
I used to pull into the same empty parking lot and make sure that I parked my car in the front row on Church street. The northeast entrance was how you got to enter Maple Leaf Gardens if you were on official business with one of the many teams that played there in the mid-1970’s. If it was game day for the Maple Leafs, or the Toros or the Toronto Marlboros (nobody called them that, it was just the Marlies), you had to make sure you could still get out of your spot before the crowds started to arrive.
You never really knew how long you were going to be in the building because there were visiting teams here as well that wanted to see you. I was working for Cooper Sporting Goods at the time as Professional Team Sales Representative. It never ceases to amaze me that even today, I can talk about my experiences with men and boys of all ages about some of stuff that happened at that old building and other arenas throughout North America. And they want more.
The only dressing room in North America that I couldn’t enter was the Leafs. the team in my hometown. That was because of the bozo that owned the team at the time, Harold Ballard. He acted like he was everybody’s friend but the truth is he really didn’t have any that I could see. He just paraded around and preached to everybody and they of course said yes sir no sir because he signed their cheques. But that’s not what I’d like to share about the days at Maple Leaf Gardens.
I made a friend through Facebook that used to live in Ontario and now lives in British Columbia. Andy is his name and we got to chatting back and forth about today’s Leafs and about yet another goalie that couldn’t live up to the standard that Johnny Bower set. I joked about we need to get Johnny out of retirement and eventually the subject of Johnny playing couldn’t happen because he wouldn’t wear a helmet. Well, that isn’t true.
Johnny wore the helmet we gave him with the “Tretiak” mask, as we called it, in practice sometimes when he had to put on the pads because one of the incumbent goalies of the time didn’t show up to practice that day. Rumour has it that too many brown pops had something to do with it. Johnny had a lot to do with getting Mike Palmateer to wear the helmet and cage combination.
And I was lucky enough to have the great honour of returning a favour to my favourite goalie of all time-Johhny Bower, everybody’s grandfather as MW, my friend calls him. Goaltenders of that era didn’t wear too much equipment like they do today. So when Johnny got off the ice, walked across the hall and changed in the scouts dressing room (even Johnny didn’t go in the Leafs dressing room), I was able to see what he wore.
I was in shock. I said Johnny, you can’t go back on the ice wearing that stuff. His arm pads were something that you wrapped a baby in to keep the child warm. No extra plastic. No wing extensions. Nothing. His chest protector was the same one I bet he wore in Cleveland. A piece of leather sewn onto a peice of felt. No extra wings on the shoulders to make you puff up like they do in lacrosse.
So I took the arm pads and chest protector back to our Custom Pro Shop and showed them to our “Pop” Kinesky, Norm Widdis and said make something better for Johnny. He can’t go back on the ice wearing this @#$%. Norm was a master at creating something out of just an idea. He and Dave Dryden worked beautifully together on a lot of goaltenders innovations for the time.
Believe it or not, in those days, the teams actually had to buy the equipment and not directly. It had to go through a sporting goods outlet. It was a company policy and since Cooper was the dominate supplier of the time, everybody did it. But Norm and my boss, “Shelly” all agreed that this one was not going to have any charge attached to it.
How do you expect a legend to pay for something like this. So it was with great pleasure that I showed up the next day and handed Johnny his new armpads and chest protector made with all the latest materials and innovations of the day and also handed him his old equipment that Norm used as the template for the modern upgrade.
I don’t remember if there was any discussion regarding payment for the equipment because there was going to be no bill anyway. Consider it our thanks for what you have done for the sport of hockey and the memories that we will all have of your outstanding efforts as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs. No one could poke check like Johnny.
We also were more than aware that if there was a bill that it wouldn’t be authorized by that guy upstairs. They have a phrase for that, but I’m wise enough to not use it.
Instead, the next time you watch a Leaf game, think of the greatest goalie to wear a Toronto Maple Leaf sweater sweeping the crease with his stick just before the start of the game. That’s what I want to remember about Maple Leaf Gardens. Raise your brown pop and repeat after me. “To Johnny Bower, everybody’s grandfather.”
