The Curse of Harold Ballard
A popular belief is that the team was cursed by their former owner, Harold Ballard. He was the principal franchise owner from 1972-1990. This curse isn’t connected to any specific event but rather a tenure filled with abhorrent behaviour.
This is a man who once called his own daughter a “reptile”. In fact, Ballard referred to his children as “the three reptiles” and he cut them out of his will, keeping them from inheriting any of the $100 million in value he had accrued.
Ballard’s son, Bill Ballard, gave the best explanation as to how his father cursed the Maple Leafs. “My dad once told me that he would run the club from his grave,” Bill explained. “And that’s what he’s doing.”
Ballard was a meddlesome owner who hired and fired 13 coaches and six general managers over the duration of his tenure. He was so disliked that when Paul Henderson phoned his former teammate, Frank Mahovlich, to ask for career advice, he was told to “get away from Toronto because with Harold Ballard, the Maple Leafs will never win the cup again.” It’s why Henderson left for the WHA and told Ballard to take an offer for a new Leafs contract and “shove it up arse.”
Ballard may have been the worst owner professional sports has ever seen. He is responsible for the severed relationship between the Toronto Maple Leafs and their best ever player, the man at the top of the franchise’s very own greatest 100 players list. Ballard would chide his team’s captain, Dave Keon, through the media and refused to give him a well-deserved raise.
Ballard’s most dastardly acts were ensuring that the club did not re-sign Keon after his contract expired and demanding such an exorbitant compensation for another team signing him, that the other NHL clubs couldn’t touch the highly talented forward.
This forced Keon to leave the NHL and play in the WHA. He finally found his way back to the NHL when the Hartford Whalers were absorbed by the league as a part of the WHA-NHL merger years later.
This poor treatment wasn’t unique to Keon. The irascible owner called Darryl Sittler “a cancer” and tried to trade him despite the captain being the franchise’s all-time leading scorer. Since Sittler had a no-trade clause in his contract, Ballard had GM Punch Imlach ship away Sittler’s best friend, Lanny McDonald.
Ballard was equally terrible to other staff. His treatment of Hall of Fame coach Roger Neilson might have been the worst. Ballard fired Neilson during the 1978-79 season but brought him back just days later after hearing complaints from his players.
Ballard told reporters that a “mystery man” would be coaching the team and directed Neilson to wear a paper bag over his head before the start of his first game back behind the bench. The coach refused and he was fired for a second time at the end of that season.
In case there was any question about Ballard’s character, a criminal court made clear that he was not a great person. In 1969 he was charged and in 1972, at age 69, Ballard was convicted on 48 out of the 50 charges brought against him for tax evasion and fraud.
He had misused $205,000, which included taking $82,000 from the Gardens in order to remodel his home. Facing up to 20 years in prison, Ballard was sentenced to three consecutive three-year terms in Millhaven prison. He ended up serving just one year there.
Stories about Ballard can last for days. He trapped Ted Hough, the executive producer of Hockey Night in Canada in a sauna until the Maple Leafs were given an extra million dollars for tv rights. Ballard sold tickets to two Beatles shows even though their agent had only agreed to one.
In doing so, he forced the band to play a second show. During the event, Ballard had the water fountains and air conditioning turned off so that he could sell more drinks at the concession stands.
Even now in 2020, there are some who believe that Ballard’s ownership was a curse and have acted to try and reverse it. Unfortunately, the franchise’s results remain the same. No matter what the excuse, after dropping their entry round to the Columbus Blue Jackets, Toronto hasn’t won hockey’s biggest prize in over 50 years.