: "She doesn't pay me. I pay her. Besides, what the hell position can a queen play?"

In fact, he didn't pay her -- not enough, anyway. In 1969, Ballard and Stafford Smythe were charged with tax evasion, and accused of using MLG Ltd. to pay for their personal expenses. Bassett, who had by this time become chairman of the board, received the support of the board of directors in an 8–7 vote to fire Smythe and Ballard.

However, Bassett didn't force Smythe and Ballard to sell their shares, and both men remained on the board. This proved to be a serious strategic blunder, as Smythe and Ballard controlled almost half the company's shares between them. A year later, they staged a proxy war to regain control of the board. Ballard was reappointed executive vice president. Facing an untenable situation, Bassett resigned as chairman and sold his shares to Ballard and Stafford Smythe on September 2, 1971.

Stafford, suffering from cancer, died on October 13. The last time he saw his father, he said, "See, Dad? They were never going to get me." Ballard won a battle with the Smythe family, and bought Stafford's shares, giving him a 60 percent controlling interest in the Gardens.

But while the taxman couldn't get Stafford Smythe, it got Harold Ballard. On October 20, 1972, he was sentenced to 9 years in Canadian federal prison, after being convicted on 47 counts of fraud, theft and tax evasion. He had been acquitted on 2 others. It wasn't exactly a hardship: He was paroled after only 1 year, and said that prison life was like staying in a motel, with color television, golf, and steak dinners.

Upon his release, Ballard began micromanaging the Leafs. They reached the Stanley Cup Semifinals in 1978, with a team with such stars as Darryl Sittler, Lanny McDonald, Börje Salming and goaltender Mike Palmateer. But this was an anomaly, the only time they got to the NHL's round of four, under any name, between 1967 and 1993.

He was petty. He and the Detroit Red Wings' Bruce Norris led the move to include only NHL players on the Team Canada that played the Soviet Union in the 1972 "Summit Series," thus excluding World Hockey Association defectors Bobby Hull and Gerry Cheevers, which (along with Bobby Orr's injury) nearly derailed Canada, and forced them to go the distance to win the series.

In 1973, the WHA moved the Ottawa Nationals to become the Toronto Toros. After playing the 1973-74 season at the University of Toront's Varsity Arena, John F. Bassett, son of the previous part-owner and operating the Leafs with Harold's son Bill Ballard, allowed them to move into Maple Leaf Gardens. But when Ballard got out of prison, he made their presence miserable: Denying them use of the Leafs' locker room, forcing them into a secondary locker room; taking seat cushions off the home bench, telling an arena worker, "Let 'em buy their own cushions!"; and demanding $3,500 per game for use of the arena's lights.

When the contract of the Leafs' biggest remaining star, Dave Keon, ran out in 1975, Ballard refused to re-sign him, because he didn't want to pay for him. But he also didn't want him to play for anyone else, and demanded huge compensation. No other NHL team could sign him. Again, Ballard failed to consider the WHA, and Keon went to the Minnesota Fighting Saints, then, when they folded, the New England Whalers.

When the WHA admitted the Whalers and 3 other teams for the 1979-80 season, they had Keon and Gordie Howe, formerly owned by the Wings and Norris. Norris and Ballard insisted they still owned the NHL rights to Howe and Keon, respectively, and refused to let them play for the Whalers or anyone else. NHL President John Ziegler overruled them, angering them.

Again, Ballard alienated the Leafs' biggest star, Sittler, doing whatever he could to avoid paying him what he was worth. He did it again, after Sittler, with McDonald. Ballard had also brought back Cup-winning coach and GM Punch Imlach, but forced him out quickly, ending what may have been Ballard's only friendship. The Leafs did not finish above .500 in any season in the 1980s. And Ballard did little to improve the deteriorating condition of the Gardens.

Harold Ballard was so cheap. How cheap was he? He wasn't willing to pay the price the Toronto City Council for a liquor license for Maple Leaf Gardens, making it the only "dry" arena in the NHL. The Hamilton City Council asked for a lower price for the Tiger-Cats' Ivor Wynne Stadium, and Ballard paid that. But the Gardens wouldn't sell alcoholic beverages for as long as he owned it.

How cheap was he? In the mid-1970s, the NHL, facing competition from the WHA, passed a rule that players' last names must be on the backs of their jerseys. Ballard refused, citing it as a threat to program sales. After being threatened with a large fine, Ballard "complied" by putting the names in blue letters on the Leafs' blue road jerseys, and in white on their white home jerseys, making them unreadable. After being fined, he backed down, and put the names in the opposite colors.

He also wanted to start a 2nd Canadian Football League team in Toronto, to compete with the Toronto Argonauts, owned by the Bassetts. They refused to back the idea. But they decided to sell the Argos in 1974. Ballard offered $3 million, but was turned down, and the Argos were sold to William R. Hodgson.

Ballard then tried to buy their arch-rivals, the Hamilton Tiger-Cats, and was turned down again. In 1978, Ballard tried to buy the Ticats again, and won. Unlike in the NHL, Ballard was successful in the CFL, as the Ticats reached 3 Grey Cups, losing them all, before winning in 1986. Still, he kept threatening to move them out of Hamilton, Canada's steel city, to Toronto, where (he thought) he could make more money. He sold them in 1989, and they are still in Hamilton today.

In 1976, he tried to get into baseball, leading the group that came within a whisker of getting a deal to buy and move the San Francisco Giants approved. But the deal fell apart, and it was a different group that, later in the year, got the rights to the expansion Toronto Blue Jays.

Due to his mismanagement of 2 historically successful sports teams, Ballard may still be the most hated person in the history of Canadian sports. Still, he was elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1977. He died on April 11, 1990, from various health issues, at age 86, and was missed by almost nobody.

It's no coincidence that, just 3 years after his death, new owner Steve Stavro got the Leafs into the Conference Finals in back-to-back seasons, and made peace with Dave Keon. But the Leafs still haven't been to the Stanley Cup Finals, let alone won them, since 1967. That is on Ballard, as much as on anyone else.

*

September 2, 1971 was a Thursday. These baseball games were played that day:

* The New York Yankees beat the Washington Senators, 11-1 at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees scored 4 runs in the 1st inning, and 7 in the 2nd. Stan Bahnsen went the distance for the win. Felipe Alou hit a home run, Thurman Munson got 3 hits, and Alou, Bobby Murcer, Horace Clarke, Roy White and Danny Cater each got 2.

* The New York Mets beat the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-1 at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia. 

* The Boston Red Sox beat the Baltimore Orioles, 3-0 at Fenway Park in Boston. Sonny Siebert pitched a 3-hit shutout -- Merv Rettenmund got 2 of the hits, and Davey Johnson got the other -- and hit 2 home runs. Carl Yastrzemski went 0-for-4.

* The Detroit Tigers beat the Cleveland Indians, 7-0 at Tiger Stadium in Detroit. Mickey Lolich pitched a 6-hit shutout. Al Kaline went 1-for-2 with 2 walks.

* The Montreal Expos beat the Chicago Cubs, 9-5 at Wrigley Field in Chicago. Ernie McAnally was the winning pitcher, and hit a home run. Ernie Banks, in his last month as an active player, did not enter the game.

* The Milwaukee Brewers beat the Kansas City Royals, 1-0 at Milwaukee County Stadium. Marty Pattin pitched a 5-hit shutout. He must have been loose, quack. (Ball Four reference.)

* The Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 9-3 at the Astrodome in Houston.

* And these teams were not scheduled: The California Angels, the Chicago White Sox, the Minnesota Twins, the Oakland Athletics, the Atlanta Braves, the Cincinnati Reds, the Pittsburgh Pirates, the St. Louis Cardinals, the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants.