– Fealty to the Toronto Maple Leafs may be the only thing from childhood that I’ll carry to the grave. I got it from my father, who died when I was fourteen, before I would begin to make up my own mind about who/what to root for. Not only had he been born in Toronto, but his father Frank was business manager of the Syracuse Stars, their top farm club, while he was student manager and last man cut of the hockey team at St. Michael’s College of the University of Toronto, which sent scores of alumni to the Maple Leafs.
My fealty has maternal ties, too, because my mother’s father was a friendly rival of Leafs’ founder Conn Smythe in the sand and gravel business, and a sub-contractor on the construction of Maple Leaf Gardens. A few months after my father’s death, while visiting my mother’s family at Easter, I was brought to a game there and saw the Leafs hoist the Stanley Cup, after beating Gordie Howe and the Red Wings, 3-1. Two goals by St. Mike’s alum Davey Keon, the other by Eddie Shack, who the team had sent to St. Mike’s for remedial reading!
(My father David J. is the civilian on the left; his father, Frank J. is the one on the right above.)
From one garden to another
The next time I would see them in person would be some four years later, when I was in college at Boston. During the Bobby Orr era, the way to get tickets to a Bruins game was to go to North Station/Boston Garden on the first Sunday of the month, and hang out until 9 a.m. Monday, when obstructed-view tickets went on sale.
During the preceding summer, my mother had told me that Frank Mahovlich had recently married one of her Toronto cousins, and that two of my cousins had been altar boys at the ceremony. I managed to overcome my inherent humbleness long enough to share this interesting coincidence with my obstructed-view hockey friends, Dapper Dan and Harry the Hippie. Obstructed-view tickets were sold in threes, one on either side of a beam. Dapper and I were hockey nuts, Harry was just along for the party, which always began with drinks in his dorm room.
Then there would be nips from flasks and cups of suds during the game and as this one progressed, my pals goaded me into admitting that I was a big fat liar about the Big M being my cousin-by-marriage. The Leafs and Mahovlich had rather poor games, and while I was happy to let the issue go, my pals practically pushed me down to the visitor locker room. Out walked the Big M, who appeared to be twice as big as me, in a great overcoat and Slavic fur hat.
Just barely within earshot, I muttered something about it having been a tough loss and announced that the two of us are related by marriage. He scowled and proceeded toward the bus; my friends chuckled and pushed me toward him, as I wracked my semi-conscious brain for the name of my mother’s cousin. All I could think of was the names of my cousins, McCabe and Walsh, which were the married names of her sisters. Stumbling toward him, I blurted out a suggestion that his wife may have one of those names. He stopped in his tracks, so that I almost bumped into him, then, staring into the vacuum of my eyes, he asked “Kid, are you trying to tell me who I’m married to?”
All’s well that ends well
