This weekend marks the last time the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup.
The Toronto Sun relives it through the eyes of those in the Gardens on May 2, 1967. Today, we end the four-part series of reflections from fans, arena staff and the media:
It can be said that nothing huge happens in Toronto sports without Rolf Bjordammen.
He was there for the ’67 Cup (blues, section 51), at the Skydome, when Joe Carter won the World Series in ’93 (section 124) and right back to Marilyn Bell swimming Lake Ontario.
“I moved from Saskatchewan in September 1954 to study graphic arts in Ryerson on the daily bus,” the 83-year-old remembered. “I came to Moose Jaw to Winnipeg, Winnipeg-Chicago, Chicago-Toronto. I left on the day Marilyn started over and arrived to see the Telegram headline ‘Marilyn does it’. ”
Bjordammen returned home as a reporter / photographer for the Moose Jaw Times-Herald (a young Peter Gzowski was on the staff) before training Ryerson for a printing company that gave him the funds to buy Leafs season tickets. He settled down to watch Game 6 against the Habs in Row G, seats 17 and 18.
“I took Jack Mitchell that night, another western boy I knew through Ryerson and printing. We must have been wearing suits that come straight from work.
“My business lawyer at the time, Alfred Herman, it turned out that his granddaughter married Zach Hyman. I recently received some autographed photos of Zach for my own grandchildren. “
The Cup clincher would not be an easy game to watch as the Leafs clung to their 2-0 lead in the third period. Like all games in the most defensive series, they tried to place the clamps on the flying French. Following Duck Duff’s goals in the third period, Bjordammen and everyone else sweated out the final minutes.
“Armstrong is sticking to the ice and scoring the net, that’s what I always look for in my mind that night,” Bjordammen said. “It stays with me like Carter’s homer. I am so lucky to have seen both.
“I remember George getting the cup and the ceremony. It’s the kind of night you don’t want to leave, just hang around and soak up as much of it as you can. I’m not a party all night, though I’m sure some people were after that game. “
While the Leafs’ Cup drought has reached six decades, Bjordammen is not one to walk around boasting its presence that night. But he likes to give his two cents in sports debates when the subject turns into a lack of Leafs titles.
“Someone will say ‘aw, the leaves never win anything.’ I’d randomly mention ‘well, actually, I was there when they did’.
“You have to be careful with people who say they went to that game. The gardens only had approx. 16,000, but I think about 45,000 will tell them they were there. “
Bjordammen is still active, playing slo-pitch on two knee replacements and hoping COVID-19 does not delay his ball season or NHL playoffs. He is determined to be in Scotiabank when the Leafs win again.
LAST MINUTE GAMES
Here’s Foster Hewitt’s radio call with Leafs up 2-1:
“Less than a minute left, and the leaves are called for icing … the referee calls for the front run to the left of the Leafs goal. There’s a delay in the game and Montreal goalkeeper Gump Worsley doesn’t know if coach Toe Blake wants him to come off the net … now Blake had decided to remove Worsley. He goes on the bench, with 55 seconds to play, Montreal will use six attackers. The Canadiens intend to shoot the works … Beliveau gets on the ice, as do Roberts, Cournoyer, Ferguson, Richard and Laperriere. It’s all or nothing for them now.
“Imlach positions his team with an all-veteran lineup of Stanley, Horton, Kelly, Pulford and Armstrong.”
SO LONG RED
In the stands, Andre Kelly stood up. It wasn’t revealed, but she knew this would be her husband’s last shift in the NHL, going out with his fourth cup as a leaf and eighth overall.
Defender Stanley moved up to take the draw against Beliveau, a hug that Imlach often used, a big blueliner to take a big center. When Ferguson came in to consult with Beliveau who got the impatient crowd booing about the delay, Stanley had a quick word with Kelly and made him switch sides. Left-hander Stanley won a draw against Kelly and tied Beliveau as planned.
“I drove around and turned the puck up to Pulford,” Kelly described in his 2018 biography. “He took a few steps just across our blue line and sent it to Armstrong, who broke right in front of us. Army skated just over the middle and fired a wrist shot into the empty net. “
BRUGERHUS
Crowd shots of the gardens at playoff times in the ’70s,’ 80s and ’90s were often proprietors with their distinctive white hats, waving signs or miniature Stanley Cups. A few were on duty back on May 2, ’67.
The late Dennis Goodwin placed half a century on Carlton St. and shared his experience of that night at the Gardens closure in 1999. At that time, he was the longest-serving of the 200 men and women working the Leafs, Marlies, wrestling, rock concerts and other major events.
That roar when Armstrong scored was still ringing in his years two decades later.
“The most spontaneous cheer I’ve heard in all my years here,” Goodwin said. “You never need a scoreboard to tell you to cheer. I had come in a bottle of champagne and served everyone in my section in Dixie cups. “
It was the fifth cup-winning team that Goodwin saw returning to Bill Barilko’s overtime goal in 1951. Goodwin was stationed exclusively in sections 65-67 in the East Green and enjoyed the atmosphere of the cheap seats he compared to the bleachers at Chicago’s Wrigley Field.
“You almost had a Hot Stove League on game nights, with small side bets between ushers or between ushers and fans. It was a neighborhood or a dollar on who got the first goal or penalty.
“The gardens are like a home, a family. It’s not like a job. There was a time when you could be the president of a company and people would think of you more because you were a gardener. “|
Colleague Andy Mastoris was also there for victory over the Habs, though not in optimal position at the time of the switch.
“I was on the south end and Armstrong scored at the other,” Mastoris told the New York Times in 2019, shortly before he passed. “Going to the gardens was like a Catholic going to the Vatican. It was a place of worship. “
Mastoris and Goodwin never experienced a Cup again, though both became quite friendly with season ticket holders over the years. One evening after a particularly bad Leafs campaign, Greek immigrant Mastoris was invited by a few subscribers and everyone toasted the welcome ending to the multi-round season of Ouzo.
Filey files
Also in the crowd that night was the budding journalist / historian Mike Filey, who delighted readers of this paper every Sunday with his focus on Toronto’s past, The Way We Were.
“Knowing my love for the magazines back then, my wife got the two tickets from J. M. ‘Ted’ Tory, branch manager at Sun Life,” said Filey, who took friend Ross Edwards and sat in the Blues.
Ted was related to current Mayor John Tory, with the family being early investors in Leafs ad the Gardens.
“All these years later, she can’t remember what she paid. I should have kept our ticket stubs, except we were convinced that the Leafs would remain as champions for years to come. After all, there were six new (expansion) teams joining the NHL and they wouldn’t amount to much for years.
Or so many people thought.
Clearing from clarity
In case you’ve never heard what these sweet championship sounds are with ‘Leafs’ in the same sentence, here’s Campbell:
“Ladies and gentlemen, it is now my great pleasure to present the Stanley Cup to the Maple Leaf Hockey Club for the 11th time. I ask the captain of the Toronto club to come forward and accept the trophy. “
Armstrong’s young son Brian, where he met his grandfather, was at the presentation table and appears on many of the photos with Campbell, his father and the trophy.
“My grandfather and I planned to go on the ice before the game if the Leafs won and tried to signal to each other,” Brian told Ward Cornell of Hockey Night in Canada. “It was the first Stanley Cup game I had been to. My grandfather said I should be behind Al Smith.
Smith, Leafs third goalie, was ready in the locker room all night. Although Johnny Bower was too injured to play after getting hurt in the warm-up of Game 4, he thought his place was on the bench with his peers to provide support.
Their coup runs over
As the game ended and handshakes with the Habs ended, the Leafs posed for a quick photo with the Cup. There was no victory lap or solo skating with the Cup back then, but plenty to celebrate out of the public eye.
General manager / coach Punch Imlach, feared and respected by his players every other day of the season, was relieved of his famous fedora and fully clothed in the shower.
“I went into the locker room, but it was a crazy house,” said Hockey Night analyst Brian McFarlane. “Everyone was overflowing with champagne.”
Winning goalkeeper Terry Sawchuk sat on the bench and pulled on a cigarette.
“I don’t like beer or champagne and I’m too tired to dance around,” Sawchuk said, “but this has to be the biggest thrill of my life.”
Losing luggage
In a mysterious post manuscript, Sawchuk was announced as the winner of the ‘Air Canada Trophy’, Leaf being selected as the most priceless player in the playoffs by teammates. The fair-sized trophy, which is believed to have been minted two years earlier (it actually read Trans Canada Airlines, before dating AC’s re-branding) was given to Sawchuk the same day Keon received Conn Smythe as playoff MVP voted by the authors. But the trophy disappeared while Air Canada and the Sawchuk family could not account for it until today. It’s a piece of the point where the Leafs haven’t won a cup since.
PARTY LIKES IT 1967
McFarlane and the TV crew were not invited to the after-party at Executive Staff Smyth’s home, but they knew where he lived and crashed it anyway.
“There was Eddie Shack, sweat dripping down his nose, everyone dancing and a lot of beautiful women,” McFarlane said. “The cup was in the foyer and we all took a sip from it, come and go.
“I’m sure people thought there would be another cup in a year or two.”
Oh honey
The Telegram printed 42 births on May 2, 1967, including Lui Redigonda at Northwestern Hospital (now Humber River).
Emilio Redigonda was present for both her son’s birthday and the victory over Montreal. Emilio considered it a lucky sign for the Leafs after wife Mary gave birth to Lui by seven pounds. Then he went to the game with a group of friends from his construction company who shared season tickets.
“I just remember getting very, very drunk,” Emilio said in an interview in 2004. “A son and a Stanley Cup. It was good.”
SILVER STREAK
Leaf players at the ’67 Cup: George Armstrong, Bob Baun, Johnny Bower, Brian Conacher, Ron Ellis, Aut Erickson, Larry Hillman, Tim Horton, Red Kelly, Larry Jeffrey, Dave Keon, Frank Mahovlich, Milan Marcetta, Jim Pappin, Marcel Pronovost , Bob Pulford, Terry Sawchuk, Eddie Shack, Allan Stanley, Peter Stemkowski, Mike Walton.
