| Harold Ballard |
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RISE TO POWER Ballard's father was a wealthy manufacturer of Ice Skate s, and fittingly Ballard became a champion Speed Skater . He was also passionate about hockey; never an excellent player he did become a noted coach at the junior level and he eventually became a very successful coach of the Maple Leafs' feeder club. In 1957 he was brought to the main club by owner Conn Smythe , who sold the team in 1961 to a partnership of his son Stafford Smythe , Ballard, and newspaper owner John Bassett . Ballard played a role in the glory days of the Leaf dynasty of the 1960s. After an embittered battle for control of the club Ballard succeeded in gaining full control of the team and the arena in 1971 after he convinced a drunk Stafford Smythe to alter his will to give the company to him. CONTROVERSIAL STEWARDSHIP Under his tenure, the Maple Leafs were one of the league's most financially successful teams, in part because Ballard was stingy and refused to lavish money on star players (see below). At the same time, even though the Leafs were barely competitive in the 1980s, 's broadcast gondola dumped into the Garden's incinerator. Ballard quickly became known for being irascible and cantankerous. He tried to micromanage the team, interfering with coaches and players. He traded many of the team's most popular players such as Dave Keon , Lanny McDonald , Darryl Sittler and Russ Courtnall . After McDonald was traded his angry teammates trashed their dressing room. The best players became extremely reluctant to come to Toronto because of Ballard's reputation. While the Leafs were somewhat successful in the 1970s, Ballard's tactics caught up with them in the 1980s. The Leafs 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. He is often blamed for Toronto's failure to win a Stanley Cup since 1967. Employees who were not players or coaches had things even worse with many stories of verbal abuse and arbitrary firings. Among the more bizarre anecdotes of his tenure:
Ballard was well known for his charitable activities, and even leased out The Garden for many functions. However, as Ken Dryden put it in his book '' The Game '', he seemed "like {Link without Title} Wrestling villain who touches the audience to make his next villainy seem worse." PERSONAL LIFE Outside of hockey Ballard's life was also turbulent. He fought with most of his family and was often vindictive towards them. Once when he discovered that the son of one of his estranged daughters was to play in a kids hockey tournament in the Gardens, Ballard had the entire tournament cancelled. In 1972 he was convicted of fraud for using company money to refurbish his home and served a year in Kingston Penitentiary . After he died, it was discovered he had for years been stealing game equipment and selling it to collectors. His death also triggered a court battle between his children and his mistress Yolanda Ballard (though she and Harold never married, she had her name legally changed) over control of the Leafs and Gardens. He won a Grey Cup championship with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats as the owner of the team in 1986. CHILD MOLESTATION ACCUSATIONS Around the years of 2000 - 2003, a daughter of a former employee at Maple Leaf Gardens (who worked there during the Ballard era) came out and claimed that when she was a child, that she was molested and raped by Ballard. Ken Dryden, who was president of the Toronto Maple Leafs at the time came out and supported the victim, basically saying he was not surprised because victims of these horrible, traumatizing acts would take a considerable amount of time to come out and speak up about the crimes committed on them. This accusation was added along with the other previous accusations, against several individuals, of child molestation and rape that happened at Maple Leaf Gardens from the 1950s to the 1970s. |
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