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Harold Ballard- Past Maple Leaf Owner
Topic Started: Apr 29 2010, 03:53 AM (245 Views)
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This guy made Marge Schott look like mother Theresa



To make room for more seats, Ballard removed a large portrait of Queen Elizabeth II from the Gardens. When asked about it, Ballard replied "She doesn't pay me, I pay her. Besides, what the hell position can a queen play
• As a guest on Barbara Frum's CBC Radio program As It Happens in March 1979, Ballard, speaking over the telephone, implied that "Women are best in one position – on their backs." When Frum attempted to ask him questions, he told her to keep quiet and stop interrupting him, and eventually hung up. The next night on her show, Frum read a conciliatory letter to Ballard forgiving him for his remarks, and signed it "Your favourite BROAD-caster".[14]
• In August 1979, to make room for private boxes, he had Foster Hewitt's historic broadcast gondola dumped into an incinerator. This was in spite of protests from the Hockey Hall of Fame, who wished to acquire it. This happened about a year after Ballard had taken the radio broadcast rights to Leaf games away from Hewitt's CKFH (AM) and sold them to CKO. Hewitt unsuccessfully appealed the deal to the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission.
• In the mid 1970s when the NHL passed a rule that players last names must be on the back 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.
• One year at a Board Of Governor's meeting in St.Louis, Ballard, and some Leaf Associates were waiting for an elevator. When they got on, the elevator car was carrying several African-American Men who were staying at the hotel for an NAACP convention. Ballard turned to one of his Associates and said, "Did you ever see so many Jiggs in all your life?".
• Angered (or maybe jealous) by Conn Smythe's success with the club and his inability to bring a Stanley Cup to Toronto under his sole ownership, Ballard sold all of the Cup banners that had hung from the rafters of Maple Leafs Gardens for years. Ballard had managed to get his name on the Cup four times while part-owner of the team. When the Leafs moved to the Air Canada Centre in 1999, the NHL presented the team with new banners to replace those Ballard had sold.
• Early in his tenure, Ballard had imprints of his hands and feet placed in concrete with brass lettering beneath centre ice.
• Ballard had special gold medals made up for the Canadian team, after they were expelled from the 1987 World Junior Ice Hockey Championships as a result of a bench-clearing brawl. Ballard stated that "I believe the Canadian boys deserve the gold medal and I'm going to see to it that they get them. Imagine how these Russians engineered this whole thing over there just because they've got a lousy team and were scared to go home finishing in sixth place."[15]
• Toronto sportswriter Jim Hunt had many run-ins with Ballard. It was Hunt that gave Ballard the nickname Pal Hal, which would be the title of Dick Beddoes biography about Ballard.[16] The first notable incident with Ballard took place as a rebuttal towards Hunt’s comments about the Toronto Maple Leafs. Ballard went on the air after the next Maple Leafs game and called Hunt a bastard.[17] He then told TV host Dave Hodge that his comments were about someone whose last name starts with one of the first three letters of the alphabet. Hodge responded by saying Jim Bunt. Ballard responded by saying the name started with the letter C.[17]
• For his 85th birthday party, Ballard invited Hunt, who was now with the Toronto Sun. The party was on July 30, 1988, and held at Ballard’s cottage in Thunder Bay. Hunt attended the party with a female photographer named Veronica Milne. Hunt and Milne got lost on the way to the party and arrived an hour late. Upon their arrival, Ballard responded by saying, “Hunt, I know why you’re late. You were humping her in the back seat of the car.”[18]
• At the same postgame show Ballard proceeded to get into an on-air argument with Dick Beddoes, which involved Beddoes saying Ballard would be better suited to guessing weights at the CNE rather than running a hockey team. Ballard responded by saying that Beddoes should be a barker at a girlie show. This continued until hockey legend Red Horner appeared, dressed as Santa Claus. When asked what he was bringing Ballard, Horner replied penicillin.[19]
• Stan Obodiac was a devoted follower of Ballard, working in the Maple Leaf Gardens publicity department for 26 years. He once wrote a letter to the Toronto Star stating that Ballard was worthy of the Order of Canada. On his deathbed in 1985, Obodiac called Ballard to thank him and praise him as a great man. After Obodiac died, Ballard avoided the next-of-kin at the funeral, and the next morning had a Gardens employee go to his house and pick up Obodiac's company car
In the summer of 1965, The Beatles performed a concert at the Gardens. Ballard ordered the building's heat turned up, and the water fountains around the arena mysteriously stopped functioning. The concert was also delayed an hour right before it was scheduled to begin. The only available refreshments from the terrible heat were large soft drinks from the concession stands which were triple the original price.
* Approaching Hockey Night in Canada president Ted Hough with a fire ax, and threatening to cut the TV cable if the CBC did not pay for updating the Gardens (the CBC paid up).
* Demanding $15,000 a game from the Toronto Toros to play in the Gardens, and then informing them (after they signed the contract) it would take an extra $3,500 to use the arena lights. He also removed the bench cushions for Toros games.
* Remarking on Barbara Frum's CBC program "As It Happens" that "Women are best in one position -- on their backs." After being rebuked, he called her a "dumb broad."[1]
* Tried to make the Leafs head coach Roger Neilson wear a paper bag over his head behind the bench.
* When the NHL decided to put surnames on sweaters, Ballard refused, citing scorecard sales. After being forced to put names on the jerseys, he did...by putting blue names on blue and white names on white, making them unable to be seen. Later threatened with a fine, he backed down.
* Angered (or maybe jealous) by Conn Smythe's success with the club and his inability to bring a Stanley Cup to Toronto, Ballard sold all of the Cup banners that had hung from the rafters of Maple Leafs Gardens for years. When the Leafs moved to the Air Canada Centre in 1999, the NHL presented the team with new banners to replace those Ballard had sold.

Despite Ballard's tactics, the Leafs were somewhat successful in the 1970s, even making it as far as the semifinals in 1978. However, Ballard was criticized for not spending the extra money to take the team over the top. In addition, Leaf players who were part of the fledging NHLPA were agitating for more money, especially Darryl Sittler. Ballard and Leafs General Manager Punch Imlach had a frosty relationship with Sittler's agent, NHLPA executive director Alan Eagleson. A year after the Leafs' appearance in the conference finals, Ballard traded Lanny McDonald to the moribund Colorado Rockies, supposedly to spite Sittler and teach him not to agitate about money. As McDonald was a close friend of Sittler, angry teammates trashed their dressing room in response.

The McDonald trade sent the Leafs into a downward spiral. They didn't post a winning record from 1980 to 1992. During this stretch, they missed the playoffs five times and only finished above fourth in their division once. When they did make the playoffs, they did so with dreadful records. For example, in 1988, they made the playoffs despite finishing one point ahead of the Minnesota North Stars, who sported the league's worst record. They only made it out of the first round once, and won a total of 11 playoff games in this era. He is often blamed for Toronto's failure to win a Stanley Cup since 1967. Ironically, that last championship was when Ballard was part-owner of the team.

Ballard was well-known for his charitable activities, and even leased out MLG for many functions. However, as Ken Dryden put it in his book The Game, he seemed "like [a] wrestling villain who touches the audience to make his next villainy seem worse
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I was LOLing at every story, this guy was a real SOB, huh? :blink:
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Bogie

There is a very true adage that only nice people die. Bastards must live for ever. When people die they were always "full of life" and "cared only about others".

I moved to Canada when I was about 13. By 15 I have discovered the beauty of hockey and also carried the European sense that you support your home team only. I still love my Leafs to this day.

When we heard that Harold Ballard passed away, we drank a toast and danced jigs. All Torontonians saw it as the removal of a massive roadblock to normalcy and success. Unfortunately, we have only had brief glimpses of it since. During the Gilmour years really. But that is a whole other story and thread lol.
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