Remembering some classy Maple Leafs—who fits that bill for you?

I guess what triggered today’s post was reading this week about the Leaf-Red Wing Alumni game (from a Detroit perspective) and hearing Red Wing GM Ken Holland apparently saying that he hoped Wing fans should cheer for Sergei Federov.  He was concerned, it seemed, that fans might boo the former Red Wing when he plays in the old-timers game, because Federov left the Wings to sign with the Anaheim Ducks a few years ago. (I guess he was in fact booed when he returned to the Joe Louis Arena as a Duck…Leaf fans would probably love the luxury of feeling like they could boo a guy who had helped them win a few Stanley Cups, eh?)

In any event, this got me thinking about teams, their history, and the players who made particular franchises special in certain ways.  Now, these things can always be debated, but when I think about all that, for me, not many sports franchises can hold a candle to the rich legacy of the Toronto Maple Leafs and its players.

There are all kinds of ways, of course, to assess and gauge sports organizations.  If we’re just talking about “winning”, in the North American context, certainly the Boston Celtics spring to mind, given their dominance in the NBA in the late 1950s and throughout the ‘60s and even in more recent years.  In football, the Green Bay Packers (despite a rather prolonged period of mediocrity in the 1970s and ‘80s) used the legendary Vince Lombardi’s magnetism to build a lasting legacy, though the New York Giants may actually have a longer history of on-field “success”.

In baseball, the Yankees were consistently the best franchise from the 1920s until the mid-‘60s.  Then after a decade of stumbling, they regained their luster under George Steinbrenner, and have largely maintained it to this day, excepting a mild decline through the latter part of the '80s and early '90s.

In hockey, the Montreal Canadiens have clearly been the most successful franchise in the sport’s history, though they will soon pass 20 years without a championship—something that once would have been unthinkable.

But what I’m referring today goes beyond wins and losses, or championships.  I guess I’m more thinking about what a franchise represents, and while all of the aforementioned teams have huge followings and a proud history, arguably none surpasses what the Leafs have built in the hockey world.

Part of the Maple Leaf legacy has to do with winning, sure, which they did fairly consistently in the first few decades they were around, under the stewardship of builder/owner Conn (and later Stafford) Smythe. While we haven’t found a way to secure a championship over the past 45 years, that doesn’t mean the Leafs have been without some extraordinarily fine players, including many who brought a large degree of style and class to the Maple Leaf organization. 

I can’t really offer insight into players I did not see play, though Leaf historians well know that individuals such as Ted Kennedy and Syl Apps (and many others) would surely be in this "category" of Maple Leaf.  But even if you just look at the Leafs since 1967, many fine men have worn the blue and white proudly, and in addition, helped to build an even stronger legacy for young Leafs to live up to.

Johnny Bower (seen at right) is the first name that pops to mind.  He didn't even begin his Leaf career until he was well into his 30s, but he became such an integral part of the franchise for many years.  He had to train hard every day during the season to stay on top of his game.  Players in those days did not typically last as long as Bower did.  Oh, I know Johnny was on his last legs, if we’re just taking into consideration Leafs who have played since the expansion era, but nonetheless, he was one of the classiest Leafs of all time.  He played seemingly forever (until he was 45, actually) and always carried himself with distinction on and off the ice.  

Bower was the ultimate competitor, a Leaf who truly hated to lose but was a gracious individual in all respects—during and after his career.  So he kind of sits atop my list when we are thinking about Maple Leafs who represent class.  (Red Kelly would definitely be on my list, but he retired after the 1967 season, though he did coach the team for a good chunk of the 1970s...)

George Armstrong was another classy Leaf.  He was one of those players that was  not really physically imposing though he was a tall enough player for his era.  He wasn’t fancy or particularly fast, but he won more way more puck battles than he lost and was the captain of four Cup teams (albeit, I acknowledge, all before 1967).  He played through to the end of the 1970-’71 season.

Dave Keon was certainly a distinguished Leaf.  He was our Henri Richard, mixed in with the elegance of Richard’s long-time Montreal teammate, Jean Beliveau.  Like Richard, Keon was the little guy with the big heart and constant motor.  I remain awe-struck to this day that he played more than 20 years of professional hockey and basically averaged less than 10 minutes a season in penalties.  (If you discount one misconduct penalty and one 5-minute major that I recall, it was actually way less than that…)  He was such a wonderful skater, using angles and anticipation expertly to shut down opposition lanes that he virtually never had to resort to illegal tactics to check the opposition.  A quiet guy who led by his on-ice work ethic, there should be, in my view, a statue of Keon in front of the ACC.  No one in my memory worked harder, night in and night out for 15 seasons, than Keon, or played fewer bad games.

Ron Ellis (right) may have been the epitome of the classy Toronto Maple Leaf.  He was trained in the old-style Leaf tradition—wingers checked their man and stayed on their wing.  (Ellis usually was assigned to cover the other team’s best left-winger, most notably Chicago's legendary Bobby Hull.)  But Ellis was consistently a marvelous Maple Leaf, scoring enough to make him one of the all-time leaders in team history, and obviously earning (deservedly) a reputation as one of the best defensive players of his era, which spanned from the mid-1960s to the early ‘80s.

Darryl Sittler and Lanny McDonald have always seemed to go hand in hand, though Sittler arrived here three years before McDonald did and was still a Leaf for a time after Lanny left.  Both were first-round draft choices, and together, they played some tremendous hockey together.  Both could hit, fight, and make plays.  They were power forwards before we really created that term and they could (unlike some other players of that era….can we spell Bobby Clarke?) fight their own battles.  While both ended up being traded (a re-occurring theme of the Ballard ownership era in terms of how he treated some of the franchises's noteworthy players), they were not only Hall-of-Fame players but individuals who represented the Leafs proudly off the ice.

I’d put Wendel Clark (left), a mid-‘80s draft pick, in that category as well.  Though injuries unfortunately hampered his career, when healthy (or at least when he could bend down far enough to tie up his skates so he could play) he was such a difference-maker.  I know we don’t usually think of guys who were fighters (though Clark was much more than that, for sure…) as “classy”, but I would argue that Clark usually only engaged in fisticuffs when provoked, or when defending a teammate.  He didn’t complain and didn’t seem to say a whole lot, he just played hard as often as he could.  To this day, he is a very popular and well-regarded "ex-Leaf".

Doug Gilmour fits the mold as well, at least in my broad definition.  We all remember that he played with his heart on his sleeve.  While his stay in Toronto was, looking back, relatively brief, he was an inspirational player who led by sheer energy and willpower.  For me, he has to be on the list.

There certainly have been others who I feel had just that little “extra” about them that made me feel proud that they were Maple Leafs.  (I’m biased but I felt that way about Pat Quinn when Pat was coaching here.  I always felt as though we were in good hands…As a manager, I’d put Jim Gregory on the list, too.)  I think of a few of our modern-era goalies, like Allan Bester, Felix Potvin and Curtis Joseph as classy Leafs.  Defenseman Sylvain Lefebvre is in that category for me as well, though he was not here for very long. Todd Gill, also, wore the Leaf jersey with pride.

But I’d like to hear your thoughts.  Do you agree with my assessment of those I’ve cited?  Who else do you think deserves to be on the list of “classy” Maple Leafs since the late 1960s?  They don’t have to be star players, just guys who were here for a while and who carried themselves in such a way—on and off the ice— as to make fans proud that they represented us.

I look forward to your comments….