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Toronto Maple Leaf: The Best (and Worst) of Harold Ballard

By Brian Westland

TORONTO, ON - OCTOBER 15: Owner Harold Ballard of the Toronto Maple Leafs Watches the play from the bunker against the Detroit Red Wings during NHL game action on October 15, 1980 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Graig Abel/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON - OCTOBER 15: Owner Harold Ballard of the Toronto Maple Leafs Watches the play from the bunker against the Detroit Red Wings during NHL game action on October 15, 1980 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Graig Abel/Getty Images) /
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TORONTO, ON – OCTOBER 21: Lanny McDonald #9 of the Colorado Rockies skates against the Toronto Maple Leafs during NHL game action on October 21, 1981 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Graig Abel/Getty Images)
TORONTO, ON – OCTOBER 21: Lanny McDonald #9 of the Colorado Rockies skates against the Toronto Maple Leafs during NHL game action on October 21, 1981 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. (Photo by Graig Abel/Getty Images) /

Ballard allows Punch Imlach to trade Lanny McDonald to spite Darryl Sittler

One Ballard stunt that at the time was particularly painful for Toronto Maple Leafs fans was the trading of one of the classiest hockey players to ever lace up skates, the buds’ all-star right winger, Lanny McDonald, to the Colorado Avalanche.

A move that was made not to better the team, but to spite the team leader, Darryl Sittler.

During the late 1970s, when he was an NHL star on the rise, Darryl Sittler found himself at a philosophical crossroads with the Toronto Maple Leafs owner regarding the NHL players Association and Sittler’s involvement in it.

As Sittler’s prominence as a player grew, so did his prominence as a member of the NHL Players Association. Ballard, a die-hard conservative and anti-union figure resented having his captain and star player in such a role and a divide between Sittler and Ballard was established and continued to grow as the Seventies drew to a close.

The bad blood got to the point where Ballard and his recently rehired general manager, Punch Imlach, wanted to trade Sittler to get him out of town, however, a non-trade clause in the captain’s contract prevented Ballard and Imlach from doing so.

Instead, Ballard got back at Sittler by trading his good friend and linemate, Lanny McDonald, to the Colorado Rockies along with defenseman Joel Quenneville for Wilf Paiement and Pat Hickey on December 28th, 1979.

In a response to McDonald’s unceremonious shipment out of Toronto, Sittler expressed his frustration with the situation by tearing his captain’s “C.” from his jersey and renouncing his captaincy.

In response, Ballard, infuriated by Sittler’s actions, likened the removal of the C from the Maple Leafs Jersey as akin to burning the Canadian flag.

Sittler played another year in Toronto but was traded to the Philadelphia Flyers in 1982 for prospect Rich Costello. The trading of McDonald and  Sittler  dismantled the promising core of buds players, and the Toronto Maple Leafs would not play a winning season for the entire 1980s.

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