Harold Ballard

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Edwin Harold Ballard (July 30, 1903 – April 11, 1990) was an owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Maple Leaf Gardens. A member of the Leafs organization from 1940, he became part-owner of the Leafs in 1961 and was majority owner from February 1972 until his death. He was also the owner of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League for 11 seasons, and won a Grey Cup championship as team owner in 1986. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame (1977) and the Canadian Football Hall of Fame (1987).

Contents 1 Early years 2 Hockey coach and manager 3 Joins the Maple Leafs 4 Partner in Leafs ownership group 5 Criminal trial and the Summit Series 6 Leafs performance under Ballard 7 Maple Leaf Gardens under Ballard 8 Ballard and the Tiger-Cats 9 Supporters 10 Personal life 11 Child molestation accusations 12 References 13 External link

[edit] Early years

Ballard was born in Toronto, Canada, and given the name Edwin Harold. He would later reverse the names and refer to himself as Harold E. Ballard. For six years before World War I, Ballard and his family lived in Norristown, Pennsylvania. They returned to Toronto where his father, Sidney Eustace Ballard, founded Ballard Machinery Supplies Co., a sewing machine manufacturer, which at one point was one of Canada's leading manufacturers of ice skates (it got out of the business in the early 1930s, when the Canadian skate market was dominated by CCM). Harold attended Upper Canada College as a boarding student until dropping out in his third year in 1919.

Ballard became a fan of speed skating and would attend skating events and hockey games, helping to promote the Ballard skates. For the 1928 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, Ballard was appointed assistant manager of the Varsity Grads team that won the hockey gold medal.

As a member of the National Yacht Club, Ballard became an avid racer of Sea Fleas, small outboard hydroplanes. He competed in several regattas, and won the Toronto-Oakville marathon in 1929. Ballard was elected to the NYC's executive committee in January 1930. He participated in the 133-mile Albany-New York marathon in April 1930, finishing second in his class. About a month later, Ballard and two friends from the NYC were hurled from a boat into a frigid Lake Ontario. Ballard was pulled from the water unconscious, but one of his friends died. None of the three was wearing a life jacket.

[edit] Hockey coach and manager

Following the 1930 racing season, the NYC sponsored a senior team in the Ontario Hockey Association called the Toronto National Sea Fleas. Ballard was made business manager. Under coach Harry Watson, the team won the Allan Cup in 1932. Watson chose not to return the following season, and Ballard took over the coaching duties. At first, the players welcomed Ballard behind the bench, but the mood soon changed, particularly after Ballard benched the team captain. That triggered a mutiny among some of the team's top players, who resigned from the squad in November. The team had a poor year with Ballard coaching, but Ballard arranged a European tour for the Nationals which included competing in the 1933 world championship in Prague. There, the Nationals lost 2-1 in overtime to a team from the U.S.—the first loss for a Canadian team at the world championships. While touring Europe, the Nationals were involved in several fights, both on the ice and off. In one incident, Ballard was arrested in Paris following a fracas at a hotel. The tour marked the end of Ballard's career as a full-time hockey coach.

In 1934, Ballard became manager of the West Toronto Nationals OHA junior team and hired Leaf captain Clarence "Happy" Day as coach. When Day was busy with the Leafs and unavailable for games, Ballard would step behind the bench as acting coach. Under Day and Ballard, the Nationals won the Memorial Cup at the end of the 1935-36 season. The following season, Day and Ballard worked together to run a senior team sponsored by E. P. Taylor's Dominion Brewery. At the same time, Ballard continued to work for Ballard Machinery, and took over the business after his father's retirement in 1935.

After Day became coach of the Leafs in 1940, he recommended Ballard to the Leaf organization to run the Toronto Marlboros, the senior and junior teams owned by the Leafs. Ballard was made president and general manager. He would coach one more game, for the senior Marlboros, during the 1950 Allan Cup final, after head coach Joe Primeau's father died. The Marlboros lost the game but won the series and the championship. In the early 1950s, Ballard hired his long-time friend Stafford Smythe, son of Leafs owner Conn Smythe, as managing director of the Marlboros. The team won the Memorial Cup in 1955—their first championship in 26 years—and repeated the feat the following season.

In 1944, Ballard formed Harold E. Ballard Ltd., the personal holding company he would later use to purchase shares in Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd.

[edit] Joins the Maple Leafs

In 1957, Ballard moved up to the Maple Leafs as a member of a committee chaired by Stafford Smythe which oversaw hockey operations after Conn Smythe stepped down as general manager and Day was pushed out of the Leafs organization. Ballard wasn't initially named to the committee when it was unveiled in March 1957, but took the place of Ian Johnston nine months later. At age 54, Ballard was the oldest member of the group, which were otherwise all in their 30s and 40s. The committee came to be known as the "Silver Seven."

During the hockey off-season in 1961, Ballard became founding president of the four-team Eastern Canada Professional Soccer League, which operated in Toronto, Hamilton, and Montreal. Steve Stavro, who would succeed Ballard as Leafs owner 30 years later, was co-owner of the Toronto City team. For the 1962 season, Ballard tried to introduce a hockey-style penalty box to soccer, but the rule change was not allowed by FIFA.

[edit] Partner in Leafs ownership group

In November 1961, Conn Smythe sold most of his shares in Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. to a partnership of his son Stafford Smythe, Ballard, and Toronto Telegram owner John Bassett. Ballard became executive vice president of the corporation and played a key role in the Leaf dynasty of the 1960s, winning Stanley Cups in 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967.

Ballard's greatest influence in this period was not on the ice, but on the financial performance of Maple Leaf Gardens. Within three years under the new owners, profits at the Gardens had tripled to just under $1 million. He negotiated lucrative deals to place advertising throughout the building, and greatly increased the number of seats in the Gardens. To make room for more seats, Ballard removed a large portrait of Queen Elizabeth II from the Gardens. When asked about it, Ballard replied "She doesn't pay me, I pay her. Besides, what the hell position can a queen play?"^[1]

He also expanded the number of concerts, entertainment acts, and conventions booked in the building. Ballard booked The Beatles on each of their three North American tours from 1964-1966. On the second tour, in 1965, Ballard sold tickets for two shows, even though the agreement had been for only one. On the hot summer day of the concert, Ballard ordered the building's heat turned up, and the water fountains around the arena mysteriously stopped functioning. He also delayed both of the concerts for over an hour. The only available refreshments from the terrible heat were large soft drinks from the concession stands.

In 1969, Ballard and Stafford Smythe were charged with tax evasion and accused of using Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. to pay for their personal expenses. Bassett, who had by this time become chairman of the board, received the support of the board of directors in an 8-7 vote to fire Smythe and Ballard. But a year later, Ballard and Smythe staged a proxy war to win back control, leading to Bassett's resignation.

In September 1971, Bassett sold his shares to Ballard and Stafford Smythe. Just six weeks later, Smythe died. Following a battle with Smythe's brother and son, Ballard purchased Smythe's shares in Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. and—at age 68—became the majority owner of the Leafs and Maple Leaf Gardens. He installed himself as president, CEO and chairman of the board.

[edit] Criminal trial and the Summit Series

Shortly after taking control of the Leafs, Ballard stood trial on 28 counts of fraud involving $82,000, 21 counts of theft involving $123,000, and tax evasion. He was accused by the Crown attorney of using funds from Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. to pay for renovations to his home and cottage, to rent limousines for his daughter's wedding in 1967, and to buy motorcycles for his sons (passing off the expense as hockey equipment for the Marlboros), as well as placing money belonging to the corporation into a private bank account that he controlled along with Stafford Smythe. Ballard pleaded not guilty to all charges.

At the same time, Hockey Canada and the NHL Players Association had negotiated an agreement to hold an eight-game tournament between Canadian professional hockey players and the the top players from the Soviet Union. The tournament would become known as the Summit Series. Just as Ballard's trial was beginning, he told Hockey Canada that they were welcome to use any member of the Leafs on the Canadian team, could use Maple Leaf Gardens for their training camp, and could use the building for any or all of the games in the series, with the Gardens' share of the gate receipts being donated to the NHL players' pension fund. Ballard then partnered with long-time rival Alan Eagleson and Eagleson's client, Bobby Orr to get the television rights to the series—which would be used to benefit Hockey Canada and the players' union. At no time before or after his trial did Ballard show any interest in being associated with Eagleson or in having members of the Leafs play the Soviets, and the move was widely seen to be a means to generate favourable public relations.

In August, just weeks before the series began, Ballard was convicted on 47 counts of fraud and theft. Two months later, he was sentenced to three years in a federal penitentiary. After a brief stay at Kingston Penitentiary, he was moved to a minimum-security facility that was part of Millhaven Institution. He finished his sentence at a half-way house in Toronto, and was paroled in October 1973 after serving a third of his sentence.

[edit] Leafs performance under Ballard

Ballard was a very hands-on owner. He tried to micromanage the team, interfering with coaches and players. The Leafs were somewhat successful in the 1970s, making it as far as the semifinals in 1978. However, Ballard was criticized for not spending the extra money to take the team over the top.

After Ballard took control during the 1971-72 season, one of the first challenges he faced was the creation of the World Hockey Association as a competitor to the NHL. At the time, NHL teams relied on the reserve clause to keep players from jumping to other teams in the league, but the clause couldn't prevent players from leaving the NHL to join a different league. At the end of the 1971-72 season, the Leafs only had three players signed to contracts for the next season: Rick Kehoe and veterans Jacques Plante and Bobby Baun. But Ballard didn't take the unproven WHA seriously as a competitor and was outbid on the services of several players in the Leafs organization. The biggest loss was goaltender Bernie Parent, a superstar in the making, who was offered a WHA contract with financial terms far beyond what Ballard was prepared to match. Along with Parent, Rick Ley, Jim Harrison, Brad Selwood, and Guy Trottier all left the Leafs for the WHA before the 1972-73 season, as did some minor league prospects in the Leafs' system and the Leafs' minor league coach, Marcel Pronovost. Paul Henderson and Mike Pelyk followed a year later. The players who stayed could use the threat of joining the WHA to negotiate better contracts, and Ballard always blamed the WHA for inflating players' salaries. Ballard remained a bitter opponent of the WHA, and opposed the deal under which four WHA teams joined the NHL for the 1979-80 NHL season.

Ballard's desire to control players and their salaries also put him at odds with Alan Eagleson, executive director of the NHL Players Association and a player agent whose clients included Darryl Sittler, who became captain of the Leafs in 1975.

In July 1979, Ballard brought former Leafs coach and longtime friend Punch Imlach back to the organization as general manager. When the Leafs traded Lanny McDonald, a close friend of Sittler, to the moribund Colorado Rockies on December 29, 1979; a member of the Leafs anonymously told the Toronto Star that Leafs management would "do anything to get at Sittler"^[2] and was bent on undermining the captain's influence on the team. Indeed, Imlach was known for being as violently anti-union as Ballard. Angry teammates trashed their dressing room in response, and Sittler temporarily resigned his captaincy. Eagleson called the trade "a classless act."^[2]

The McDonald trade sent the Leafs into a downward spiral. The team did not post a winning record again until after Ballard's death, going a franchise-record 13 consecutive seasons without a winning record. The low point came in 1984-85, when the Leafs finished the season with the worst record in the league (and second-worst in franchise history), 32 games below .500. They nearly duplicated that dubious achievement in 1987-88, ending the season one point up on the last-place Minnesota North Stars. Many players refused even to consider playing for the Leafs because of Ballard's reputation.

Off the ice, the Maple Leafs under Ballard were one of the league's most financially successful teams. He had little financial incentive to lavish money on star players to improve the quality of the on-ice product and attract fans, as all games were sold out regardless of how poorly the Leafs played. Even so, many Leafs fans consider the Ballard era to be the darkest period in team history. Indeed, the Maple Leafs never finished above third place in their division during Ballard's tenure as majority owner.

[edit] Maple Leaf Gardens under Ballard

After Ballard's release from prison, he had an apartment built at the Gardens facing Church Street where he would live through most of the year, while spending summers at his cottage in Midland, Ontario.

Some notable incidents during Ballard's time as majority owner of Maple Leaf Gardens:

• In August 1979, to make room for private boxes, he had Foster Hewitt's broadcast gondola dumped into an incinerator. This happened about a year after Ballard had taken the radio broadcast rights to Leaf games away from Hewitt's CKFH (AM) and sold them to CKO. Hewitt unsuccessfully appealed the deal to the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission.
• Approaching Hockey Night in Canada president Ted Hough with a fire ax, and threatening to cut the TV cable if the CBC did not pay for updating the Gardens (the CBC paid up).
• Demanding $15,000 a game from the Toronto Toros to play in the Gardens, and then informing them (after they signed the contract) it would cost an extra $3,500 per game to use the TV lights. He also removed the bench cushions for Toros games and forced the team to build its own dressing room, at a cost of $55,000.
• When the NHL decided to put surnames on sweaters, Ballard refused, citing scorecard sales. After being forced to put names on the jerseys, he did, by putting blue names on blue and white names on white, making them unable to be seen. Later threatened with a fine, he backed down.
• Angered (or maybe jealous) by Conn Smythe's success with the club and his inability to bring a Stanley Cup to Toronto, Ballard sold all of the Cup banners that had hung from the rafters of Maple Leafs Gardens for years. When the Leafs moved to the Air Canada Centre in 1999, the NHL presented the team with new banners to replace those Ballard had sold.

[edit] Ballard and the Tiger-Cats

In the early 1970s, Ballard made an application for a second Canadian Football League team to be based in Toronto, but the proposal never went anywhere. In 1974, when his former partner John Bassett put the Toronto Argonauts up for sale, Ballard offered to buy the team for $3 million, but his offer was rejected. Shortly after, Ballard tried to buy the Hamilton Tiger-Cats from owner Michael DeGroote, but that offer was also rejected. Three money-losing seasons later, in January 1978, DeGroote contacted Ballard and sold him the club for $1.3 million.^[3] Federal Labour Minister John Munro—from Hamilton—led an unsuccessful campaign against the deal. Later that year, Ballard helped block Bassett's attempt to repurchase the Argos.

Under Ballard's ownership, the Tiger-Cats made it to the Grey Cup championship game in 1980, 1984, and 1985, and won the Cup in their fourth attempt in 1986. Ballard sold the team after the 1988 season. He had lost an estimated $20 million over 11 seasons with the Tiger-Cats.^[4]

[edit] Supporters

Ballard was well-known for his charitable activities, and even leased out MLG for many functions. He was recognized for this on his citation during his 1977 Hockey Hall of Fame induction. However, as Ken Dryden put it in his book The Game, he seemed "like [a] wrestling villain who touches the audience to make his next villainy seem worse."

Dave "Tiger" Williams who played with the Leafs from 1975-1980 had a close relationship with Ballard. Years later, Williams would remark that all Ballard would want from his players was an honest day of hard work. In gratitude, Williams shot a bear during a winter hunt and skinned it for Ballard's office.

[edit] 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 his estranged daughter was to play in a kids hockey tournament in the Gardens, Ballard had the entire tournament cancelled. After he died, it was discovered he had been stealing game equipment for many years and selling it to collectors.

Even before his death, there had been battles between his children, Bill Ballard, Harold Ballard Jr., and Mary Elizabeth Flynn and his longtime companion, Yolanda Ballard (though she and Harold never married, she had her name legally changed; she claimed to have been with Ballard for eight years at the time of his death). In 1989, Bill Ballard was convicted of assaulting Yolanda and fined $500. Yolanda was not invited to Ballard's funeral, nor to the reading of his will. She fought with Ballard's family and partners over Ballard's estate following his death. According to Ballard's lawyer, his estate was worth less than $50 million. Most of the money was left to a charitable foundation. Ballard left his personal belongings to his children and grandchildren. Ballard's three children had all previously received shares in Maple Leaf Gardens that they sold for more than $15 million each.

Ballard was also a Freemason[1].

[edit] Child molestation accusations

In April 2003, a woman publicly identified only as R.M. filed suit against Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., claiming that Ballard had sexually abused her over a period of eight years. The abuse was said to have started in 1963 when she was 10 years old, and to have continued until she was 18. Her uncle had been a painter at the Gardens, and R.M. said she didn't come forward sooner because Ballard had threatened to fire him if she had. She sought damages of $2 million. The suit was settled in March 2006 for an undisclosed amount.^[5]

[edit] References

[edit] External link

• Canadian Football Hall of Fame profile
• Harold Ballard's Gravesite