Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Bob Stellick: Toronto Mike'd #1440

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

In this 1440th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Bob Stellick about how he ended up director of business operations and communications, and the director of public relations for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Harold Ballard, Maple Leaf Gardens, his brother Gord and what he's been up to since leaving the Toronto Maple Leafs. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada and Electronic Products Recycling Association. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1440 of Toronto Miked. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. A fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantage'd Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed

and focused on long-term success. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today, making his highly anticipated Toronto Mike debut is Bob Stehlich. Welcome Bob. Thank you very much. I feel very privileged. 1440 here is the number of the broadcast. Not many, how many professional athletes get to 1440 and don't get in the Hall of Fame? I think this might be a Hall of Fame podcast. I'm banking on it. Bob, I'm banking on it. Now, so many people,

I say, Oh, yo, Bob's Deluxe coming over and multiple people refer to you, including Midtown Gord, brother Bob, brother Bob. Is this like your, your nickname is brother Bob? How do you feel about that? Yeah, it's, it's okay to be to that Gordon. I went to high school together, of course george vanney in north york and People there called us after my father's name. Our father had a tv in appliance repair shop called ernie's tv So we were big ernie and little ernie in high school. So now i've gone from that to brother bob brother gordon i think carol huntley one of the usherettes of the gardens I think tagged us with that a long time

ago so that um, we've kind of uh, we've kind of the gardens I think tagged us with that a long time ago. So that we've kind of adopted it. I think Pat Burns was one guy that sort of made he popularized. He took it from the usherette level to the head coaching level. Pat Burns. Love it. I had Brian Good over here talking about Pat Burns sitting in with the Good Brothers. Wow. Yeah. He talked really fondly about those guys and Pat Burns was certainly an incredibly unique character, probably outside of hiring Cliff Fletcher, the biggest game-changing moment in my Maple Leaf Gardens history,

and maybe the history for a lot of Leaf fans, and that time that Cliff pulled that rabbit out of the hat. And I still am stunned that we got got Pat and he certainly lived up to his billing and it was a tremendous run under his leadership for sure. But Pat Burns is like a law and order guy, right? He was a cop. Yeah, he's a cop from Gatineau. I think he was a cop.

But where I'm going with that is that Good Brothers, like I had Brian Good here, they had a lot of songs about hash and smoking weed, like before it was legal. So it's just interesting to hear that Pat Burns was a Big Good Brothers. Yeah, I think maybe Pat got out of policing before policing got out of Pat because most of his stories were mostly vigilante police stories. They weren't stories that they were kind of like, yeah, we didn't think this guy was a good guy. So I think we settled him before you got to court or whatever it was. But yeah, definitely, definitely a checkered and interesting and well lived life. It really sucks as I talk to you because you know, you went to the washroom before we started

recording and you saw the tie Domi picture that he signed for me in 2002. And I mentioned that was right after Pat Quinn got back from winning gold in Salt Lake City. So then we had a moment where I was thinking of Pat Quinn, and now I've had a moment where I'm thinking of Pat Burns, and I'm really realizing how much it sucks, Bob, that they're both gone. Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home,

they're both gone far too soon. Yeah, you know, the two mega Pats for sure, and guys that seemed, you know, just beyond full of life. I mean, Pat Quinn, I still work with Hockey Hall of Fame is one of my best clients. I do the PR for them and in and around induction work and that and one of my favorite times every year is we get on the call with the Hockey Hall of Fame

committee to call the new inductees. And, you know, Bill Hay did a tremendous job at it. But Pat Quinn, when he took over, took it sort of to a whole different level, like Pat Quinn brings this level of gravitas. And I always remember one of great Pat Quinn lines was, I can't remember who it was, or I'll go, it'll go name us, but an official was getting in the Hall of Fame and we're so Pat, you know, we do the PR, he's talking to media and Pat's on mute and Pat asked me again am I on mute? Yeah and I said yes you are Pat and he goes you know referees

shouldn't be in the hockey hall of fame. That was his his life with officials and and it'd be interesting to see the future of the NHL with the more anonymous four referees four official system if anybody ever gets in again. Well the whole idea is a ref does a good job if you don't notice them completely and now I think that was Pat's point. But again, back, back in that era, you know, you watched a game or you approached a game and you knew that it would be officiated differently based on whomever whomever the official was and sometimes, you know, so maybe I think it's a much better thing.

I give Gary Batman credit, but a lot of people don't give Gary Battman a lot of credit for anything, but I believe he was the one that was really pushed for the fourth official based on all the problems they had in the NBA and what the extra official solved. So brother Bill, so brother, brother Bill is a different guy. Okay. That's Neil Morrison. He was on CF and why forever. He comes on this show all the time, but brother Bob, which I'm just going to call you Bob, but we just need to let people know who aren't aware. Like I can't imagine there's many listeners right now who know Bob Stelick is not like that. They don't know that Bob Stelick is Gord Stelick's brother, but like just to establish

the fact, are you the younger brother or older brother of Gord Stelick? Yes. I'm the younger, taller, better looking brother of Gord Stelick. Yeah, so I mean, our background is that we, we, um, Gord had a really interesting stat, like in the bizarre stats of Maybelline Gardens World was the only person that Harold Ballard hired, the people that Harold Ballard hired in the last decade of his life with me and Gord. Wow. And it's because he, before that it was punch him lack

and that turned into a disaster. And Mr. Ballard, you know, people didn't turn over at the gardens, Jerry McNamara came and he was already- They had to die, right? They had to die. That's how I got my job. Stan Bodiak. Stan Bodiak died and I got his job.

That's right. And Harold Ballard called me and Gord's line was, you know, Harold Ballard, you know, he went to UCC. He was a connected guy in Toronto. He knew everybody and yet he picked the TV repairman's two kids as his go-tos. And I remember years later, Harold Jr. said to me once that the reason I got the job was I look like him.

And I don't think Harold thought that fondly about his kids. But I remember the one story was that Harold Jr. wanted to stand a Bodiac's PR job and Harold Ballard filled it more quickly with a stellar so I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. And it's worth noting a fun fact is that when you were taking over for Stan Bodeak because he died, shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, that you were offered more money than your brother, right? Yeah it was it's that classic I mean you know in all walks of life people are valued more outside than

the air or inside the organization. And the story that I got from the old timers around, like not old timers, let's say, well, let's say, but the experienced veterans from the gardens was Mr. Ballard was incredibly cheap, right? That was his public perception. But yet when he was the vice president of marketing, he was a big spender. He was a pal, how everyone's the vice president of marketing, he was a big spender, he was a pal-hal, everyone's best friend type of idea.

And when he took over, again, wildly under-financed, most of them, he joked that the building was owned by TD, WHA comes in, but he emulated Kahn Smythe. That's the old time boss, and Kahn Smythe was a miserable guy by all accounts. So Harold Ballard, the new persona was, I'm gonna be Harold Ballard, kinda like a new model of Kahn Smythe was a miserable guy by all accounts. So Harold Ballard, the new persona was I'm going to be Harold Ballard, kind of like a new model of Con Smythe. So he reimagined himself along that along those lines. And the story of me getting hired is

very much that I worked for Jim Gregory at the National Hockey League. I got a call from Mr. Ballard. The draft was in Toronto. Again, Mr. Ballard being the prick that he was at the time told the NHL they wouldn't let him have the draft at the gardens, you know, so they had to have it at the convention center. It also, the gardens had no air conditioning, so it would have been a hot day anyway, but that was her own. They could just charge extra for the drinks. Yeah, that's a made up story too. But the, uh, with the Beatles story. Yeah, yeah. Is that fiction?

You're here to dispel the myths, because I've always heard story. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You're here to dispel the myth because I've always heard that. Yeah, yeah. So the the the beetle story will segue back to the other story was that the true part I believe is that beetles apparently their set was thirty seven minutes long, right? So people lined up in front of this garden. They had to board up all the shops on the whole street to buy tickets and then Harold Ballard in his own way thought, why wouldn't we do two shows that day? You know, the Beatles, you know, they're not, you know, we can clean those building out that. And apparently he neglected to tell Brian Epstein that he was doing that. So Brian Epstein, I guess, showed up, had a

tantrum. And then Harold Ballard pulled the check out and said, you know, you tell the people they can't come in, by by the way here's your check for X number of dollars for a second show so Brian but the story was that he turned off the water fountains of Maple Leaf Garden and only sold large drinks so anyone who's ever been to Maple Leaf Gardens knows there are no water fountains in Maple Leaf Gardens right and the drinks back in that era were one size with one ice cube in them and fleece of a Saran wrap on top. That was a pretty unsophisticated for sure. So that was

here. Look, already, I'm glad we it took a long time. I don't know why it took 1440 episodes, 1439 better people. And you know, I don't know that you saying that not me, but gourd, for example, your brother Gore has been over several times, like often with Damian Cox, but on his own, he's been over as well. So I feel like this was a long time coming and I'm glad you're here. So before we get back to, you know, you, you showing up at Maple Leaf Gardens, your title director of business operations and communications and the director of public relations

for the Toronto Maple Leafs, like we got a lot of ground to cover, but I need to ask you about cycling the beaches of Normandy. Did you do this? Yes, absolutely. That was a, um, my, um, as a, my wife and I, as our kids have grown up, we, in order to keep connected, we, we ski cycle and my wife likes to scuba dive. So I do that underwater fish washing with her on occasion, but so we do cycle tourism. So yeah, we did that two summers ago. I highly recommend it for anyone who does it. It's not really expensive. You just get your luggage moved day to day and you just cycle. You take the train out from Paris to Bayou and you start your way. It sounds amazing to me. So like how many clicks a day would you do?

You'd do about 60 kilometers a day, 60 to 70, depending on how the day was. And then you read the bikes are ready. And it's a very civilized way to see, rather than bombing around in a car or a tour bus. And no pun intended when you're at Normandy. The beaches of Normandy are bombing around. Well, and the beach is actually, you know, to me, the first, it's that classic example.

The first beach we got to was the British beach, which nobody goes to, sword, and we were there on our bikes, there's a group of six of us, and the pillboxes looked perfect from World War II. They had some guns there, and you went, wow, this is the worst one, it's gonna be really awesome. But most of the other ones were a bit more commercialized.

I mean, the Canadian is quite well done. And the American one's spectacular. But again, they're much they're really busy and much and much different to by way Michael Treco says great guest can't wait to listen to Bob Stelick on Toronto Mike. Yeah. The days of wine and roses and taking care of the Toronto media were certainly fun and games at times. Well, we're gonna get into it. So So Michael, he's an FOTM.

You're now an FOTM, Bob. So now I've collected two stalics here. Where do I want to go from here? I want to just give you a couple of gifts because you made the trek and then I'm going to just listen to your great stories here. But what will I give you? Do you enjoy Italian food? I absolutely do.

Okay. You're taking home with you a large lasagna from Palma Pasta. Well, thank you very very much That's a that's a bonus for making the trectis. Did you know you were getting that? No, okay That's a surprise for you. Okay, so it's delicious First of all and you'll thank me later and I got to thank Palma Pasta right now because they sent that over and said Get it's in my freezer upstairs. You'll take it before you leave and they said get this to Bob's Delic So thank you palma pasta Delicious italian food in mississauga and oakville. Yeah, I'm actually a huge fan of palma pasta

There's one on Aaron Mills parkway not that far from my where I live and monday's is lasagna day at palma pasta 20 bucks You know your stuff. I know my palma pasta You know, you're getting getting a free one here today You know, you're getting a free one here today. And I will tell the listenership and you Bob know that TMLX15 is going to take place at Great Lakes Brewery in Southern Etobicoke here. And your first beer is on the house. It's delicious fresh craft beer from Great Lakes. You're taking home some beer with you Bob.

First. But the, that's an IPA that I just love. And Palma Pasta will feed everybody who shows up for free will feed everyone who comes out to TML X 15 and it's on June 27 2024 at 6 p.m. So six to nine p.m. So Bob the whole family man June 27th what day of the week is that Thursday Thursday that's a that's a good past a beer night it's like Friday, June. You're OK. They're like, Mike, we're too busy on Friday. Do Thursday. So it is June twenty seven. Everybody is invited and quickly just because I have one more gift there.

There's a measuring tape for you, Bob, from Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of this community. In fact, at five o'clock today, you'll be gone. But Brad Jones from Ridley Funeral Home will drop by and will record a new episode of his podcast, Life's Undertaking. So measure what you want. I'm Bob episode of his podcast, Life's Undertaking. So measure what you would. Oh, that's a pun. Listen, he's a clever title writer there here. So, so Gord gets into MLG first. Like, is

there any chance that you were called when, you know, Stan Bodiak died because Gord put a good word for you with Harold Ballard and said my brother can do this? No, it was very strange because I was working for, Gord and I both worked part time at the gardens. We worked part time for Jim Gregory and NHL Central Scouting. Gord got hired full time by Punchy and Lock. I was going to school, just finished, I was working, I worked at Dow Chemical for a little while then Jim hired me and I was learning, I was

scouting and running the office basically for Jim and learning the hockey business. So that I was on that sort of stream and Gord sort of called me out of the blue and said, by the way, Mr. Ballard mentioned your name today. And I went really well about what? And he said, well, he'd be interested if you thought you might want to take Stan's job. I said, really, would he offer me the job? And they go, I think he might. And so I went, I love Jim Gregory, who's absolutely like a second dad for Gordon and I. And I, but I went to talk to John McCauley. We shared offices in Toronto.

It was a small Toronto office at that time. There was officiating and central scouting out by the airport. Uh, you might see it if you go by, uh, the, uh, 401, it's called the small, the Mantella building and it was John McCauley was the referee in chief working with Scotty Morrison, not the Scotty Media Morrison, the old different Scotty. And I went to John down the hall and I just said, what do you think? And he goes, you can't turn down a job from the Leafs.

They come down up so rarely to say the least, right? So I ended up getting hired on draft day when they picked Wendell and that very day the very day I was because I was there working for such window right here I'm pointing to say the last name everyone knows Wendell right and so I got called over by Gord after this first round Wendell was sitting at the table Gord said mr. Ballard wants to talk you know and I was there at part of central scouting and so then Harold Negotiated my deal in front of Wendell

So I'm sure Wendell wondered what he was getting into and Gord of course had told me to lie about my salary Exaggerate because he cut it back. Okay, so let's get the specifics. What were you making before you you know lied to Harold? I was I mean again, this was 1984 and 1984 and 8485 was a and I was making like 23,000 so $23,000 a year at Central Scotty, which was you know, it was fine and then I went to and sold mr. Ballot. I was making 28 five and Then he said well pay you 27. Okay, Wendell said Witnessing this and then I said I get a company car and I didn't really I got mileage But I drove get a company car, and I didn't really, I got mileage, but I drove all over the place, but I didn't have a car.

And so he said, well, I'll give you a company car then, because Gord had one. And he said, I said, what about benefits? He goes, oh, whatever your brother has. So Gord was making $20,000 at that time. So the next day they had to give Gord a raise to 30. So you could make more than- So Gord benefited, that's a 50%,

look at the math skills I have. Yeah, you're ciphering like Jethro Bodine here. But yeah, no, so you could benefit if that's a 50%? Look at the math skills. I have you, you, you're ciphering like Jethro Bodine here, but, uh, but yeah, no. So, I mean, no one went to the gardens for the wealth and, uh, you went for the, uh, the interest in the passion. That's for sure. When you get to work for the Toronto Maple Leafs, uh, you're lucky. Harold didn't charge you money to work there. That would be the next step.

That might've been under the cons. My, I think that was very much the, the privilege. It was very much of that. You know, if you're not here I can get somebody else to work for. They're both buried in the same cemetery. Do you know this? The one in Etobicoke there park lawn. Yeah, I didn't know. I bike there a lot. And, uh, one time I think it was, I know now I know, I asked a FOTM Jeff Merrick,

where will I find a Harold Ballard's grave? Because it's kind of just, of discreet. Like it's not a standing up stone. It's on the ground. You got to know where it is to find it. And Jeff literally like explained, okay, go to this corner, like about this many feet, whatever. And I found it. And then I'm just spiking around. I saw Jeff Healy's in there. Wow. Which is well, and Con Smythe is in there, like at Park Lawn Cemetery here in South Etobicoke. Well, I guess there are, I mean, Harold wasn wasn't a Tobaco guy, sort of, right? He he's all over the St. Joe's Health Center in Parkdale.

There's a Harold E. Ballard wingers. Yeah. Well, it was more. So the story I think is his house on Montgomery Road right by it was right beside Humberview Chevilles, and I think it was given to him by his parents when he got married Montgomery in you're like Montgomery Inn? Yeah, it was up there. It was just like Dundas and Islington?

Yeah, just east of Islington. And so when he moved after his wife died and everyone said he became much harder after his wife died, harsher I guess, and his son Billy took over. So Billy, it's like the, you know, moving on up to Jefferson's, his son Bill Ballard, who became very wealthy through concert productions international and other

adventures he He lived in the house and and that's part of the reason that arrow went to jail was the work that was done on the house by gardens people and They kept it till he died. I think and and when I was part of his estate because Harold was living at Maple Leaf Gardens, right? Yeah, let's see. I think that's a big part of his estate because Harold was living at Maple Leaf Gardens, right? Yeah, let's see I think that's a big part of his The myth that ever not the myth but the part that everyone loves It's like remember the movie big with Tom Hanks course where you get you know, a kid gets to be an adult Well, his is the reverse his is an adult getting to live a kid's lifestyle

so you pick I don't care what kind of favorite sport you have or You know whether it's or a pastime, but you pick your favorite thing. Can you imagine, you love the New York Yankees growing up, you somehow end up tricking the family that owns it into letting you own it. And not only you own it, but you, you live in the stadium where the Yankees play. So literally, every minute your, your commute to work is nowhere. You order food up from the hot stove lounge for your meals.

And you're living the 12 year old kid's dream. That's why I think everyone loved that. And you know I'm gonna ask you for Harold Ballard stories for the next several hours here, Bob. Which typically I've done it with your brother, but it was a great, I had questions about this living space in Maple Leaf gardens, Ken Daniels, Ken Daniels was invited in and he would, he's kind of broken it down for me. So I'm going to need lots of stories,

but here's a little quick how things tie together. Okay. So you reference big, which started Tom Hanks, right? Right. Yeah. Tom Hanks. Uh, first time many of us saw Tom Hanks was he was starring in bosom buddies of his buddy, Peter Scolari. The theme song for bosom buddies was Billy Joel's my life. I don't care what they say anymore. This is right. Okay. The opening stanza or whatever verse of, uh, my life by Billy Joel references Richard Lewis. Wow. We just passed away. Yeah, yesterday, right? Well, I learned about it yesterday. I think, yeah, it was either yesterday or the day before, but yeah, we learned about it yesterday. But Richard Lewis, who I watched in episode three of Curb

Your Enthusiasm on Monday night. Is that the episode where he wants to leave money? 100% yeah. Yeah. And so just, just to tie all the little parts together here. Okay, so you're making 70 $27,000 a year you get a car You know you helped your brother get a raise because you were making a lot more money than he was selfless as me That's right. Good for you. Now. I'm gonna read a quick note from FOTM Mike Hanifin Mike Hanifin writes in yay Bob was such a great guy in such a bizarre position. Media relations for the Harold Ballard Leafs.

Bob's sense of humor was appreciated by reporters, me included. Or maybe that was how he survived with his sanity intact. So I'm going to lean back and listen, but you're going to tell me what is it like having that gig working for Harold Ballard? Well, I mean, yeah, thanks Mike. I'll go for a bike ride. I'll be back in about 90 minutes. Just go.

But the one, I mean, when we talk about with the media, I always felt that my job was advocating for the media was to try to push where I think most media relations jobs now to be successful is really keeping the media on the outskirts and whatever. And, um, you know, probably the low point of my media day was, uh, you know, the, it's the, and Mike might've been there that night was the night of the famous charge of the dressing room. Right. And that there's a Ken Daniels part of that later on as well. But the part with Mr. Ballard is that John Ziegler, the announced women are allowed in the dressing room.

And again, the dressing rooms are 20% the size of what a major league hockey dressing room is now. The guys are naked. They cannot, they walk from the shower with their little white towels. They change in a cloak room that's really like a cloakroom and and You know there there have been issues going back to Jim Gregory about that. He'd been fighting that so now they decide separate

Separate cannot be equal. It's the Brown versus the Board of Education so Harold Ballard locks all the media out of the dressing room and so we have a standoff and then one night the Media decided to do the charge of the light brigade. So my job at that point was trying to bring people out just like they do now except there's no table. So you say you want to talk to Boria Sauming. I go in the room, hey Boria come out blah blah blah. Whereas now it's exactly the way every sports thing does it now, right? Except they have a nice table and it's all pretty. So while I'm going in to get someone there, Bill Houston I think was the ringleader and they

and they all just flood into the dress room. And I think and how that how do I get them out? Like, what am I going to do here? And the players are looking around going, what do we do? And of course, bad night again, Harold Ballard shows up. He doesn't normally go in the dress room after every game. He starts screaming at Guy Kenear, you know, get these guys out of here guy and guy goes, near, you know, get these guys out of here guy and guy goes, it's, um, you know, it's not me. It's Stelick. It's Bob. It's I didn't bring him in.

And so at that point I'm, you know, I'm 25 years old, 26, I'm Ashen, I think. And the player, the media kindly at least leave after Bill Houston and Harold getting a bit of a squabble. And Ken Reagan, who just played an NHL game, You wonder why we can't win turns to me and goes, Bob, if you get fired, we'll go on strike or something to help you out. But you know, like how are you winning when you're doing your goalies more worried about saving the young PR guys?

That's a good point. Like how times have changed. Oh yes. And then of course the follow-up is that that's Ken Daniels, one I think that was in the Ballard documentary where Ken, you know, can the next day Ken Daniels comes down and, you know, and Harold's going to the dressing room again, so much access to ownership, right, that

you never get now. And he can't get the key in the door. And Ken Daniels makes some kind of comment. And then Harold, of course, makes some graphic phallic comment about. I have the clip because Ken before that before there was any Harold Ballard document. It's Jason Priestley who put together

this Harold Ballard. He directed it. I think he FOTM Jason Priestley part of me, but I in fact then he went on and played you in. He was in the Borea Jerry Mac. He played your Mac. Yeah, isn't that wild? Okay, so I'm going to play the clip. So prior to all these docs and everything, Ken Daniels, good friend of the show, he's he's a very good friend of the show, actually, and he's like, hey, Mike, I have some clips you might be interested in. So let's listen to this.

The only thing I can say is that they're a gutless bunch of fools. They come in there, get players half-dressed, want to bring a broad in, that's the worst thing. If the broad comes in naked, I'm going to tell you, it takes you a lot longer to get out than it does to get in, and I told her those are the conditions. Take your clothes off and go on in, because we got guys there with cocks as long as your arm. We got to do some bleeding to your guy. Can't use that, Harold.

Why? What's the matter with it? I'm telling the truth. Maybe it'll give them a little more ass somewhere. Wow. Yeah, I guess you go uncle after that one, right? Like what do you even, you just throw up your arms. Like what are you gonna do, right? Yeah, and we just always joke that

Gordon and I would joke to help to keep us sane was you know, you can say something, you know, regular and end up on page 82, you can be, say something crazy and be on the front page. And, you know, and the funny part was too, like one of his other claims to fame was the barber from one, right? And, and, but the story, again, the background is,

you know, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story was, Dick Beddowes was a friend of Harold Ballard's, right? Bigly, yeah, he wrote Our Pal Hell. Yeah, and so Dick Beddowes calls Harold and says, good friend Harold, I've got a radio show tonight at six o'clock, you wanna be on it? And Harold, I'll call, okay, I'll be on, Dick. Call me at six o'clock or whatever so Dick Betos calls him they start chatting

Harold unbeknownst to mr. Ballot he has no idea it's actually Barbara from show and then Dick and him are talking and then Barbara from jumps in and then Harold I mean dick did not you know dick sandbag Harold because he didn't tell him was the Barbara from show because Harold would never come on. Then Harold tells Barbara to shut up. I'm talking to Dick and he goes, it's my show. And that of course, women are only good for blah, blah, blah. But and there was the Adrian Clarkson interview that was on, I think, the national or something. Again, he cooperated with this stuff. Like when you watch that, like he was like one of those W five shows up that's up that CBC. But the yeah, it's a it's mind boggling.

It's a journal maybe. It's a journal. Yeah, it was a journal, I think. Right. But in the flip side was, I remember there was a Canadian, Toronto based women's club and it was going bankrupt. And so Harold Ballard got the idea. So I don't know, he calls someone and says, you know, I'm gonna buy this and turn it into a playboy bunny club

Anyway, he and then he goes I'm gonna put the trampoline on the pool and he's just pulling and he People write this and it saves the club the women rally behind the club So their hatred of Harold Ballard or his misogyny or whatever it was, right? You know, which some of it was certainly just him being ridiculous. Well, here's the FSO. There was these urban legends in the schoolyards growing up, right? And then one of them was that Harold Ballard wouldn't anonymously like donate lots of money to good causes.

Like there'd be this like, yeah, you know, Harold Ballard might seem like a cheap skate and an asshole, but, you know, privately he's doing this, that and the other. Like, can you tell us now, was he a generous guy when it wasn't being publicized? Yeah, I mean, I think it was a different era. It wasn't about being upfront, but again, look at Maple Leaf Gardens. The public school hockey championships

every year at Maple Leaf Gardens, the separate school hockey championships every year, that was free. And I run into people all the time now, they're bumping, I played in the gardens, at Maple Leaf Gardens. The separate school hockey championships every year. That was free. And I run into people all the time now that they're bumping. I played in the gardens. I mean, that's kind of stuff never happens now. I mean, at Christmas, he would get a huge amount of money from the cash for the vault, which was a big safe down there. And he would put it in piles. I mean, he tried to take the building back from his children to give to charity and as you mentioned earlier There are some places like there's a harold ballard garden at the new bridge point

The top floor is all given by his estate. You know, I mean St. Joe's so yeah I've spent some I had a couple of kids born there and I had some stuff going on at st Joe's health center and there's like I think in the maternity ward or something, there's a Harold E. Ballard wing. Yeah. And that was the sort of his idea was that he wanted more to go to charity, but again, he had the double edge sort of fighting with his own children and fighting with everybody else. But yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean he was,

he was certainly generous, but not to a fault, but certainly generous to, um, you know, I mean, Gordon, I've talked about just the, you know, the, the his his love of Boria, you know and yeah, you know when he you know when you know his the fight with with Darrell Sittler over money was really Punch him lack fighting with Darrell Sittler, you know punch him lack coming in as an an old you know a guy that was his well past his best before date and You know and just deciding I could recreate the sixties again and terrible mistake, right? And, you know, coming after a guy like Jim Gregory,

who was so forward thinking. But yeah, I mean, you know, so, I mean, guys like Boria, I mean, Boria in the early, you know, in the, in the late seventies, early eighties, Boria was making $350,000 a year. I mean, Boria holidayed with Harold Ballard. Like they would go to the Caimans at the end of the season or on the, like, you know, I mean, you know, Boria could do no wrong. I mean, the players every Christmas got a trip for two on an air, anywhere in the world on an airline.

That was a Christmas gift. I mean, every players that came from other ones went, holy geez. And Gordon used to always you know I used to joke that we were always first class in all the wrong reasons like you know There was a carpenter at the gardens and his wife was quite ill and Harold centers to the Mayo Clinic You know, so if you're healthy, maybe you weren't doing so well, but I mean they were he had funny things like that So and again, he was from a very different era and he didn't have a I say the biggest mistake is he didn't have a son Or a daughter that he could turn it over to and he could become the CEO emeritus or something, right?

Like, you know McGill at Chad or a lot of those other guys had but he did have TC puck Yeah, he did have to he said Rick vibes been on the program and you know He loves to tell the story this story tells the story on Toronto, Mike and elsewhere about TC puck, uh, freezing his balls off on the, uh, the maple leaf gardens ice during the, uh, the photo. Yeah. I mean, the photo did not matter how good anyone else looked in the photo is really how good Harold and his dog looked. And, uh,

that was the greatest contribution Yolanda had to the maple leaf gardens as she came up with the idea of putting a towel under the unneutered testicles of, of park. I'm going to ask you about Yolanda. Okay. So Yolanda, she's still with us. No, she passed a number of years ago, but a number of years ago. Yeah. She got the rumor was she got $5 million and a pair of golds from Steve Stavro to keep quiet. And she did. Like again, a loyal crook, right? Yeah, always such a mysterious, mysterious figures like in Toronto history, like, okay, so yeah,

2020 she died. So yeah, four years ago now at the age of 87. Okay. I guess I, I guess I knew it and then I forgot I knew it. And I'm like, is she still like in Florida or something? Well, she, but the reason you would have like, is she still like in Florida or something? Well, but the reason you would have forgot it is she was no, she was quiet. But any. For a long time, yeah. But she believed that, see, she was fighting

for the building people fought. And I don't think she really was fighting for the building. She was fighting to get some money. And so she battled with Bill Ballard and she believed that coincidentally at the time that Mr. Ballard passed away, was passing away and they were fighting over the things, Puck got sick and died and she believed that Bill poisoned him.

And so the rumor was that she gave Puck mouth to mouth to try to keep him going. Couldn't keep him going, put him in a freezer or something and then took him to Guelph to have an autopsy, the veterinary college in Guelph. Yeah, that's where you go. And the veterinary people didn't really want anything to do with their. So to say she was paranoid about Bill Ballard would be an understatement, but Bill Ballard was paranoid about her too. Like they were, it was again, a cutthroat fight that there's a great line that someone says, if a regular person passes away

and their siblings or relatives or other people get, for $5,000, who cares, for five million, I'll kill you. And this, we're talking a lot more than five million here. And so they would kill each other for that. But it was Yolanda that had the idea to save TC Puck's balls, basically. She did. Pardon my French. She genders, yeah, save TC Pucks balls. She did she pardon my friend. She genders

Yeah, like so I mean a little fabric between the ice and the scrotum That's right and and Puck again, you know multi multi millionaire when they want when there was a guy named Tommy And he was his name was Tommy the dog walker That was his nickname because he walked Puck and he would walk Puck with a rope, not a leash, but a rope that looked like you could tie the Queen Mary up in downtown Toronto. And you'd see him out meandering with Puck. But I mean, again, now, I mean, John Stewart

was on a few nights ago sobbing about his dog. You know, all the dogs they brought to work. Harold was the first guy, bring your dog to work day. It was every day. Ahead of the curve. But you know, you know, you say, you know, like a sociopathic dictators, murderous genocide maniacs love their dogs, right? Like I'm thinking of the, the Adolf Hitler, for example, the great dog,

German shepherd, whatever. But I mean, again, quirky things that I never knew about Mr. Ballard while he was alive that I wish that like, to me, the quirkiest Harold Ballard thing is that Someone sent me this and if you can find on the internet now is in Samarit's Olympics Harold Ballard carries the flag for the Canadian team and Which Olympics like 1918 Samarit's or 1931 wouldn't be 18 because I wanted a war but if you Google early Samarit's and He you know his family was in scape blade selling the Ballard rocket blade or something. And he was a supplier. It would be like CCM carrying the end, but that's,

I was saying that's his power of persuasion and salesmanship. Right. And we're still talking about him, right? Like here we are in 2024 and I'm still, cause I was a young teenager when Harold Ballard dies and I'm still interested in the stories. Cause I grew up, you mentioned you got the job when Wendell Clark was drafted like that's that's heyday leaf love for me man like we got Wendell and Wendell to jump around a bit Wendell's drafted as a defenseman right I know you weren't yeah you were literally hired that day why no I scouted him in Saskatoon so he was he was but so he was drafted as a defenseman. He was a roving defenseman in Western Canada and

they always felt they would convert him to a forward. Kind of like Dave Steebe coming to the Blue Jays as an outfielder. Yeah exactly. I mean Wendell has a great line I mean when you talk and this is a line that anyone who has kids or grandkids playing hockey should know Wendell's line is when your kids starting out, have them play defense. They're always going to be able to learn to turn and get the puck, no matter how bad the coach is. If you put your kid on left wing in house league, they may not touch the puck the whole season. The defense has got to go back there and fetch it. Right. That's a great pro tip. One of the great Wend of many of Wendell's great tips.

And again, Harold loved Wendell too. I mean, Wendell, when Wendell's back was hurt, when Harold was sick in Florida, Wendell and I flew to Florida to cheer him up. You know, that was what the people thought that he needed to see some people he liked. And you know, so Wendell's parents came in and they were down in Florida

and they spent time with Harold. But less than all McCl um, Harold loved them and, uh, took care of them. He took care of Russ Courtney's mother all the time, Florida, Toronto all the time, you know, and all these little quirky things that he did again that like you said, nobody knows about cause he did so many other stupid things that were on a macro. Speaking of stupid things and speaking of Russ Courtney, but I'm bum, here we go.

Gord's trade. Yeah. Just maybe a moment on Gord's trade here. So I know there are listeners. I'm thinking a man, Fred from Elephants and Stars, who stand by that trade and think it was a good trade for the leaves and Dan Close Brown used to have this argument with me way back in the day before he was doing anything for the athletic or sports net or anything. But John Kordic for Russ Cortenal was kind of one of the famous trades. And well, you know, John had his substance abuse issues, etc., etc., which is tragic. We weren't as sensitive back then to them as we are today.

But Russ Cortenal, that trade, I mean, Gord, I've asked him about it a million times. But from your perspective, what are your thoughts as this is going down? Well, the, I mean, the big issue at that time was, was really the feeling from the coach, John Brophy, that we lacked toughness and he hated Russell. Gord and I loved Russ Cortnell. Russ Cortnell was one of our favorite guys and players and Russ wasn't playing great. The team was playing really well at that time. I think Russ was like fourth liner. Brof kept, you know, he was dying. I mean he went through the East. I remember him one time going on on muttering and we all love John Brofie too but he was another guy from a

different era. Look, Hebsy's told me stories. Yeah but he's in the dressing room going I need some ink, I need some ink, some ink and I go Brof what do you mean? You know some more media coverage like you need more media. No, no some ankle I need some ankle You know and that was another disaster like so that was it He had this long line of recreating slap shot at the gardens And so he put a huge pressure on through mr. Ballard, you know, cuz he I mean not in a horrible way But they they did that John Kordak

You know, because he I mean not in a horrible way, but they they did that John Kordak Lovely guy first day. He shows up in the dressing room either. He's got a bad cold you know or whatever and he was sniffing away and again a really funny guy, but just just so troubled and you've heard about his childhood when he would tell you stories and Just it was it was bad I mean and that era of when we look back of toughness that we thought everybody had to have when you look back it's pretty barbaric sometimes right? Without a doubt yeah without a

doubt and a tragic story and you know speaking of going too soon John Kordak died far too soon and just tragic all around but I you know I think your brother still taking rib shots. Oh Well, and Russell never went on to win anything. He's not in the hall of fame. Like it's not like I'm here. Cliff Fletcher, slang, you know, I traded guys that are in the hall of fame now that on bad trades and people, but Russell was such a beloved guy in Toronto too. Right. I think it was the Hound line. I feel like that was a big moment for one of these first youngsters. Uh, you know, we were singing the song,

ain't nothing but the Hound line, Wendell that was a big moment for one of these first youngsters. You know, we were singing the song, Ain't Nothing But the Hound Line, Wendell, Russ, and Gary. Like that was... Yeah, we had Hound Line, Gordon also, before he ran the team briefly, he ran New Market Saints, our farm team. So in order to get attendance, we did Hound Line night. And it was Russ, you know, the three Gary Lehman, Russ, and Wendell. Wendell, Russ, and Gary.

Yeah. Came up there to sign autographs. So many people showed up and started pushing down the hall that they had to jump On the tables because they were getting crushed like that was the power of the hound line and they're just you know You know at that time as you know, we're dead I mean the reason we got Wendell Clark is because of how badly we yeah like there was no Lottery at play or whatever. We just finished last right? Well, we in fairness to Wendell again too because Wendell we all love and there's a there's a statue of him, but we finished last one year too late. I know. I was Mary LeMieux.

Right. I've always, I always wondered what could have been. Yeah. So that think of the Delta between a Mary LeMieux and a Wendell Clark and Wendell was had injury problems around the get go. He gave you all they had, but yeah, but when, yeah, it's a generational player. No one's had a conversation where they thought Wendell Clark should be in the Hall of Fame. Like this has never happened unless maybe a storm in Norman room. Hammer. Hail Lord. I got that story. Hey, I'm going to bring it up later.

Maybe I'll bring it up right now and then I'll come back. I like to jump around a little bit. But James wrote in James Edgar. How you doing, buddy? I hope to see you on June 27 at TMLX 15. You can bike in from Beaverton there. James writes in, I really enjoyed hearing Bob on the fan over the years, whether as a guest or you think he's confusing you of Gordon. You never had a regular gig at the fan, did you? No, I didn't have a regular gig. He might be confusing

you of Gordon, but you were on the fan. Well, Gordon was a regular, regular guy. Okay. So, okay. So yes, of course. Of course he was with he was in his career okay so of course like listen do you know where you are bob come on we know this uh he just says uh i i have a feeling he's confusing you of gore to be on as i reread this because he says he misses you on the fan etc etc but this is just my opportunity to say okay we're recording right now 1440, but 10 episodes ago, I dropped episode 1430 and we got the origin story. This was just like an homage. Like a, we revisited the launch of all sports radio, the fan 1430 and I had guys on Allen Davis was on this. Yeah. I heard that. I heard it was a great show. Yeah. Good. And we got a story cause Tim Haffey was on the show and he gave

us the origin story for storm and Norman Rumeck's Hammerhead Alert. Hammerhead Alert. So this is a long roundabout way to say Wendell Clark's biggest fan Storm and Norman got that Hammerhead Alert inspiration from Tim Haffey and that story was told in episode 1430. Really? I mean Gordon and Damien when they had the afternoons their shtick was lunch bag let down. Right. And it was trivia as Gord could remember it, I think at the time. The internet was probably a bit lighter than at that time. And I remember you talk about talk radio and the same format about this with podcasts. Gord, I remember when Gord had the afternoon gig, women would come up to me and say they

listened and they weren't necessarily sports fans. And I'd say, why are you listening? Well I was on mat leave and Gord's show is so light on, I just enjoyed listening to them talk and it's funny how that sort of- And Barb DiGiulio had a role in that show too. Yeah Barb for sure. I feel like she too would bring in, you know, they sort of like life's more than just sports. Yeah, yeah. And again, like to Gord's point, everybody can argue the X's and O's and the P's and Q's or whatever.

But the average person just wants to listen, enjoy themselves, talk about sport and whatever. Let's not take it too seriously. You preach it to the choir. Part of the reason I say now that we're so heavily into like, I guess sports betting is partly to blame

all the time. But now we're so heavily into like the analytics and and you know, betting and all this stuff that they've taken a lot of the fun out of sports. Like I like the hound line. I like, you know, I liked Wendell, uh, all heart there delivering a check and a guy like twice his weight or whatever. And just, I, I, I just missed the fun of sport and I don't need the, the deep dive into the, uh, dive into the analytics for sports betting purposes. Yeah, I think we've coerced ourselves to death almost or whatever. Yeah, I mean, but you're right.

I think, you know, we always say that, you know, you know, a part of my business is in marketing is packaged goods, working with packaged good people, but sports are passion goods. And that's, and that's what makes the, you know, the game is that, you know, when we were at the gardens and we were fighting the historical designation with the city, and our argument there was it's our only business, so you're handcuffing us. And this was the mid-80s. And my point was that Maple Leaf Gardens was that Maple Leaf Gardens is a place that, like it's a cathedral to anything. The city, outside of churches in Toronto, if you went to the Globetrotters, you went to the circus,

you went to, even church rallies used to be there. I mean, Harold Ballard loved the Jimmy Swaggarts of the world coming in, because he just thought these guys are the greatest con men of all time. And I remember there was a famous story again of Harold getting in a dispute with one of the guys,

maybe it was Jimmy Swaggart over Bible sales. Because Harold wasn't getting a cut. Wow. And Well they were cut from the same cloth. Yeah, well just A hustler. A hustler, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean that's exactly what it was. The world and when people say, well, how could you work for Harold wasn't the worst owner in our division. The St. Louis Blues had Harry Arnest. Harry Arnest made Harold Ballard look like Barack Obama some days. Right. And if you watch like the 30 on 30 on Steinbrenner, you look at that, right, that carnival, that you went, holy shit.

Like Harold didn't fire a manager nine times or whatever it was, right? That's really Martin, right? Yeah. Again, but I think that was part of the color of the era. Harold lived beyond when color should have been diminished, I guess. But look at the LA Kings, I mean we lose to them, you know, with Gretzky. I mean, their owner goes to jail for embezzlement and also stealing like Babe Ruth's rookie contract and stuff like that. I remember our lawyer at the time, Roseanne Rocky was talking about the great owner in

LA and saying, he said he was a Vietnam veteran. Bruce McNall. Yeah, Bruce was a Vietnam veteran and Purple Heart and all that stuff. I'm going, well, geez, I guess he's a Purple Heart because he was a pretty easy target. Like, I mean, he's a big guy.

He is a big guy. But he just made it all up. And he only got exposed later on by Forbes Magazine. Oh, wow. Because Forbes Magazine, back again, pre-internet, had the audacity to phone the Koch brothers who said these incredibly wealthy family in the US. K-O-C-H.

Yeah, and who said he traded silver with them. And they called them and the Forbes guy could actually get to them. They said, we have no clue who you're talking about. And then that kind of unwound and then jail. You know, now you're reminding me of course of that Argos purchase jail. You know, now you're reminding me, of course, of that, that Argos purchase by, you know, can John Candy, Wing Gretzky and Bruce

McNeil. What a time that was in Toronto sports. Well, a great on the field time, but they didn't pay any bills. You know, they not even Rockets salary rocket issue. We all got paid, but but, you know, they rented apartments and they never paid people. It was really the great one is involved in that. Well, I wasn't. I mean, that wasn't you guys. They allegedly I mean, no, no.

But Wayne, I wouldn't don't pin any of this on Wayne Wayne's, but just but Bruce had this persona of you could project it back then. And it was harder to find out the truth, I guess. Absolutely was harder to find out the truth back then. Absolutely. No, no Internet. Yes, exactly and no we just and maybe people were taken more naive, more trusting. I think we were more trust yeah con man were common. I mean, but yeah, it's like the monorail episode of the Simpson, right, right.

Yeah, I sold monorails to Brockville. Yes, Shelbyville and yeah it's it. That's very, very, very true. Very much like the Simpsons have covered everyone, including apparently Harold Ballard. I'm just crazy. But I loved it because it showed up in 89 and I'm about 15 years old. And I've loved it from the get go. But then now my oldest son, who's 22, he was a huge fan of it.

And kind of because I'd watch it with him on DVD. But I have an I have a seven-year-old who's turning eight, and now we have Disney Plus, and she streams Simpsons the way I dreamt about streaming. Somebody told me at 15 one day I could just stream 38 seasons of The Simpsons or whatever. But my seven-year-old, when I tuck her in for bed. She asks me for Simpsons trivia Like I'm just saying this show just these kids are being like These kids are watching the same shows we watch Watch back in the day. It's wild. Yeah, I mean, I guess if you're a true Simpson is a fish in auto Like you are is it what's the season that it sort of started to jump the shark?

Oh, so I can tell you cuz I was nine a season nine No, I jump in my opinion before that be so for that I was recording a VHS cassette every episode, even trying to take out the commercials, which now I wish that's all I had because I can get everything. But the commercials, like I was so short sighted, but I didn't see this coming a lot of bad boy commercials back then. But you know what?

What would you give me the commercials? Why was I spending effort to get rid of commercials when one day in the future, I can watch every minute of every episode except the Michael Jackson episode, because that's not on Disney. That's gone, but I have the DVD and a right in this room over here so I can watch it on DVD there. I didn't realize that that because Michael Jackson isn't canceled on the radio. They deemed, and I think rightly so when you dig into it,

but they felt Michael was using this episode to groom victims. And as you can imagine, the Simpsons, this is pre before Disney bought it. So we won't put Disney in here, but the Simpsons people just didn't want to be a part of this. So they pulled it from a streaming. They pulled it from syndication and now it's pulled from streaming as a Michael Jackson segue. A great show right now is the documentary on the making of the, we are the world. I've seen it. Yeah. And, and Lionel Richie talking about how weird Michael Jackson's a great show right now is the documentary on the making of the we are the world I've seen it

Yeah And and Lionel Richie talking about how weird Michael Jackson's house was and the snakes missing and the monkeys are kicking the shit out of Somebody what does Lionel done to his face? No judgments on my part But when you look at Lionel Richie in 1985 and then you look at him in 2024, yeah, it's wild He said he's he's younger. He does look younger. He looks better and younger. He's found the youth. What's going on? But I'm a Tears Are Not Enough man myself. So, you know, you got Neil, you got Joni. I just dropped an episode with Elphie Zappa Costa just yesterday. He was on that Tears Are Not Enough. Yeah. They were, you know, big local band, right? Well, Zappa Costa was a, he was a local guy, but he moved to Edmonton like 30 years ago.

Oh really? He's been in Edmonton ever since but yeah, he was I always rate guys that were almost like high school bands around Toronto Right now that'd be like Max Webster. Yeah, sure every year Max Webster There was April wine. April wine was a big one. The stampeters were a big one. That's how rush starts, right? Yeah, Gord said rush played woodbine junior high school when he was in grade eight, but I don't know I've known that that may or may not have happened. Gord remembers it, but I don't think they're probably very good because they would be about the same age. They were probably 14 at the time playing.

Wow. Would Triumph have done that? I don't think Triumph did. I don't remember Triumph. I never went to my school in North York. I'll ask FOTM Rick Emmett about that one for sure. I'm working on something. I can't announce it now, but I'm working on something with Rick and a professional baseball league in this.

Or he's a super baseball fan. Yeah. He was a, we talked about his slow pitch career. Okay. So I'm going to bring us back cause I got a note from Mike Ross. Do you know Mike? Yeah. He'd love to hear in Mike Ross and FOTM, but so is this gentleman I'm going to reference right now. Would love to hear any memories, stories of working with a young Jimmy Holmstrom. Bob and Gord gave Jimmy his start with the Toronto Maple Leafs. I've had Jimmy in the basement with Mike Ross. Please, what do you remember about hiring a young Jimmy Holmstrom? You and I guess it was Gord, you did the hiring. Yeah, it was, it was sort of, we had a Brian Larder was the guy before that. The gardens

lacked in sophistication in a sound system. That was one of the first things when I was able to get in there, we actually put in a new sound system so you could actually do something with it because we didn't even really qualify to have anthem singers properly. And you had the Beatles in there. Well they brought their own sound system and probably was 400 watts. Dr. Diane Sacks, who's a city counselor now but she's also a FOTM and she's a client of mine. Actually, she was at one of those Beatles shows.

I don't think anyone heard anything. No, no, I think there's a great stories about the hell they lacked wattage too. Right. Right. But yeah, so the, so they, the gardens entertainment consisted of the 48th Highlanders and opening night. You know, Ralph Frazier was on the organ and then Ralph sort of left, Brian Larder came in and it wasn't working and then it was trying out somebody else. And then Jimmy Holmstrom is the shortstop who takes a day off and then Jimmy just comes

in and plays shortstop for the next 40 years. Well, no, you're thinking of Wally Pipp Yeah, yeah, but just came out Lou Gehrig took a spot. Yeah. Yeah never got another time again Yeah, Wally Pipp and Jimmy was again super super keen super reliable very talented and and It's a great a great Hockey fan. He sort of be he he, he's worn the seat to this day, which is it is quite a long run. Well, you, you truly have to be a gentle loving person

for to get along with that many generations of MLC and MLG and, and everybody hates music. I remember people would complain about your playlist all the time. You remember being like across the street after a game at Gardoonies and the guy that came up every game was complaining. I said, you write out ten songs you want. We'll play them next game, so we played them next game. So like that's how you know. I don't know. What do you like? Yeah, just give us more van Halen jump. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean I that's a staple. Yeah, that's a staple. That's right. Yeah, they yeah and again the sophistication, the changes or whatever

it was. I mean, you know, it was something tell me if so now I have specific points. I didn't want to miss these points, but can you tell me I'm old enough to remember King Clancy in the bunker there with Harold Ballard and you'd go to a game I'd always be in the grays and there you'd see King Clancy and Harold Ballard. Like that was just in the bunker. But you know, some people are younger than me, but what can you tell us about King Clancy? Well, King was there the first couple of years that I was there. And he again, King had evolved by that point in time. So he was King, the pal house sidekick. And I,

you know, when King was younger, he had a lot more opinion. His son, Terry played on the team. That made it really tough. Imagine being coach John McClellan of the team and you're not giving Terry Clancy enough ice time. Right. You know that that was tough and we believe some of Harold's worst comments like I think a Hammer Strong six eggs in the corner were really Terry we're really King Clancy lines that Harold owned. You know it's like the Kramer from Seinfeld selling his lines to share the Peterman to Peterman and because Harold wasn't a funny guy. And so he took he took lines that cling, you know, cling was punching up these lines. Yeah.

Well, I remember if we played poorly, I always remember King would come in and say we played fat flatter last night then piss on a platter and his other good line that well more PG was I'm a big wheel I just don't turn. And so he was very humble and at that era and yeah and just a very very gentle guy. That was where we set up with Gar Joyce and his rookie Wendell's rookie year for MVP magazine. The King and the Kid was a big piece that Garrow early in his career. And it was sort of caught them really nicely. And that was not long after that King passed. But again, I remember his funeral was incredible because they said it was something like the

largest funeral in Toronto history because he was so beloved. The police all volunteered. So we literally had like 80, it seemed like 80 police motorcycles. And so when they went from the, um, from the service at St. Mike's or whatever, they did a lap around the building and the whole, all the employees stood outside and saluted and he lay in state at Maple Leaf Gardens. Like in, in Harold lay in state too. People came to see him Harold too. Like, but King had huge lineups. People would wait. It was like the David Beckham lineup thing. People would wait three hours to see King Clancy.

It was kind of a thing back then to pay respects, right? Which now- Again, we were bored, right? No internet. Exactly. No streaming. I'm just saying. Who can watch another episode of Leave It To Beaver

on CKVR? It's like, I'll go check out this dead guy. And before they closed the casket, Harold apparently put in a copy of the racing Form in his hand. Okay. There you go. Shout out to FOTM Peter Gross Always has the racing form in his hand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah, that's definitely Alright speak to shout out shadows. You dropped his name. There's I just I know he's listening in Kingston and he's a dear beloved Member of the TMU the Toronto Mike universe, but you mentioned gear, joy's

so care, joy's. What was he doing with the King Clancy there for MVP? It was as it was a feature and it was again, it was trying to get the two of them all coordinated because I mean, you know, Wendell Wendell, like a lot of guys wasn't always thrilled to do stuff and seeing and Gara was trying to get this big piece about just because King really liked the way he played. Like, I mean, this was, I mean, Con Smythe would have died in happiness over Wendell. Like, I mean, if you can't beat him in the alley. We all fell in love with the way he played. Yeah, if you can't beat him in the alley. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And we actually had a, yeah, you know, we had a, we actually felt Wendell could

have, should have won rookie of the year that year. And, you know, who we had a we actually felt Wendell could have should have won rookie of the year that year and You know who won it that year it was a guy from Montreal that didn't play like three years of Swede and was his name and Wendell had 37 goals in all or he only had 11 assists and he would hit a pretty bad I remember that number. Yeah, he only had like bet hated it his plus-minus wasn't great in our team either But we were sure that a terrible team that way Yeah, they it was payback for Harold, the media voted and they hated Harold right. But was it the year after what was the year where we we swept the the Blackhawks and three was a best of seven games

against the blue. Yeah, that was the C court sucks here and then we ended up getting out and that felt good like I don't know what it was. Maybe we were so loud because I missed all those decent years in the late seventies or what. I got completely missed. No, it was that the playoffs again, four to five teams made it in the good old Norris division. So you had a, but it's true. But the reason that was games were partly so special was again, tickets were cheap compared to today and subscribers didn't pick up their playoff tickets. So the golds were just full of real regular real fans paying not a huge amount of money brain sparklers and brooms and chanting at Al Secord.

So yeah, it was probably the you know, the end of the era of the authentic sports fan being able to afford to go into building. But good point, Bob. Good point. But that was that I mean, watching on television that, uh, that sweep there in three. Well, Bob McGill fought like, I mean, again, like every game there was, there were, there was that era where, I mean, we, we,

nothing against Ty Domi, but by the end of ties era, you, in my opinion, you could put the fights on an intermission. You just put a ring up and have a fight because, but then it changed games and go and Chicago Stadium had the smallest rink then in the Bruins. It was like, it was 10 feet shorter than a ring and they would try, you had to survive the first seven minutes of the game in Chicago. They've deafening the nat. He's talking about Jimmy Holmstrom. Their organ, you know, the organist, the organ was gigantic. They had this great anthem singer and they, and they just rocked. And I mean, Bobby Mc, Big Daddy Bobby McGill fought every

game to get to draws that made everybody braver. Cause you had to, you really had to be brave now, you know, nothing against Mitch Marner, but you don't have to be brave. You don't need a cement go anymore. No, no, or even, but, but those weren't just cement. Those were fights of, I don't like you. Right. Like those St Louis lights, you had like, you know, Danny Dow fighting getting his nose broken and Leith Douglas, our plastic surgeon fixing his nose

in the dressing room. It was like something out of a, not slapshot, but cause the rinks look like slapshot, but it was something over, you know, we had to stand as a team. It wasn't just one or two guys, you know, we didn't bring in the fourth line guy to, you know, and, and stand as a team. It wasn't just one or two guys You know, we didn't bring in the fourth line guy to you know And and back then guys did take hits without having to fight like now that's the most ridiculous thing in that is, you know that might you might be right nowadays you throw a clean hit and a Good clean hit and it's fighting time. I don't understand how the game changed in that regard Well, the most honor I think the greatest thing about the PWHL is how these women hit

each other and then just stand up and they skate and they go keep going. Like the most brilliant marketing of that show is or that league is they allow full contact even though they say they don't. No one even really knows, I think they're real, but give them credit. They wallop each other, they get up and then the NHL no one can wallop anybody anymore. It's not, they don't even forget headhunting. It's just a, you's just a decent check. Very interesting.

So shout out to Gare Joyce, if you're listening in Kingston. What was it like? So you're the spokesperson for the Toronto Maple Leafs when your brother Gord resigns as general manager. So you're the guy who has to announce that to the media. Yeah, so Gord had his own press conference and the Westbury Hotel, which is where we kept the players, they gave him a room for free. They of them, the people there. I mean, again, Gord, friend of the

Westbury. And Gord's line was, I thought public executions in Canada had been outlawed. That's a great line. Because that was really, Milt Dennell did a lynching of them. And, you know, Milt is a legendary sports guy, but again, sports guys had so much power back then, which they don't have now, right? But the next day I had to make a decision whether I was going to stay or not, because, you know, Gord's left, Mr. Ballard comes down.

Again, this was the flip side of Harold Ballard. I'm thinking he comes to my office, and he was getting his mail or something, and he looks down and you're looking at grandpa and you don't know where it's going to go. And I said, Mr. Ballard, because he was sad that Gord left. He really, really, really liked Gord and I think he regretted being such an asshole. But you weren't sure if he was going to double down on being double asshole or back off because

you had no feel. And this is uncharted turf. So I just said to him, you know, Mr. Ballard, if you have trouble with, with me working here after Gord has quit, I'll, I'll leave today. He went, no, no, no, absolutely not. I, you know, no, it just, and then he just walked, he walked away and it was never mentioned again. Like, yeah, like it was, it was kind of sad that way. Right. And that, you know, you took a, I mean, he never gave girl Gord any tools to succeed

payroll wise or quit He quit because he had no autonomy at all right like right there George He decided that George Armstrong was good I mean this even hurt George Armstrong who we all dearly loved to but George George and Gord had contact on cocked at a plan so Harold Ballard has decided that George Armstrong Was gonna be coach for the next year as well I remember we brought he was brought in and he didn't want to coach. He was kind of forced to coach.

And so Gord said to George, he gave him a three-year contract assistant GM, but the whole key was George had to go in and tell Harold that he wouldn't coach. So George went in to tell Harold that he wasn't going to coach and Harold wouldn't hear any of it. So George tried, but then it didn't work. So then Gord ended up quitting and George was really upset because, you know, now he had, cause Gord's point was if he fires you, George, you still got this three year contract and Harold won't want to pay you out.

So he'll keep you working. And so, so the flip side was George ended up not coaching anyway. Floyd Smith came in and sort of did interim and then made changes anyway. So, you know, um, you know, it worked out well for everybody except Gort. I have a ruling from the VP of sales on the live stream who heard us talking about Wendell Clark not winning the Calder trophy, 11 assists, eh? That's difficult to do. I feel like you play enough games. You'll get more than 11 assists by being corrected here. No, you're right. You're, you're being corrected in that the person who won it

was not who you remembered when it was Gary Suter. Is that, you're not thinking of Gary Suter because Gary Suter won it the year that Wendell was eligible to win the Calder VP can double check here, but yeah, can you check that for cause I, um, what do you remember? tell me and I'll do all my Swedish guy in Montreal he finished Oh, you know what he finished he was the he was the Piaz's right? I have his name too. He was touted and then he held all in yeah, shelled on shelled on that He faded at the end. That's right, right? So he was the other he finished third, but Gary suitor was the actual winner of that Who would go on to hurt Gretzky right in?

Exactly. It's all coming full but yeah what was Wendell's plus-minus your VP of sales office plus-minus VP we want Wendell Clark's plus-minus that season minus 27 or minus 32 or something like that you accidentally get 11 assists if you're playing every game but okay so that's funny how does it end for you Bob Stelick working for the Toronto Maple Leafs so it ended really when Ken Dryden came in so Cliff Fletcher got fire gets fire. So Cliff Fletcher when I came when he came in I wasn't his guy either So I had to sort of rebuild my thing and then I decided everybody wanted to be a hockey guy So under Cliff I decided to be I'll take all the business stuff

So I did all the business stuff with the Toronto Maple Leafs except for player contracts and that. So I booked the planes, the hotels, I worked with the marketing department on all the promotions. We hired the staff that ran the summer programs. We did all that kind of stuff. It was tons and tons of fun. And then after Pat Burns left,

and then it started going south for Cliff too, right? And Stavro really wanted him out and the rumor was that you know that Ken Dryden was gonna be this guy and and so Ken Dryden came in and I really really still this day I really like Ken Dryden good really great guy. He's in a topical guy. He's in a topical guy and his dad created that wonderful charity Sleeping Children Around the World a super honorable family but Ken had never had a job like this, right? Like he never had an office job. He never had a job. And he so Ken's first day there, he he's doing his speech and he's got a really

long speech. And it takes him a long time to read a speech. Yes. So and in fairness, Ken gives it to me. He's no Bob Stella. Yeah. Ken gives it to me to look to look over. So I said to Ken, I give it back and I said, you know, you got Stanley Cup in there 11 times or whatever. And I said, people throw that around really lightly here. I know you want a lot in Montreal, but you know, maybe you could use a few synonyms there, you know, like, you know, compete for divisions or whatever. Anyway, Ken came back 10 minutes later and said, no, I'm doing this. And then he starts in his speech and it's all about imagining players can be better,

that 15 goal scorer can get 30 goals and all that. And again, Ken- Is that like pyramid power? Yeah, like red Kelly. And I just remember all the media, everyone's kind of a bit glazed trying to figure this out. And so then after that, Ken went in, came in, I don't know what McKinsey consultant he went to,

but he decided to put everyone on probation So he came and he said, you know Bob you're on probation for three months or something I said Ken you can evaluate me on 12 years, but you're not gonna help me on 12 years in three months I'm not gonna do that, you know, like and it's just I just didn't get a feel at this time that it was it was gonna Go. Well, I was terrified that if I quit they'd win a Stanley Cup within two years and I'd give up on a ring. You go, few. Yeah. So the fact that it's 25 years later, boy, small comfort to leaf fans with big comfort to Bob's still they win it this year. They should give you a ring. Yeah, that's right. He gets a ring. If you, you know, everyone should get a ring. We had to endure that baller. The years everyone is still alive and had

to endure the baller. Well, I feel the Palm is past us right there. That's a ring substitute. So thank you for that. No, absolutely. By the way, I have a ruling from VP. You nailed it. The plus minus for Wendell Clark that season was minus 27. Yeah, we had, we talk about trying to promote him. We had a thing called, we did a PR campaign, like old style coal miners daughter type PR campaign. Yeah. So there's a guy from, I went to high school with who was in a band called Cats Can't Fly and he did a song song called Clark for Calder. And we made a forty five of it and then we mailed it to every one who had a ballot for that and then all the radio and radio stations because it didn't quite take off

like honky the Christmas goose. I was gonna say, I never heard of this, and I feel like, I wish I had a copy of this. Clark, did it ever leak? I don't know if it ever ended up on YouTube or not. Clark forecalled it, but. I found it everybody. Clark for Calder, 1986. Number one with a bullet.

Yeah, it's no honky the Christmas goose. Yeah, well honky. Yeah, it's no honky the Christmas goos. Yeah, well honky, yeah honky. Well, Clark for almost call Clark for third for Calder or isn't going to help Clark for Calder never did score 50 goals of this team, but hammered by injuries. The knees, the back. I remember what I still remember learning. Oh Wendell Clark. I think he was like 27 years old or something. And I remember being like, even young Mike was like, that's a 27 year old guy. He just carried himself like he was pushing 40. You know what I mean? Like he really did just appeared like he was,

you know, he had the bad, the back, the knees, he had played hard. He always looked old. I'm looking at this photo here. He looked like he was pushing for sure, but he was 27 years old. Yeah. I mean, even when we talk about beloved in, um, when in one of his back injuries, he, he ended up going to England to a specialist that was recommended by Ken Thompson, Lord Thompson of fleet. And so when those over in England getting, I think he said like in Lord Thompson's townhouse or something, getting a Rolls Royce

limo for his therapy session. So the fact that you could get Ken Thompson, who I don't think ever came to a hockey game excited about you, you know, was a, was a tribute to what a time to be alive. Okay. You know, early your time, but you know, you were focusing on the business stuff before you left working for the leaves when Ken Dryden was there. I just want to shout out a podcast that will help you with your financial investments, whether you have a trusted financial advisor or manage your own investment plans. So Bob, take a note. The Advantage to Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada.

It provides the engaging wealth management information that you value as you pursue your most important goals Bob. So you're going to subscribe? Absolutely. Thank you very much for that tip. You got any old electronics, old devices, old phones, maybe you got a Palm pilot, maybe you have a drawer full of cables at home? All of the above? All of the above. Yeah. Well, our road phone was the one, the first cell phone we ever had, we call Well Our road phone was the one the first cell phone we ever had we call it with a road phone That was the first cell phone. Yes. That was the first one. We got big brick that we still have it No, we literally transferred around whoever was traveling with a team on the road because that was otherwise you had to leave a message in a hotel Wow

Well, Zack Morris had one of those now if you have any of those at home you go to recyclemyelectronics.ca you put in your postal code it'll be yeah drop it off here it's only a block away or whatever and then it'll get it'll get properly recycled so that the chemicals don't end up in our landfill. So you got lots of homework here Bob. I do. Now I'm going back to the questions. One thing though when you leave with Ken Dryden so I know you played a role in converting Maple Leaf Gardens to the Loblaws slash Matamie, speaking of the PWHL team that plays there now.

And that's where I met Wendell Clark when he put Bleeding Blue, written by FOTM Jim Lang. I got invited to have a beer and hang of Wendell. And I'm like, I would like to do that. OK, so what what role did you play in the Maple Leaf Gardens farewell in that conversion? Yeah, it was it was in the In the pr and just advising them a bit on the the hockey side of the of the operation that they were looking to set Up at that time ryerson had a really, you know, poor hockey program they because they couldn't recruit they Played at george bell arena, which I love by the way my my oldest played there for 10 years and I love that old boy. Yeah, well they got like subway tokens

in order to get to it I guess every day, but they struggled and so it was really a bit about the respect the past, represent the future type of thing with them and they really did a spectacular job, them and blah blah. So they took advantage of the big dip in 2008 in real estate, where the federal government,

Flaherty was the finance minister, and they were able to get like several hundred million dollars in federal government infrastructure money. And what they recreated there, I think, has been spectacular. And they kept all the outside things. And so we did the opening, Steven Harper showed up, who smartly fan too.

He wrote a book on the Leafs at one point, but he actually came up with one of the best trivia lines that nobody seems to get is when people say who, who's the founder, who's the man behind the Toronto Maple Leafs, everyone says, Con Smythe. And it's actually not Con Smythe at all, it's J.P. My thought is JP Bickle and JP Bickle was the financier who financed cons might but didn't want any PR. He's the Antichrist of Harold Ballard. And when he died, he he he

created he created a foundation that's given away hundreds of millions of dollars to sick kids and and other charities. But Harper referenced it. And I thought, wow, you were on the ball, Stephen Harper, for that. But yeah, no, everything they did, they kept the roof perfectly. They just elevated it to the green level for the ice surface. And I mean, the only thing they didn't do, which again, classic hockey things. And as a guy, I went to U of T and played intramural hockey at U of T and the biggest problem was, yeah, varsity, what do you do with your equipment all day?

And as a commuter, cause I didn't live there. And so I said, I really pushed hard and the athletic director was more of a soccer guy at that point. And I said, you gotta create a hockey equipment check area. And he goes, what do you mean? So, well, I said, well, if the guys come down and are playing intramural that day,

they can leave their equipment there. Maybe they can, yeah, and they never did that. So I have no idea how the intramurals did after that, but I was down there this year for the PWHL women's game and it's worth, I know you can't get tickets to the women's games anyway because they were sold out, but it's worth going to any event at Madamee just to see the building. Absolutely. I think they did a great job as well converting that because keeping the facade is vital. And then I thought they did a great job. So whatever role you played, good for you. Yeah, I didn't like paint the roof personally,

but that actually looks really good too. You know, they built Maybelline gardens in like six months or so. Yeah, I get, that's one of the things people gave me a shot for. Early on in my career, I think Global was on a broadcast. They did-

Was it Mark Hemsher? No, no, it was one of the, they did more of a feature in the intermission about whatever. And I said something like, they built it in 16 months or whatever. I said, you couldn't get a draw a garage built in Toronto in that time. And of course, I, that became every time people would say, Hey Bob,

how long does it take to build a garage in Toronto? And I go, shut up. But yeah, that's it. But they say part of the trivia on that is they say that the one side of the building doesn't match the other side of the building. Okay. It wasn't the pyramids like, you know, and the walls were super, you need that level. We gotta make sure. Yeah, exactly. Oh wow. Okay. It wasn't the pyramids like, you know, and the walls were super that level. We got to make sure. Yeah, exactly. Oh, wow. Okay. A couple of notes came in for you. Hey ref. Hello. Hey, ref is named Hey ref because he referees hockey games. Right. Did he play? This is you, Bob. Okay. Did he play hockey at Don Mills arena? I know that's where they lived as kids. Has he been

there lately? Dumpiest arena in the city by a mile. Yeah, no, we did play a bit. I mean, Gordon and I played at Woodbine Arena mostly, Don Valley Village, but our all-star team played at Don Mills' time. And Gordon and I actually were both referees as well. And we took our referee training at Don Mills' arena, where the referee in chief in the GTHL was a cop who was a bit out to lunch. We thought, because as he was training us, he was telling us how soon the NHL and the WHA would be drafting referees

and Gordon I both were like like 14 and 16 looking at each other going I don't think this is gonna happen but yeah they're supposed to build a new Brian Finley who works with me lives right around there and plays there with his Mustang kids team and he they're supposed to be building a new double pad or four pad but that's like that's like fixing the Gardner Expressway or something. Hey ref wants some you know some lipstick on that pig over there. Yeah okay Jesse Hirsch hello Jesse. Jesse's on the farm right now speaking of pigs. That's yeah he's a farmer now this guy just he's just up and left and became a farmer. Jesse Hirsch says

regarding Bob Stelick ask him about the effort to bring the Bills to Toronto and other NFL Toronto efforts. He worked on the team that did the first Bills in Toronto series, which was done by Rodgers in the late 2000s. What can you tell us about the, I remember being duped by the Toronto Bills. Yeah, I was a dupe. Ted Rodgers was shockingly like Harold Ballard in a number of different ways in the sense of that old style. And I worked first with him a little bit on when the Blue Jays, Rogers got involved with the Blue Jays with Labatt, and we had to take him around the dressing room and make sure that he knew who Carlos Delgado was and that like he was like Mr. Burns going around the dressing room.

He had no idea who anybody was. Great callback talking software. And he, so then we started working on the bills, I got some work on the bills Toronto series. And the mistake is it's that reverse pricing. It's what's happening right now. Surges now. Yeah, well, it's the pricing that's gonna have to happen for the 380 million Toronto's paying for these FIFA games.

So they make this deal with the bills that's too expensive. And now they're trying to reverse engineer that they can afford to actually pay it through ticket prices, right? And also fool people that people really wanna go to a preseason NFL game at big bucks. But I remember being in a room where before Ted Rogers comes in,

everyone's pre-planning how we're gonna deal with Ted Rogers to make sure we're gonna manage manage him right. He walks in, he could care less about football. He goes, how much is the rev? How much are we paying? You know, I don't know what his 22 million to the bills. Okay, so that means we need it on 44 million minimum revenue guaranteed right by and he just leaves of course and everyone in the room is going on. We can't get that much revenue, but no one wants to tell wow. Okay, what do you think about the fact this is I'm going to come back to Jesse Hersh's Toronto B Wow. Okay. What do you think about the fact that this is,

I'm going to come back to Jesse Hirsch's Toronto bills thing, but what do you think about the fact that outside the dome? I know it's called Rogers now, but there's a statue of Ted Rogers. Where's the statue of Joe fricking Carter? I don't know. Hopping around the bases, touching them all. Like Tom Cheek said. Yeah. That's come on. Come on. I'm stuck. Listen, I have no, you know, that's... Come on, come on. I'm... Listen, I have no, you know, Rogers, Bell, it's all... To me, it's all the same. I don't have any allegiance here. I don't think Ted even thinks he should be there.

You know, he should be... He's going to be there. He should be surrounded by... How about the... I don't know, a bat flip from Batista? Maybe Dave Steve with his no hitter putting his hands in the air. You can hire the Leafs statue guy down there. He's not working right now. You know what? I think it's in Chicago though, which I thought was a bit weird to hire American to make leaf statues. I like what they've done with that lead. They keep adding new bodies and stuff.

I can ask you about one guy there, but I like what they did with the leaf players outside of... I'm not as keen on retiring all the numbers, but we had a different strategy. Right. Well, we used to retire it because somebody would die like Bill Borilko or almost die like Aes Bailey. We use the argument, this was our argument, that we, Leafs only retired for catastrophic reasons and we honored people, which we did. But Dave Keon was really the one that catalysts for that because he refused to be honored. He wanted to retire. So Dave Keon led to 20 number retirements.

That's these are, this is the insight. You've been a great guest. I have a few more questions here, but I'm going to just for the Toronto bills thing. What role did Bon Jovi play in this? Like I just remember Bon Jovi being involved in the Toronto bills. What are you saying? He wouldn't back down. No, that's Tom Petty. Oh, Tom Petty. Sorry. I'm not fixing that in post. Bob afterwards. Like Mike just edit out. Just I know you don't edit, just edit out 20 seconds, okay? No, sorry about that. It's okay, you got your bobs mixed up. We all do that.

But, yeah, I think he was more, again, these figurehead guys that everybody wanted to throw into them, you know. He sucks, right? Bon Jovi? What do you think of Bon Jovi? No, no, no. I guess his voice is gone though, hasn't it? I don't know. Even when his voice was there, it kind of sucked. My favorite Bon Jovi story was when they first started out, they all went on their first tour of us and they all brought their own bowling balls. Is that right?

Yeah, that was the story of the guys in the band going, hey, we're from Jersey. We like, we bowl. I don't know. But Johnny used to work on the docks. Yeah. But yeah, it's, it was, it was ill-fated the whole thing. And that was another one. We were duped. Like we said off the top, it was, we reused. They just-

Well, Ralph Wilson was a Harold Ballard. Imagine naming your stadium. A Harold Ballard didn't change Maybelline Gardens to Harold Ballard Gardens. That's true. Ralph Wilson has a freaking stadium named after him while he's alive. That's true.

That's a good point there. Okay. So I have a note that came in from VP of Sales. I didn't know he was going to be in the live stream providing all this real-time trivia Yeah, he's doing a great job I'm being me up is what he's doing. You tripped yourself up by confusing the Shell doll lean with Mistake we can't all be perfect Bob, you know Gord wasn't perfect either. Oh, Gord has my gourds the trivia King Well when Gord fucks up Damien just smacks him the head and gets him straight here. Okay, so this is the question

It's not a question, but a long belated thanks. This is nice. Okay. When I played house league and again, this is VP of sales. When I played house league hockey in Burlington, we'd have end of the year banquets. The first year I played, I was 13, but played a level down because I could barely skate. My dad on a whim reached out to the leafs to see if I could get a player, if he could get a player to show up at our banquet. I'm 99% sure he ended up talking to Bob and Bob came through in the spring of 1988 Motor City Smitty himself, Brad Smith came to his minor Pee Wee house league banquet and blew all of their

minds. I fucking loved it at the Maybelline gardens when he had no helmet and the hair would be blowing. Amazing. Okay. He hadn't played that season as he had back a back injury that ended his career, but it was incredible. Smitty came back the next year to he had fully retired at that point. So not sure if Bob hooked that up again or if my dad stayed in touch with Smitty, he doesn't remember. But thanks to Bob for making a bunch of 12 13 year old boys very happy. I remember one of the tips he shared with us was don't go off side on an odd man rush. That's a great tip. That's sophisticated hockey at that time. Don't wear a helmet back then. Right. Don't

wear a helmet. Helmets are overrated. Helm it's true today. Don't wear a helmet. Back then, right? Don't wear a helmet. Helmets are overrated. Helmets are overrated. Don't, I can write that down for my nine year old. He plays at Mimico Arena. Don't go offside on an odd man rush. That is a great tip, no matter what level of hockey you're playing.

Yeah, Motor City is a wonderful guy. He's a scout in the NHL now and great guy. And he had a charter fishing boat in the summer called Motor City charters and I remember he decided hustles right John Anderson restaurants And he had that bounce up and down from the miners, which is that's the hardest lifestyle I remember his first wife had a line that she said something like You know most people when they go to town professional athletes

They buy a home and then they get traded as soon as they buy a home. We buy a t-shirt and then we get traded. So that was one of the great ones. Oh man, these are great memories here. Eric wrote in, it says, does Bob remember the night Mike Gartner had his stick launched into the crowd at Maple Leaf Gardens? It would have been the 1994 playoffs. A fan quickly tossed Gartner's stick back over the glass and was rewarded for the action. If memory serves, Bob presented the fan with a signed stick. Maybe it was live on hockey night in Canada. What's Eric remembering here? Do you remember this at all?

Yeah, absolutely. It's funny because it shows up every once in a while on TSN's quirky things in a hockey game. And so the story was it popped over his stick, Mike Gardner's stick popped over the glass. He doesn't know where it is, he's spinning around looking and he looks in the audience and he sees a guy holding it and he gestures and the guy pitchforks it back onto him

and then Gardner takes the puck out. So the backstory there is, I think I'm talking to Gordon, I think it might've been, Gordon was a broadcaster at that time and we said, we gotta get this guy a stick. So I called down and we had a stick boy at that time at the gardens named chop chop It was nicknamed for that when he's a new mark because he moved because he worked he went pretty slowly so the trainer called him chop chop like speed up all the time chop chop here and

So I called down and I said To the back then again the quirky building yet to call to the medical room across the gardens And I call there to one of the st John and ambulance guys or the ambulance guys I say you had to call to the medical room across the gardens, and I call there to one of the St. John and ambulance guys, or the ambulance guys, I say, can you tell Chop Chop to go give that guy a stick? So the guy comes out, I can see him talking, because again, the building's not that big,

and he's talking, and then Chop Chop's leaning against the wall behind the bench, and then the guy goes away, and then Chop Chop doesn't move. One whistle happened, nothing moves. So then I called down again, and I said to the guy, the guy picks up the phone again, I don't even know who he is, but I said, you know, Ryder, did you talk to the equipment, the stick boy there and tell him to take a stick? He goes, I did. I said, well, can you remind him? And then he comes out again, I see him talking again. Chop Chop's not the brightest guy in the world. And I see Chop Chop, we call it in hockey,

it's what the referee used to give you the shoe shoe you know the backhand I see him give a shoe I said the guy goes he's not he won't do it now I go tell him I'm on my way down I slammed the phone so I get down there and at the same time Ron McClane has the same idea and he's coming out of the broadcast thing which is right across the good he goes and I said well I'm gonna do sick he goes we're gonna do the stick and he goes why don't you can you wait till a commercial break after commercial break and we'll do it together? And that was the stick stick for the stick, the stick for the stick stick stick for the stick. I love it. How was it

difficult to deal with any Toronto media personalities that were coming, covering the Leafs in your heyday? Like you want to out of it and specifically, what was it like dealing with Mark Hepsure? Is that Mark Hepsure asking that's a friend of Mark Hepsure, Toronto Mike asking. Yeah, I mean, how does he I mean, give him credit? I mean, his his claim to fame that I inadvertently got involved with was. I don't know if he knows this story, but we're opening the season again.

I think it's eighty five or eighty six. And I see Pat Marat, Pat Marsden had this thing that he always claimed He was banned from the gardens. He was a CFTO sports guy So my first year I couriered him back when currying was a big deal I couriered him his press pass because I thought you're not banned from you're just too lazy to come down All right, you don't want to come down you like trash and Harold Ballard on the on the on the broadcast today. So You know any nice guy Pat. Don't ever see him. Then I see opening game, whenever I see Pat Marsden, it was probably opening midweek game. And

I said, Pat, he's in the hot stove on time and lunch. I said, Hey, you coming down to the game? He goes, coming down the game. I'm on the broadcast. I went, Oh boy, this is not going to go well. And of course we get waxed and he launches into a tirade on our own broadcast at us. And then of course, Harold Ballard wants him off the air. And, and then I thought they were going to throw Jim Taddy into that role. And then Hepsey came back. So Hepsey became the intermission guy by virtue of Harold, virtue of Harold Ballard. That was,

Hepsey was able to elevate himself from 1130 at night to not ready for primetime Hepsey. Love it. It's all amazing. Love it so much. What about John Gallagher? Any Gallagher stories? Gallagher seems to know everyone on social media in the history of the world.

Plus he got a picture of him. I'm sure he had the disposable camera on him at all times. I'm sure when Fred Kodak comes out his birthday, that Gallagher will have a picture. I mean, again, he's kind of the media's Tidomi almost, right? Friend of everyone. Friend of everyone important, I guess. Good for him. So no exciting...

You know, I always hear stories about him like sneaking into the gardens by like plying off some security guy at the gardens or whatever, but... No, I mean, the people... I mean, Jim McKinney built an incredible career at City TV huge huge love for him Catherine Humphreys was fantastic that's why McKinney got fired yeah yeah Catherine Humphrey yeah and and she was too good she was too good yeah that's exactly what he said it to me here yeah yeah he was to best friends of Peter Gross by the yeah and yeah she but just

she was great at doing stuff too and stuff in my role afterwards where I was friends of Peter Gross, by the way. Yeah, yeah. And yeah, she, but just, she was great at doing stuff too, and stuff. And in my role afterwards, where I was owning my own business and needing, working in PR, she was always super receptive and also clever. You know, and that's a loss in the media world, I think, for not having her on the air. Wait a minute, she was smart, attractive,

and clever and funny? What kind of a perfect media person? No wonder she's not on the air anymore, Bob like there's no room for a person like that in our there's no there's no room for wit and clever. All right. I want to find out about Stelick marketing communications before we say goodbye because you've been you created that back in the tooth in the year two thousand and twenty two. Yeah, I mean, but yeah, but here I get faster to the butt bit quick note about the great Matt Sundin, right? That that what a trade that was right. You know, our

own beloved Wendell Clark traded to the Nordic and he got Matt Sundin coming over a lot of other people in that trade, but who cares about them? This is about Matt Sundin. He arrives wearing his Jofa helmet. Okay. Did you play a role in Matt's changing his helmet so he'd look like maybe he's belongs? Yeah, I mean, yeah, I did suggest to Matt that a Jofa, that if he went into a CCM, he might be more beloved by the Leaf fans. Yeah, Wendell wore a CCM.

Yeah, even though, I mean, Borya won that war the, the $2 Jofa that went to Gretzky where that Gretzky same helmet. And, uh, but my fear again, after I remember when Matt's changed to a CCM helmet, my fear was he'd get a concussion and then get mad going. The Jofa helmets way better because it was a bit more Kazooie. It wasn't quite the Stamakita size, but it was bigger and it really hadn't caught on and I don't think he was getting paid To use it either. So if he was getting paid, I wouldn't have told him it was the Swedish influence. Yeah Yeah, just yeah, it was this yeah

He also had what a yellow Volvo for a while that the guys called the banana mobile and he got rid of that I can't I deal with a Volvo dealership. I think he felt he was being cliched and typecasts We have Ikea furniture felt he was being cliched and typecast as a suite. Well, he used to have IKEA furniture when he first moved to the U.S. He lived quite modestly in 999 Bay Street or whatever. Matt is a tremendously humble, decent human being and a great trade by Cliff and terrible to lose Wendell. And the only trade I ever argued with Cliff about, because that was not my job, was when he brought Wendell back. Because I just said to him, you know, because he was not my job was when he wanted when he brought Wendell back

Because I just said to him, you know, because he was going, you know This is when we were getting desperate again And he said, you know My elevator guys telling me to bring Wendell back the doorman I'm going if you're listening to the elevator and the doorman you don't Need the area, you know Yeah, I think he did didn't Wendell do three tours of duty, right? He came back for that Ottawa Senators playoff He had that gold playoff. Yeah, just, I mean, and again, it's, it's, it's the recreating the marriage three times and Cliffs, you can't go home again.

You can't go home again, even though Wendell, you know what? Wendell could pull it off and Dougie, right? Poor Dougie. Well, he had four minutes and 51 seconds. It was four fifty one advice time because I was so excited. He was back in his first shift. It was not first shift, I guess, but for he had four minutes and 51 seconds advice time because I was so excited. He was back and his first shift, or whatever, not first shift, I guess, but four, he had four minutes and 51 seconds of ice time and that was it. Yeah. And that was it. Yeah. That's the worst luck of all. The one guy though, I will compare to Wendell in, in, in that we all loved it when he came back was

Tony Fernandez. I think Tony Fernandez had four tours of duty with the Toronto Blue Jays. Just off the top of my head. All right, my friend, okay. Tell me about Stellic Marketing Communications, Inc. Yeah, so when I left after the Leafs in 97, I worked for a big agency for a couple of years and they didn't really do sports and grassroots that well. That was a big PR agency.

So I just started out my own. I was doing a contract job there for NFL Canada and the guy was saying well at the NFL in New York said you know we're looking at getting a full-time agency partner in Canada and I said well by the way I'm just thinking about going out on my own. Would you hire me? So I was lucky at the very beginning I was able to go out as a one-man band with NFL Canada was a client. I had Labatt as a client able to go out and as a one-man band with NFL, Canada was a client, I had Labatt as a client, I had McDonald's as a client, I

ended up getting Sky Dome as a client when they have that were they're owned by one of their myriad of owners and so I was cash flow positive from the get-go and so that's sort of led to like you know 20 some odd years of working with you know trying to help companies do impactful community programming, marketing programming, that's taking the smell out of the jock a bit, right? And doing that. So it's been a really good run and a lot of fun.

I mean, it's different. I do miss parts of being with the team, the team meals, traveling with the guys on the road. But again, we were traveling in commercial flights for longer flights back then we were traveling on a convier 5a turboprop you know, it was a it was a different era, you know and to me that the the era of the players started to change really when One guy started living in Rosedale when you got guys that were starting to move into Rosedale and you went oh boy this is a this is a different era for hockey and you know Times times are changing Larry Murphy was the first one to move to Rosedale. Who is the most humble decent guy?

I think his wife was dying to live in Rosedale and also a great example of a player the fan base did not embrace The Leaf fans are sophisticated but wrong so often. We like Motor City Smitty, but don't give us this Hall of Famer Larry Murphy. Yeah. So Larry, every time I see Gene Principe on there, I always think of the skewering I set Larry Murphy up for because Larry Murphy played really well that year. He was at the All-Star game. And Kenny Onsen was his defense partner and Kenny Yonza was a young stay-at-home

Covered Larry's butt all the time and then Kenny Yonza and suffered a severe injury I think it was in the island in Long Island after all star or right around all star anyway, and And Larry Murphy I think was a plus player up to that point your SVP sales is gonna correct all these my mistakes Yeah, I just promoted SVP,... Well he's gonna sell something first okay Bob and then he gets the promotion. Let him sell something first. Again more Sima but he he struggled after that because he had no one backing him up and so I remember him come Larry coming to me and grabbing my shoulder on the bus because we were going to Buffalo because I had those holding the bus so he could do he could Do a interview with our rights holder which was global and he grabs my arm and he goes thanks for that Bob

And I went well, that was bad, and then I remember watching the broadcast The interview it was a tape thing. He was in a suit and it was and and Jean Francis says I really been the Leaf fans booing your pay or your play? Like, how do you answer that? And, because he was making $2 million a year, and astronomical sum. And again, can you imagine that in a broadcast today? Like the Homer broadcast that we have now?

Like, you know. No, I can't imagine it today. And that was my, and I set him up for that. Like I set him up for that one-on-one one and Larry went on to have a Hall of Fame career And I see him every year at the Hall of Fame induction He comes in most years one more bunch of cups after that. Yeah, and a great guy of the Detroit Red Wings there Yeah, what are those weird examples where we just just he was a whipping boy. Yeah, but undeservedly. So yeah Lee fans admire They admire effort and and they don't admire some other things.

And Larry gave effort, but he just had that. There was just something funny. Like he got, he was victimized for some bad goals and it suddenly became pay. Very interesting times. Bob, honestly, we've left enough on the table, I think for a sequel, but anything that we didn't, you know, talk about in this conversation that you were on your drive here, whatever you're like, I hope I get to tell this story like this is the time. No, I like to now reveal all on Gordon Stelick. No, no, I think I appreciate the

I appreciate the invitation. I appreciate being in the top fifteen hundred. You just voted by this close to missing that out. By the way, you and Gord still tight? What's the relationship like? Yeah, absolutely. How often do you see Gord? I see Gord, well, I talk to him every other day and I see him maybe once a week or whatever.

So Gord never once mentioned, hey, if you ever get invited to Toronto Mike, you'll get some delicious palma pasta. He never mentioned, he's been scoring lasagnas off me for years. Gorgeous mention what a good guy you were. That was it. I didn't realize your first name wasn't Toronto. Tell your brother, I don't know if there's an Easter dinner or something, tell him I got to get him and Damien back in the basement. The fan base, the fan base, the listenership loves when

Gordon Damien are together, they just compliment each other perfectly. And the water together really to be broadcast is in my basement. So I got to keep doing that. They got to sell that book they've got right. Well, they have that new deal, right? Where you it's like commission basis or whatever it is. It's like finance your own bookstore. Do you have a book in you, Bob? You ever thought of writing a book? Well, George Armstrong used to joke is that he could write a book, but he

had to wait for his wife to die first. But yeah, that's right. For the real talk. That's exactly right. All right, Bob, thanks so much. I love this very much. This was fantastic. Thank you very much for inviting me.

And that brings us to the end of our one thousand four hundred and forty th show. You can follow me on Twitter and Blue Sky. I'm at Toronto Mike. Now Bob Stehlich on the app formerly known as Twitter is B. Stehlich. But you can go to like, is it right? Stehlich.ca?

Yes, it's stehlich.com. Okay, let me get that right. Let me, I'll fix that in post. Stehlich.com is where you go for like all your Bob Stehlich needs. It's all satisfied at stehlich.com. Go there. Or the witness protection program. Much love to all who made this possible. That's Great Lakes Brewery. Don't forget your fresh craft beer. Palma Pasta. I'll get you lasagna for you. RecycleMyElectronics.ca. Raymond James Canada and of course Ridley's Funeral Home. See you all tomorrow when Jay

Douglas returns to the program. Looking forward to that. See you then. There's a sucker born every day But I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of gray Cause I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How about you? All them pickin' up trash

and them puttin' down ropes And they're brokerin' stocks the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the way