Advertisement

Puck Daddy Summer Series: Weird Toronto Maple Leafs

Weird NHL | Amber Matsumoto, Yahoo! Sports
Weird NHL | Amber Matsumoto, Yahoo! Sports

[Ed. Note: Some lists chronicle the best in hockey. Others the worst. Others the most memorable or greatest or essential. What Puck Daddy’s 2016 Summer Series seeks to do is capture those indefinable, quirky, oddities that occur every season. Moments that defy prediction or, in some cases, logical explanation. Welcome to WEIRD NHL.]

By: Steve “Dangle” Glynn of Sportsnet.ca

How on earth do I even start?

Being asked to write about five weird Leafs moments is like being asked to name five Samuel L. Jackson movies. You can name so many but you’ll never be able to name them all.

The Leafs go beyond weird.

By the end of the 2013-14 season I was damn well convinced they were haunted.

The Oilers? They’re easy. Why are they so bad? They’re just stupid, that’s all! The Leafs prior to, like, two years ago? I wish so badly that they were just stupid. They were worse than stupid: They were the Leafs. We’re talking about the team that willingly traded Tuukka Rask to a divisional rival, here.

The Leafs are coming up on 100 years of weird and the ‘Weird Well’ never seems to run dry. On that note, sit down and get comfy because this might take a while.

1. Tie Domi fights a Flyers fan

Tie Domi fighting isn’t the weird part. In fact, Domi holds the NHL record with 333 fights over his NHL career.

Domi wasn’t a stranger to dealing with hostile fans while on the road, either. Once while he was playing junior hockey with the Peterborough Petes, an opposing fan threw a banana at him. To the surprise of the fans in attendance, Domi skated over to the banana, peeled it, and ate it.

This one tops it though. While in the penalty box in Philadelphia, Flyers fans were screaming obscenities at Domi. Frankly, that’s shocking and uncharacteristic of such a fun-loving and docile fan base. Anyway, one bad apple in particular named Chris Falcone provoked Domi to squirt him with Gatorade. When the large fan tried to grab Domi’s bottle, you know, like a sane person, the protective glass came unhinged and Falcone fell right in the box with Domi.

What’s the worst you’ve ever screwed up? You’ve probably never screwed up that hard.

Domi punched and bloodied Falcone, who was lucky to be recognizable at the end of it.

What followed was a lengthy legal battle between Domi and the fan. Domi kept winning, but because Falcone’s lawyer was a family member, the appeals were relentless. As Domi recounts in his book “Shift Work”, he called Falcone directly, met him in person, and offered to fly his family up to Toronto for two playoff games if he just knocked it off. The fan accepted. They’re even pals now.

There are more ridiculous stories like that in Domi’s book, which Sportsnet.ca’s Luke Fox recapped when Shift Work was released.

2. The broken fax machine

Jonas Hoglund
Jonas Hoglund

Remember when the Leafs traded Jonas Hoglund to the Boston Bruins? Of course you don’t, because that never happened. Well actually, it technically did happen, it just didn’t happen on time.

In 2001 the Leafs agreed to send Swedish winger Jonas Hoglund to the Boston Bruins for Kyle Wanvig, a third round pick who the Bruins couldn’t get to sign to a contract. Think of him as 2001’s Jimmy Vesey.

The problem was, according to this nifty tale from Sean MacIndoe, the Bruins had to hastily come to an agreement with the Leafs before Wanvig went back into the 2001 NHL Entry draft. Not only did the two teams come to a deal but the Leafs signed Wanvig to a contract, as well.

Problem? When the Leafs went to file the appropriate paperwork with the NHL, the fax machine jammed. The trade wasn’t allowed, therefore the contract wasn’t allowed, and the Minnesota Wild scooped up Wanvig with a second-round pick.

Forget beating enough teams to win the Cup. In 2001, the Leafs couldn’t even beat a fax machine.

3. Pat Quinn’s lineup card

This makes the list purely because I’ve never seen it happen before, so of course it would happen to the Leafs.

The Leafs made the playoffs in 2002.

Stop laughing.

Anyway, during Game 5 of their first round series with the New York Islanders, there was a stoppage after the first whistle. Peter Laviolette, who was the Isles’ coach at the time, alerted officials to an issue: The Leafs had submitted a faulty lineup card.

Quinn had accidentally written injured Mikael Renberg onto the lineup card instead of healthy winger Robert Reichel. As a result, Reichel was forced to leave the Leafs’ bench and the game while Toronto played a man short all night.

Thanks to the grit of Gary Roberts, the determination of Alyn McCauley, and a few hits that even the Ancient Romans would call “pushing it,” the Leafs won the game, and later, the series.

By the way, that was the Leafs’ third-most recent playoff series victory, and most recent against a team not named the Ottawa Senators.

4. GAME 7

I don’t even need to explain what happened. You all know.

Like… come on. As if the Leafs were the first team to ever cough up a three-goal lead in the third period of a Game 7.

Do you know how old the NHL is?

How?

HOW?

Pretend that Game 7 never happened for a second (I’ve been trying for over three years). If I told you “Hello hockey fan! I am a time traveler from the future. Guess what?! An NHL team coughed up a three-goal lead in Game 7. Which team do you thi-”

I wouldn’t even finish the bloody question before you shouted out, “The Leafs!”

The Toronto Maple Leafs transcend weird.

You can’t even disrespect them by only calling them just a joke. They’re like an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm mated with a Conan O’Brien-era Simpsons episode and gave birth to a real life hockey team.

Me too, Lups. Me, too.

5. Pretty much everything Harold Ballard did

Via The Star
Via The Star

Harold Ballard was a lot of things. He was the Leafs’ owner, for starters. If you blow the dust off, you can even see him in the Leafs’ 1967 Stanley Cup photo.

He was also a controversial, vulgar, xenophobic blowhard with a shady relationship with money, tendency to react emotionally, and had disdain for foreigners. If he wasn’t dead he might be the Republican Party’s nominee for President. [Ed. Note: Dangle is Canadian. They know this Presidential election cycle is insane.]

Via TML Forum
Via TML Forum

I’m cheating here but he needs his own category. He alienated every good player the Leafs had over a 20-year span and ran the team into the earth’s crust.

Via buchburgerkeepin
Via buchburgerkeepin

Since we can’t sit here all day, here are my personal favourites:

• He made the logo at centre ice the Hamilton Ticats logo. For those of you unfamiliar, that’s a team in the Canadian Football League that Ballard owned at the time. I get it. Want to get the word out about something? Plaster it at centre ice at Maple Leaf Gardens! Never mind the fact that you’re basically wiping your ass with the team’s history and identity – we’ve got CFL tickets to sell!

• He demanded that Roger Neilson – the Roger Neilson – wear a bag on his head. He decided to fire Neilson in the 1978-79 season. It was a decision the Leafs’ players disagreed with so much that Darryl Sittler marched up to Ballard’s office to plead with him to change his mind. Uncharacteristically, Ballard agreed to bring Neilson back as the Leafs’ head coach. Characteristically, he brought him back on one condition: During the next game, Neilson had to wear a bag on his head. Neilson refused but he still got his job back. All’s well that ends well, right? Just kidding! Ballard fired him again less than a year later.

Jeff Marek buried Harold Ballard after he died. Literally. With a shovel. He told the story on my podcast.

• This next one tops them all. I could’ve made this “Weird Thing” one through five. Leafs fans who know it already know what’s coming. Leafs fans who don’t, this is your last chance to click ‘x’ before I ruin your day, week, and life.

Harold Ballard turned down the Gretzky Era Oilers.

As former Edmonton Oilers owner Peter Pocklington admitted in his book, this almost actually happened. In 1980, he approached Ballard with the crazy idea of swapping teams with the Leafs, literally, and also ponying up $50 million to boot. Once again, this was 1980. We’re talking the dawn of one of the darkest periods in Leafs history vs. the Oilers beginning arguably the greatest dynasty hockey has ever seen. A young Gretzky on the verge of scoring 92 goals, Messier. Kurri. Anderson. Fuhr. Coffey. Go down the list and die a little with each name.

Why? Because Ballard backed out.

Pocklington, who was vilified in Edmonton when he traded Wayne Gretzky in 1988, says he was all for the market swap, but Ballard backed out in the end.

“I was actually pretty excited,” Pocklington says in the book, which hit store shelves last week. “I did the numbers … I would have made a fortune in Toronto.”

But the blockbuster deal never happened.

Pocklington isn’t sure what went wrong.

“I don’t know,” he says in the book. “Ballard backed out. He was a crazy old bugger.”

One more time for you…

• The Oilers were interested in this deal.

• The Oilers were the ones giving the Leafs money in the deal.

• The Leafs (Ballard) were the ones who backed out.

How did the Leafs not just fold the franchise when this story came out? How didn’t every Leafs employee just go “Welp, this team is clearly haunted,” quit their job, take off all your clothes, and wander naked down Carleton Street to start a new life?

This is Game 7 times Rask for Raycroft to the power of David Clarkson’s contract plus infinity.

Oh, the Winnipeg Jets missed an opportunity to buy Gretzky’s rights in 1979? The Leafs turned down Gretzky, all of his teammates, and $50 million! You’re not topping that.

Honourably Weird

Fans throwing waffles. As Luke Schenn hilariously pointed out at the height of Wafflegate, the ACC doesn’t even sell waffles.

Via The Globe and Mail
Via The Globe and Mail

• Lou Lamoriello is the Leafs’ GM. Mike Babcock being the Leafs’ coach was unexpected but not weird. Seeing Lou associated with a team not called the New Jersey Devils is weird.

• Tie Domi once knocked out a belligerently drunk Ed Belfour in his hotel room to prevent him from returning to the bar to challenge more people to fights and arm-wrestling contests.

The Steve Simmons vs. Phil Kessel hot dog story almost made the list

The Water Bottle Police

• The ridiculous Elisha Cuthbert vs. April Reimer nontroversy, that I broke down at the time.

• That time Jonathan Bernier said Nelson Mandela was “One of the most known athletes in the world.”

• And last but not least, a late addition because I was just reading it in a book – that time the Leafs shaved Tim Horton’s balls.

What?!?

An excerpt from Bobby Baun’s book “Lowering The Boom”, page 106:

“One day we decided that Horton had never been properly initiated. It took about four or five of us to hold him down. We proceeded to shave his entire genital area, and then, to prevent infection – or so we said – we massaged in some liniment. It stung for at least three days! Vaseline was the only cure, which of course made a greasy mess.”

So basically, a bunch of Leafs shaved Tim Horton’s balls and rubbed in Icy Hot.

Dude.

It’s the Leafs. I’ve missed some. I’ve missed most of them. What would you have on this list instead?

To you, it’s weird. To the Leafs, it’s normal. With the Leafs’ centennial season approaching, who knows what’s next?

Previous Weird NHL Posts: Anaheim | Arizona | Boston | Buffalo | Calgary | Carolina | Chicago | Colorado | Columbus | Dallas | Detroit | Edmonton | Florida | Los Angeles | Minnesota | Montreal | Nashville | New Jersey | New York Islanders | New York Rangers | Ottawa | Philadelphia | Pittsburgh | San Jose | St. Louis | Tampa Bay

– – – – – – –

About the author: Steve “Dangle” Glynn is a Toronto Maple Leafs and NHL-focused YouTuber and podcaster. Sportsnet hired him a couple years ago. Auston Matthews is a Maple Leaf. Unrelated but worth mentioning.