Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Brian McFarlane: Toronto Mike'd #826

Episode Date: March 30, 2021

Mike and Banjo Dunc chat with Hockey Hall of Famer Brian McFarlane about his years at Hockey Night in Canada, Peter Puck, Harold Ballard, and so much more.

Welcome to episode 826 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. 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 home delivery in the GTA. Order online for free home delivery in the GTA. CDN Technologies, your outsourced IT department. Contact Barb Paluskowicz. She's Barb at cdntechnologies.com. Palma Pasta.

Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And Mike Majeski, or as I call him, Mimico Mike. He's the real estate agent who's ripping up the Mimico real estate scene. Learn more at realestatelove.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com and joining me this week is Hockey Hall of Famer, Brian McFarlane. Welcome, Brian.

Hello, Mike. Good to see you. Welcome, Brian. Hello, Mike. Good to see you. What a pleasure it is to meet you. I owe some Great Lakes beer to my good friend Banjo Dunk, who helped make this happen. Joining me as co-host for this special episode is Duncan Fremlin himself.

Hello, Dunk. Mike, good to see you. And Brian, I always love chatting with you. Do you have my home address for that beer there, Mike? I'm going to bike it over. I know where you live. Are you in the city? I'm just close enough. No problem.

We'll work that out. And Brian, what a pleasure. Like I said, you're in the Hall of Fame, right? I'm not just saying that. You're in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Well, last I looked, I was. It was about 1995. They surprised me by putting me in.

And then there was some discussion whether I was a legitimate member of the hall or a media member of the hall. They were about to change some of the regulations about entrance, I guess. And so my jacket says official member of the hockey hall of fame. I think it's the last jacket they ever made the next year. It was media member of the hockey hall of fame. So every time I go to a hockey hall of fame induction ceremony, I think somebody is going to come darting out of the crowd and said, give us your jacket back. We're going to make a change on that crest.

The big question on everybody's mind these days is vaccinations. And I'm just curious, Brian, have you got your first jab yet? Yes, we did. And it was 20 minutes in and out here in nearby Markham. We're up in Stouffville. I was amazed at how quickly we were in and out and how professional it was and how well organized, but we were due for our second shot, but now it's been postponed until June sometime. So we're being very cautious, my wife and I.

Well, good for you. That's great to hear. And I'm looking at you on the Zoom here, and you look younger than Banjo Dunk, but could you share with us, would you share your age with us? I'm 90 years old in August. Wow, good for you, buddy. Good for you. You, honestly, you look 10 years younger than Duncan here. Well, Duncan lived a kind of a life of, you know,

bearing on the body I'm here. Oh, Brian, you got quiet here, actually. Did any, nothing? Okay, now you're back. Okay. Sorry, so we didn't catch that last line about... Maybe it's the lifestyle Duncan's lived over the years as a traveling musician or something. A lot of wear and tear on the body in that kind of profession.

That's true. So Banjo Dunk, before I start, you know, peppering Brian with questions, and I know you'll have some questions for him as well, how have you been holding up during this pandemic? It's been a while since we touched base, but how are you doing? Yeah, it has been a while, and I feel like I'm one of the grateful ones or the lucky ones. But I've been, you know But I've been keeping busy.

Like Brian says, I have a fast-paced life. And I try to keep that pace going. And I love recording and performing a little bit. So mostly music, a bit of real estate. But no, I'm very fortunate. Oh, there's a copy of my book. Yeah, I'm very fortunate. Oh, there's a copy of my book. Yeah, I love your book. And every time Stompin' Tom comes up on the program, which is actually surprisingly often,

I always make sure I talk about my buddy Banjo Dunk. Thank you for that, Mike. Good to hear you're doing well. Now, I'm going to start with a question that was submitted a while ago from Basement Dweller. And Basement Dweller wants me to start by asking question that was submitted a while ago from Basement Dweller. And Basement Dweller wants me to start by asking Brian about his father, Leslie. So Brian, your father, who I guess was known as Franklin W. Dixon when he was writing, but tell me, he's the

Hardy Boys. He wrote the Hardy Boys books, right? Share with me a little bit about your father, if you don't mind. Okay, well, I'm writing a memoir myself right now. It just got to the publisher. It's called A Hell of a Life in Hockey, and I've got two or three chapters in there about my dad. He was quite a prolific Canadian author. Back in the Depression, nobody made money as a freelance writer, but he did, living up in Halebury, Ontario. And younger than that, he started as a cub reporter on the Cobalt paper, went to Sudbury. Then he got a job at $40 a week on the Springfield Republican in Massachusetts.

And he kind of languished there for a while till he answered an ad in the paper one day, writer wanted for juvenile series. And he said, I'd never seen an ad in a paper looking for a writer. So I answered the ad and I got the job with a company called the Stratmire Syndicate in New Jersey. Mr. Stratmire was kind of a genius at children's book publishing, and he hired my dad to do some series books under the pen name. There were several pen names he used back then for these exciting kids' fiction books. And then when he was offered the job of a new series, The Hardy Boys, he decided, well, I could make a living at this. So he moved back to Sudbury, lived in a little cabin on the lake and started writing all these books, maybe four or five books a year.

Sometimes a lot of hockey fiction, a lot of mystery and suspense for the pulp magazines and for McLean's and some of the established magazines. And that was his career. And he was sworn to secrecy. He was never to reveal that he was the author of The Hardy Boys. And in midlife, he wrote his autobiography, The Ghost of the Hardy Boys, and revealed that he was the writer. And we claim, my sister and I, who's still a really well-regarded author living across the border in Lewiston, New York, claim that he's Canada's most prolific author because the Hardy Boys sold in maybe 100 million books over the century. And he got no royalties. Now, Mike, can you believe if he'd had a penny in royalties from each book, he'd be a very wealthy man. But he got $100 a book, flat fee, no royalties.

And he never complained about it. He said, I knew what the deal was. If I hadn't done it, some other hack writer would have done it. And I needed the money to put coal in the furnace for the winter for the kids and all this. So we grew up really impoverished up in Northern Ontario, but we never felt that way. We played hockey, we had our games, we had a wonderful carefree life full of freedom and adventures going to the lake and all kinds of adventures. So that was the start of it. And he made his career out of freelance writing. I don't want to

talk too long about this, but eventually during the war, he went to Ottawa and wrote speeches for the government. Then he joined the National Film Board, which was just getting underway. And with no experience in filmmaking, he became a writer, a producer, director, and went all over Canada making films for the film board. He went to Hollywood late in his life. Lorne Green invited him down to write a couple of scripts for Bonanza. And he stayed there for a year or two but he was in his 60s by then and Hollywood was certainly a young person's field so he moved back and I'm very proud of him he he left a wealth of hockey fiction that I resurfaced some of it a few years ago and a publisher printed some of his hockey action. And he won awards.

He was nominated for an Academy Award. Wow. Canada's Best Writer. One year he got a trophy for that. And he passed away in his 70s with a great legacy for getting... His greatest legacy, Mike, was getting kids hooked on reading.

They would start with the Hardy Boys and graduate to, well, any of the famous Dickens and any of the famous authors of the day. And sometimes I get mailed saying how important it was for my dad's writing to get kids started and reading and going to the library, that sort of thing. So you and Neil Young have something in common, right? Yeah, that's right. Prolific fathers. That's right. Who wrote more books, though, you or your father? I think I've surpassed him in the numbers.

His writing would be a lot better quality than mine, perhaps. I'm struggling to get over the hundred mark now. I only plan to write one book because he said my sister Nora was the real writer in the family, which she is. I feel I could write a book perhaps and just to prove to my dad, I could write one. So back in the mid sixties, I wrote the King Clancy book and 50 years of hockey, both at the same time, pretty much. So I don't know which was number one or number two. And now I'm approaching a hundred published books and I cannot believe it because where did all those books come from over the years?

Well, I was working on hockey. I owned a lacrosse team. I was working for the bank in Nova Scotia with a children's hockey program. I was making speeches. And I even got into the music world briefly with the song, Clear the Track, Here Comes Shaq, which Duncan will smile when he hears that. But he knows about that. And Shaq, which Duncan will smile when he hears that, but he knows about that. And Shaq never forgave me. He hassled me for the next 30 years, demanding royalties and calling me a cheap SOB at banquets. And he never paid me for that song and all this. I said, hey, we made you

famous and you gave me permission to do it. So get out of my life. And I told him to his face what I thought of him one day. Now the poor guy's gone and I miss him. I miss our little confrontations, you might say. Did he let you golf for free at his golf course there? Oh, no, no. In fact, I was selling books at an event one day and he walked up and he took one of my $25 books and said, this looks good. And he walked off with it. Now he's written a book and I said, I'll come along a mall one day and he'll be selling books and I'm going to steal one from him and run down the hall.

And he'll say, you little bugger, you got even with me, huh? Clear the track. Okay. So I just want to address Dunk to let Dunk know, Dunk, you're my co-host. So anytime you know there's a great story to extrapolate on or something, you can just chime in just so you know, don't hesitate. But I guess since I'm speaking to you, Dunk, Brian, when did you first meet Dunk and Fremlin here? How far back do you guys go? How long, Dunk? About four or five years? The story is, Brian, I was on the verge of

publishing my Stompin' Tom book, and there was a big article in the Toronto Star that weekend about you and your authorship and your paintings, and I thought, you know, I was kind of trying to figure out about you and your authorship and your paintings. And I thought, you know, I was kind of trying to figure out people I could talk to to help give me some ideas on how to promote the book. So I got online and I found your website and I emailed you.

And a couple of weeks later, you emailed back. And next thing you know, you and I and Joan and Karen are having lunch and you and I are going out for coffee and you're very graciously helping me promote my book and stuff. And we've been pals ever since. So that must be maybe four years ago, three, four years ago. Yeah. And Dunk, does Brian know our original plan here was before the pandemic, we were going to go on a road trip together, you and I, to Stouffville and do this in like Brian's living room or something.

Yeah, that would have been a great plan. I think we did know about that, Brian, but it all came to an end so quickly that it's out of my mouth. We had some visitors up here. It's been a year of isolation for my wife and I, and it's gone so quickly, and it hasn't been arduous. We deal with it every day, and that's given me a chance to do some more writing and create some more paintings.

I think there's one behind you there, Duncan. You put that up there on purpose today, I'm sure. I did not, Brian McFarlane. That is there. I've been recording a lot of videos, and that painting is in pretty much every video I put out there. I must buy a couple more. They're really quite terrific as a hockey band. So tell us about this. Okay, well, I guess I have so many questions here. You're going to be

here for several hours, Brian. I hope you know that. But you mentioned the memoir. So can we buy this for Christmas? It'll be out in October. ECW, one of my favorite publishers, is doing it. It was rather long. They had to cut some things out, and it's maybe a good thing they did. I have no idea whether it's going to be successful or not, but they asked me. See, this is a third memoir, and it's hard to do it without going over old ground or reviving stories that I told 30 years ago. The greatest hits. I forget myself sometimes.

And some people aren't going to be happy with it. Bobby Hull would be one. And I don't know who else, but I tried to be candid and just tell my feelings about people in hockey and the game itself. Before I ask about the painting, because I am curious, this is a beautiful painting behind

Duncan's shoulder here I'm looking at but could I get a bit of a taste of the Bobby Hull story well I've known Bobby since he was 18 and I've always I've you know he he had so much clamor attached to him he was the the Adonis of the hockey world with that great physique and becoming a superstar. Along the way, I got to know Hal's family pretty well. In fact, Gary and Lois, his younger brother, live out in Coburg where I spend a lot of my summers. And we're very close friends. So I have to be very careful what I say in the book. And with them in mind, it's hard for me to be negative about Bobby, but I do feel honestly that he should not be an ambassador for the Chicago Blackhawks because he has a history of

spousal assault and other things on his record that don't make him necessarily a great spokesman for an NHL hockey team. And I was thinking too, there are other great people that played in that organization that aren't ever going to be an ambassador for the Hawks because Bobby Hull is number one on their ambassadors list. And when I heard he'd given up drinking, I kind of felt, well, maybe I'll just forgive him and not write about him. But then I went to a Hall of Fame luncheon for the media guys. I go every year and he was there that day and I went over and sat next to him. And as the luncheon wound down and people were leaving the room, I heard him yell at the waitress, Miss, bring me another glass of wine over here, please. And she ignored him. She was

cleaning a table nearby. And he said, Miss, he shouted at her and said, bring me a bottle of wine and tell them it's for Bobby Hull. And she ignored him and just cleared the table and left the room. And I thought, well, so much for abstinence. Obviously, he's not off the red line, which does him in all the time. We were in New York. I did a speech in New York every year for 33 years honoring hockey luminaries, and there was always an event before the dinner where we gathered and one afterwards and we were sitting with jean beliveau and his wife and red fisher from the montreal star

and his wife my wife and i were there and i've forgotten who else but suddenly bobby turned to me and he said you guys in the in the media you were always on Guy Lafleur's case. You run fair to Guy Lafleur and the way you treated him. I said, Bobby, I never treated Lafleur unfairly. I may not have liked his lifestyle much because of the way he lived. And he said, I suppose you don't like my lifestyle. And suddenly I said, and it just came out, not particularly. And my wife nudged me under the table and said, we better be leaving soon. I said, yeah, well, anyway, Mrs. Bellevaux saved me.

She said, Bobby, Guy Lafleur had a lifestyle that bothered a lot of people. And I thought she might add, and yours does too, but she didn't say that. And Bobby apologized the next day, and he had tickets to a Broadway show. And he said, I met a billionaire last night. He's sending his Rolls Royce around to pick us up. So you're coming with us to the theater. And we went to the theater.

And as we got out, everybody was gawking in front of the theater. And in my book, I say they Hull events, and Bobby's seldom there. Either he's persona non grata with some members of the family, or they don't say that. But either he wasn't invited, or he just refused to show up. But with nine or ten people in the family, you'd think he'd come to several of those reunions. I've seen him in one or two, but it's too bad. He could have been just like Beliveau in hockey, but we each go our own way in life. And that's the way it turned out for Bobby.

Was that an era, Brian, of just good guys? Like, was he the exception? You think of Beliveau, you think of bellable you think of kelly you think of george armstrong i love those stories that you wrote about him by the way uh it was a generally an era of pretty good guys yes uh you know hockey uh i've been around 70 years i guess with the nhl guys and uh they're good people. I mean, I played old-timers hockey with them, and you wouldn't find, not necessarily the stars of the game, but Ivan Irwin, for example, and Peter Connick

or salt-of-the-earth people, and very few people who misbehaved or you'd want to criticize for one reason or another. And if you did, it would be because they didn't pass the puck to you or something like that. But, yeah, good people. Beliveau I put right at the top of my list, number one. I had the rare privilege of playing against him when I was a junior, and the coach said, you're going to have to check Beliveau tonight.

Well, I just had the measles and just got out of my bed after a week in bed with the measles. And I had to check Beliveau in an important playoff series. And I found that was impossible to stop him. And it kind of turned my life away against thoughts of pro hockey, because I figured there must be a lot of guys like Beliveau coast to coast in Canada, if not quite that stature close. And I wasn't that close. So I knew I wouldn't play in the NHL. And then I got to work with Beliveau on our Scotiabank hockey college program for years. And he was just the absolute gentleman, the class of the room everywhere he went.

the absolute gentleman, the class of the room, everywhere he went. And I said, hockey was so fortunate to have a man like Beliveau. And there are others not far, like Jean Rattel in his quiet way. We had all the class of Beliveau as well. And the hockey guys, I just loved most of them. And Shaq and I had our differences and Hall and I have had our differences and very few though i've had any differences with and uh i i don't know why it's so special that sport to produce the quality of people that it does but in my opinion it uh it adds all the leagues with turning out first class people do you If I can interrupt just for a second, Micah.

The thing I love talking about Brian is that he's got his tentacles in such deep recesses of the history of the game. Foster Hewitt, he goes back to, he's got Foster Hewitt stories. And there aren't many first-person stories or people that can tell stories about these guys. So that's I have an appetite for that. Do you have a Foster Hewitt story, Brian? Well, yes, I do. In fact, again, I hesitated, but I went forward anyway in the book with stories about Foster and Bill.

People put them on a pedestal And Foster certainly deserves to be there. But there were some oddities in the family. And we were doing an intermission feature once. And luckily, we were taping it because Dave Hodge was in charge. And he said, guys, we're going to have a panel. And like they do today on the intermission each guy picked a highlight of the first half of this season and brian what will your highlight be and i said well i think jeffrey on going for 40 gold or whatever blah blah blah and uh jack dennett what will your high and he named

a highlight and foster what is your highlight he said i think my radio station going to 50,000 watts. And there was dead silence. And luckily we were taping it, it could start over again. And Hodge, in his inimitable way, said, Foster, could you think of a hockey highlight? And Bill was a wonder to work with in the gondola too. My first year with him, in fact, in the very first game I did with Bill, the puck went along behind Bauer right along the goal line and trickled out of the goal. And he said to me, Brian, as you know, any part of that puck on the line,

it's a goal. And I was in shock because here I am, a rookie in the gondola, and Bill went to a commercial. I said, Bill, you made a little mistake there. The puck has to be all the way over the line to count. He said, no, it doesn't. Here's the rule book, Bill. Luckily, I carried a rule book with me, Rule 33C, and I held it up and he read it.

And he said, well, they've changed that rule. And he'd been doing games for seven, eight years, I guess. And I was astonished that he didn't say, absolutely, Brian, it has to be over the line. And there were all kinds of incidents that happened. They brought in a new rule. You may remember the Billy Smith rule. You've got a half inch of white tape on the knob of the gold stick. And I would say, I'd have to nudge Billy to get his attention and he'd turn. And I'd say, Billy, they have a new rule this year. It's called the Billy Smith rule. Half an inch of, and I would demonstrate, you know, winding the tape around the knob

of the stick, half an inch of white tape. And he said, that's right, Brian. And they also have this rule about the tape on the gold stick. And I said, didn't I just say that? And I had a vision of people all across Canada falling off balls, bar stools, laughing. What are those two idiots talking about up there? So those things happen somewhat regularly.

And in 17 years working with Bill, I had maybe a glass of beer with him once or twice. And he just vanished after games and never took part in any of the post-game, you know, and never took part in any of the post-game, you know, guys going to the bar or going to the dressing room to talk to Keon about scoring three goals. He never went into a dressing room. And it was kind of hard to work with him, but he was a very nice man. I mean, he would never, he was gentle.

He would never badmouth anybody. He just lived a life. I don't think he wanted to be a broadcaster. Foster turned him into a broadcaster. And Billy loved the outdoors. He would have been a great game warden or a fishing guide, I thought. So all those years went by. I never saw his home, never met his family.

So all those years went by. I never saw his home, never met his family. They did put his son on Young Canada Night one Christmas, and it was so bad, I said, Alnett, don't ever have me get in a broadcast position where I'm talking to that kid again. That was the only time he appeared, I guess. So stories like that come to mind. Well, here we are talking about Hockey Night in Canada,

and I'm wondering if you would take a moment and just help us understand, how did you end up? How does Brian McFarlane end up on Hockey Night in Canada? Well, I came up from Schenectady, New York, where I had two years on television doing the late night sports and they kind of closed that down. I was married. We had a four month old baby. I got a U-Haul and a trailer and I put everything in there and moved to Canada thinking I'd get on hockey night in Canada. Well, we were broke. We really broke. We rented a bare apartment. We were eating off cardboard boxes and a bridge table.

We had a bed. I held it together with hockey tape around one leg. And who moved into our apartment building but the sports director of the CBC. He lived right below us in the apartment, George Retzlaff. CBC. He lived right below us in the apartment, George Retzlaff. My wife, Joan and Nina Retzlaff arranged to do the laundry together in the basement. And Joan said, you know, my husband's a pretty good sportscaster, Nina, and your dad, your husband may think about him. And she said, well, I'll make sure he does. And he offered me a job 60 bucks or 50 bucks to do the sports one night. And I called every advertising agency in town and the radio stations and said, if you're up late tonight, you might want to tune that in.

And CFRB called the next day and offered me a job as a sportscaster. But somebody gave me pretty good advice and said, never let them know you're down and out. Don't talk about eating off the card table. So they offered me a hundred dollars a week to do the late sports. And I said, well, I'm just beginning to hit it pretty good in the freelance field. I'm pretty darn busy. Could you maybe sweeten the pot a bit and I'll check my calendar and see if I can work this in. And they said, okay, well, Sinclair doesn't come in and do a newscast on Saturday.

You could do two hours of disc jockey work and we'll make it 130 a week. And I said, let me think about it and get back to you. And I almost did cartwheels down Door Street and I phoned them back saying, I've checked my calendar. It was blank, nothing on that calendar, except a few little commercial jobs or modeling assignments, that sort of thing.

So that's how I got started. And at that year, I auditioned for Hockey Night in Canada and they told me I was too young. They wanted Ward Cornell. So I said, well, that's okay because CBS just phoned and they have offered me to do their NHL game of the week for this season. And it was a look of shock on their faces when I told them that, but it was true. So I flew off to CBS every Saturday and Sunday and did a game of the week, the first Canadian ever to appear on U.S. hockey telecasts.

And I worked with an interesting guy named Chet Forty. He was an All-American basketball player at Columbia, and he was my gopher. He'd go get my guests for me, and we got to be good buddies. And I followed his career. He got to do Monday night football with Gifford, and he made a million dollars a year as a director, and he got a gambling habit, and he lost his house, his family, his reputation. He was almost went to

jail and for a guy to get addicted to gambling and ruin his whole life, he moved to San Diego at age 60 and died out there of a heart attack as a sports disc jockey or something and uh i felt so sad about chet 40 and one of the few guys in my life that i saw just destroy himself and thought it was just just pathetic yeah so so mike as a as a as a man from the previous generation, Mike, what's your for Ward as host of Hockey Night in Canada, but they didn't like his mustache. And I guess Dave Hodge ended up with this gig. But I realized I have zero, I don't think I've ever seen Ward on Hockey Night in Canada. Yeah, well, Ward was a nice man, but he didn't know hockey.

He loved football. a nice man, but he didn't know hockey. He loved football. We had to drag him away from Nebraska playing Oklahoma on Saturday afternoon to get into the studio and do a hockey game. And I was really annoyed with Ward because he didn't have a passion for the game like I feel is, well, it's prerequisite. Ron McLean has a passion for the game, Hodge and I, and Bill didn't have that same passion and Ward didn't have it. And I always say, why would they hire a guy to do Hockey Night in Canada if he really didn't care that much whether Montreal finished on top or the Leafs made the playoffs or Sittler scored 10 points? He was a sex symbol, Brian.

Yeah. But, you know, I didn't finish the story how I got to be with Hockey Night because I went to Montreal as sports director of a new TV station, hired Dick Irvin, came back. And I was working for Johnny Esau at CFTO, and I was going through pretty much a nervous breakdown. I had it in Montreal, and I couldn't figure what was wrong with me. I couldn't breathe properly on camera. I was covering up with photos and film. And Morley

Kells, a lacrosse guy, took me to lunch one day and he said, I work for McLaren Advertising. Have you got any good ideas for our intermissions? And I said, yeah, you should have a hockey program for kids. You just stop at the ESO dealer. You get $10 worth of gas, and your kid can get a photo of Dave Keon and blah, blah, blah. And he said, I like that idea. And they took it to McLaren's, and they liked it too. So they hired me away.

I was only making $8,000 a year at CFTO. And they offered me $20,000 a year to run the ESSO National Hockey College, which never, ever came to be. But I was there running around trying to get this thing organized for the intermission. But the ESSO people were saying, our Tiger in the Tank campaign is still going pretty strong. Why would we want to introduce something else? So they put it off and put it off. And I said, look, I see what you're doing here. Why don't I start my own little company and produce intermission features for you? I'll hire a cameraman. And if you need me in any time, you can put me up in the gondola with Bill Hewitt. So when the Tiger and Tank kept going and the ESO college sort of faltered,

that's what they did. They put me up there. Now, before they did, the boss at Hockey Night said, why don't you come and be my assistant, and maybe someday you'll be the head of Hockey Night in Canada. And can you believe I turned him down? I said, well, that doesn't sound too appealing to me. I love the action, watching the games and commenting.

So Ralph Mellenby stepped in. I recommended him for that job. And I kept on. May have been the most foolish decision I ever made, but I don't think so. I think I made the good call. And I went up. So they put me in the gondola because I guess they didn't know what else to do with me. put me in the gondola because I guess they didn't know what else to do with me.

And they told me the first game, you should speak three times a period and no more. And I said, what, I have a quota on my comments? Well, that doesn't matter. What if there are four goals scored in the first 10 minutes? We'll speak about three of them. And I said, get out of here. So I broke that edict in the first five minutes, I guess. out of here so I broke that edict in the first five minutes I guess and I I had my difficulties with with my bosses and with Harold Ballard of course anything I said about against the Leafs

was trigger an irate response from Ballard and he'd accost me in the corridor after the game anymore you're pro Philadelphia comments you'll never get in my building again as long as you live. Harold, can we go over here and talk now? No, talk about it. Just lay off all that BS about the Flyers. And so I had to take those torrents of abuse from Ballard over the years. Well, can I ask a gondola question, Brian? I was in the first time I went to the gardens, it was just cigar smoke and cigarette smoke everywhere. And I wonder, being up in the rafters like that, it must have smelled up there something awful in that little thing. Oh, it wasn't too bad. But the big thing, there was no place to take a pee up there.

If you went up there at 5 o'clock to test microphones and then warm them up in the game and it goes to two periods of overtime you're in pretty desperate shape and nobody had a paper cup or a so now it's all polished and big league and even getting to the gauntlet people were frightened to get out there and go along that catwalk. And George Raft almost panicked. The tough guy movie actor, he just fell on his face trying to get out on that catwalk. And Con Smythe was never in the gondola.

He would never go up there. But it was an adventure. And to me, I was the luckiest guy in the world. I said, I'm living the dream of every hockey guy in Canada being able to do Leaf games. And despite all the problems I had, I was lucky to survive 25 years. I mean, they fired me about four times for things I said, and then Hodge would have to come to my assistance and Dick Beddoes, especially when they got so angry with Sittler. And I'd just written a book with Sittler, and he was a pretty classy guy too.

And I defended him on the air one night, knowing full well it wasn't going to go over well with Von Schimlach and Ballard and Mike Nicoluk. And sure enough, I was fired the next day, but Hodge and Beto said, well, Harold, he didn't really mean it. So they let me do a feature here and there. And then they said, you can go to Winnipeg Jets games for four years, and then you can go to Montreal, do four years there.

So the only time I was back was on Hall of Fame night when Bill Torrey and I went in together and they had us on the telecast. I've never been to much of a game, maybe one or two games since then. I don't know if Dunk warned you, but I'm kind of fascinated by the Harold Ballard stories. So every time I have a guest on who had an interaction with Harold Ballard, be it a Gord Stelic or a Dave Hodge or a, you name it, Ken Daniels. I ask about, or Mary Hormsby and Paul Hunter actually visited my backyard last summer and I would just want to talk about Harold.

So I know you touched on a couple of altercations, if you will, with our pal Hal, but any more Ballard stories, like just what it was like, you know, covering the Leafs at a time when Ballard ruled with like just what it was like, you know, covering the Leafs at a time when Ballard ruled with that iron fist? Well, yes. In 68, Hockey Night wanted to use Bogbo Goldum in my place. And Goldie said, I won't take the job if I'm going to replace a friend. And so they found

a place for two of us. But in the meantime, I got a job with Harold in public relations. I told him how sick his public relations was. And he hired me at, I think it was $7,500 a year. We were the lowest paid public relation guys in the history of the NHL, Stan Abodiak and myself. And Stan was angry that I came in and was working alongside him. And so Ballard said, I can't name you my public relations director because Stan will get upset. So I'll find another title for you. What he never did. I worked, I think, nine months and I just said, I've got to get out of here. I'd go to him, for example, and say, Harold, you can't go on the air and say no women in the press box. The women's movement is in full force and you're going to be picketed by ladies and placards. And he said, let's get one thing straight, McFarland, no effing women in the press box.

And he walked away and I said, well, OK, I've got to call Harold this week. There are six mentally challenged kids who've never seen a Leaf game. They're well behaved. They're well monitored. Could they just sit up there in the gondola? There's a little space for six people. He said, I don't want the idiots falling out on the ice. and I, you can imagine the shock of that comment, and so I kind of gave up in public relations, and I don't know to this day whether I was fired or quit, I just planned a vacation, we planned to take our kids to see all of Canada, first all the way to Tofino, British Columbia, one summer, and then to Newfoundland the next. And we were sitting around the campfire around Canora, I guess it was, and I said to my wife, you know, I'm not going back to the gardens. She said, well, don't you have a job there anymore? And I said, I don't know.

Were you fired? I don't think so. Well, did you quit? Not really. She said, well, don't go so well did you quit not really she's well don't go back then because i i'd rather sell pots and pans toward the door which i seriously considered um so i never went back and i still don't know whether i was ever fired or quit i think somebody said they're thinking of closing down that department well that was enough of a clue, I guess. I think the most difficult job in all of hockey is being Harold Ballard's PR representative.

I think that's... Yeah, he was difficult. Yeah. Oh, I put a Peter Puck on the back of a book once. And the photographer, Peter Puck, was in Bill Flett's beard. And he was coming out of Bill Flett's big bushy beard but I had the Leaf logo on the jersey and I gave Harold a free copy of the new book it was just out Peter Puck's whatever greatest moments and he looked at it he turned it to the back cover and he said that's my logo that's my leaf logo and you

got your stupid Peter Puck coming out of there I'm gonna sue your publisher for 50,000 bucks here I've just given him a free book and he's gonna sue my publisher so I said well you gotta sue me Harold I that was my idea and I told them to crop the photo so the leaf logo didn't show i guess they forgot is okay and he mumbled something and walked away so nobody got sued well let's talk about peter puck if you don't mind uh because i think most people think you you invented peter puck but can you give us the uh the straight goods on like how you ended up as the uh the the curator of the peter puck oh well that's a long story all my stories are long story i love them i love these stories by the way so thank you i had three wonderful years with nbc that was the best years of working with ted lindsey and tim ryan and a boss

that i really love and and they let me do a lot on those shows. And Peter Puck was invented by really NBC management or sports management. They went to Hanna-Barbera. And I talked to Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna later. And they said, well, the name just came off our lips. Joe Barbera was the one who said, we'll give you Peter Puck. So they created 45 minutes of animated film about. And they asked me to go to Hollywood and bring my books along and leave literature. What are offsides and icings in the history of the Stanley Cup?

What the referee does? So I was kind of co-creator, but I never claimed to be the creator. They always claimed that. But I did buy the Canadian rights to Peter Puck. And we did two or three books. And I had him in costume. And I had him the Canadian rights to Peter Puck. And we did two or three books. And I had him in costume. And I had him in the Eaton's Parade. And we were doing some promotions. And eventually, I bought the worldwide rights with a partner who left me with a quarter of a million dollars debt within the first year with his bad decisions and his fancy ideas. My wife warned me

about him. You sure you can trust this guy? And I said, don't bring that. He's a good guy. He'll do fine. Don't worry about him. Well, we ended up worrying about him a lot. And we paid off that debt in two years. We had a monster style number of books published here in Canada, and they weren't being distributed properly because of this bad decision making by my partner. So I phoned the storage place where they were because we had to get some money somewhere. because we had to get some money somewhere. And they said, Brian, we hate to tell you this, but somebody burned all your books by mistake or shredded them up here a few weeks ago. And I was in shock, but my wife was on the other line. And she said, you have insurance? They said, yes, we do. I think we got $90,000 in insurance for the books that were destroyed. And we paid off a lot of our debts and we worked hard and we got Peter out there and we sold permissions, I guess, to use Peter here and there. Sure, licensing and all that.

We had him pretty busy. But then I found with the internet, everybody was stealing Peter Puck from us. Nobody ever paid any royalties. We had a marketing firm. He was in Eaton's, and he was in Sears, and he had board games, and he had books, and he had T-shirts, thousands of T-shirts. We never got any payment in royalties. People just said, well, nobody paid us or we didn't. You can come and examine our books.

And I said, let's do that. And he said, well, not today, not tomorrow, and not next week either. We're pretty busy and the guy's away. There was always an excuse. So Peter Puck was never very profitable for us. We had him in a hockey museum over in Niagara Falls and places. And he's still getting a lot of attention. I had a guy from Florida wanting to buy him from me just a month ago, and I don't even think I have any ownership anymore. But who knows? It's just a botched

enterprise from the get-go. I don't even think Hannah Barbera owns Peter Puck. They claim they do, but I'd like to see proof of that. Interesting. So are you sure you don't own Peter Puck? Are you sure of that? Not sure. And NBC's not sure, because I went to NBC, and I had good contacts there. The guy that officially sanctioned Peter Puck from Hanna-Barbera said, Brian, I don't own any rights and I don't think NBC owns any rights, so where does that leave us all? But when I talked to Hanna-Barbera, they said, no, NBC does own rights. We don't own any rights.

You'd have to be a wizard to figure all that out. So two thoughts here. One is, are you sure your wife didn't start that fire? I'm sorry? Are you certain that your wife didn't start that fire that got you the insurance money? Yeah, no. But I don't know. She does have a lighter with her and some matches.

Because that's genius. And secondly, just to let you know, as a guy in his mid-40s, Peter Puck was very important to me understanding offsides and icings and all of this when I was very young. I loved Peter Puck. Yeah. Well, everybody seemed to love Peter Puck. And then I had a penny puck

too for the women in hockey, and she never really... But my wife did something really amazing peter's costume we had it at the hockey hall of fame one night and and that was women's night they were honoring some of the women so she got a big pair of black eyelashes and put them on peter and put a big red bow on his head and the transformation gender transformation was instant. There was Penny Puck in full glory parading around the Hockey Hall of Fame. Like Miss Pac-Man. Banjo Dunk, what are your Peter Puck memories?

Like, I'm just curious because I spoke as a guy in his mid-40s, but what do you remember about Peter Puck? As a Canadian, I'm ashamed to say that I think I was in the middle generation where Peter Puck meant zero to me. I don't really know what the hell you guys are talking about. You got to Google it while we're talking here, but cause,

uh, late seventies, early eighties, I guess is when I was like soaking in like Peter Puck stuff. And, uh, yeah, Peter Puck seemed to be everywhere at that time.

So I miss him. I have no memory of, uh, of that. I must've been, stuff. And yeah, Peter Puck seemed to be everywhere at that time. I miss him. I have no memory of that. I must have been high on pot or something. I don't know. Brian, could you share with me any memories of Gordie Howe? Just such a great legend no longer with us. But talk to me about Gord. First time I met Gordie, he turned me down for an interview. I was with CFRB. I went down to the Royal York Hotel and there he was standing there twiddling his thumbs

in the lobby. Gordy, could I have a quick interview with you for my sports show tonight? He didn't know me from Adam. So he said, well, I think you better speak to the coach about that, Sid Abel. And he might be around somewhere and I couldn't find Sid Abel. So I have that memory. Then the first guest I had on NBC was Gordie Howe, of course. And he didn't show up.

I was already nervously waiting with my skates on. I did all my interviews on skates on NBC. And no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going back to CBS when I did the skates. And Gordy was my first guest. And who came skating out but a red haired guy. And I said, that's not Gordy. That must be Red Kelly. He's the only red head I know in Detroit. So Red came over and he said, Gordy hurt his arm in the first period. He didn't want to come on, so I'm here. And I have my questions already for Gordy. I don't know what I said to Red, but he must have helped me get through

that little three-minute thing, and he must have shown me how to take a player. Because with the skates on, I would naturally say, well, if I'm coming down on you as I'm going to, how do you take me out of the play? Because CBS wanted all that stuff in their intermissions. So I did a lot of that with Bobby Hull, his slap shot and things. But getting back to Gordy, he was maybe too easygoing. I have a good Johnny Bauer story about Gordy's and they went fishing together out in Saskatchewan. He said, we fished all day and he caught a big walker of a fish and we fried

it up over the campfire. And he said, he ate it all. He didn't give me any, just some bones sitting there. And I always thought that I could just see Bauer sitting there licking his lips over this fish that he never got. Stories like that I like to collect. Oh, speaking of Bauer, his 80th birthday party, George Armstrong never goes to events or seldom goes. He showed up, of course, and I heard all the ladies talking to George and laughing. So on the way home, I said to my wife, what was all that laughter about coming out of that group? She said, oh, you wouldn't believe it. George was telling us how he doesn't like to sign autographs and people are always bothering him. And he said, this kid came up to me, Mr. Armstrong,

will you sign my cap? He said, okay, I'll sign your cap. And he said, how about my shirt? Will you sign my shirt right here, sir? Put best wishes on it. He said, okay, I'll sign your shirt. I bet you'd like me to sign your ass. He said, would you, sir? He said, come over here and drop your drawers. He said, kid came over, dropped his drawers, and George wrote on his butt in a magic marker, Johnny Bauer. So I knew why they were laughing. Oh, Dunk, you're right. This is amazing, buddy. You are darn

right here. And I have an idea. I have an idea that when this memoir is released in bookstores, we do a sequel. If you're game, Brian, we do this again to help promote the book. What do you think of that idea? I'm game for anything. I'm the guy that never sees

anybody anymore. I think people think I passed away about 10 years ago. I used to do a lot of speeches. I don't even get invited to the morning social events. Maybe a coffee get-together at Tim Hortons is about the extent of it now. I shouldn't feel resentful. I had a good run at it. I don't need to feel... Well, you're not done yet, Brian. I think I'll title this episode, He's Not Dead Yet. My conversation. I'm looking for another book title, and that might be it.

Or the final chapter doesn't suit. But He's Not Dead Yet, that could be good. I want to ask about your painting. But first, I want to give Dunk a chance. Dunk, since you've been lucky enough to have so many more conversations with Brian than I've had, are there any other greatest hits that you'd love for Brian to share right now while he hasn't got bored of us yet? No, it's the older generation.

When I was seven or 8 years old watching Hockey Night in Canada Ward Cornell and Ed Fitkin and all of these really boring guys that really defined gave me the passion for hockey that I had so the only thing I can say is there another

Ed Fitkin is my memory was the very first broadcaster that played replays which which was very, so exciting in those days. That was 1966, I think. We had color TV, 66, 67 season, I think. And that was a revolution. And then to be able to bring in highlights from the Montreal Forum, that just astonished people.

And now they take everything like that so much for granted. And the evolution of the game has been wonderful to watch. The players are bigger and stronger and faster and more. And they do little things like I was a pretty good hockey player, Duncan, and I look at the little shifts they make trying to go around the little stutter steps we never thought nobody ever thought of doing anything like that no coach ever said why don't you try this or that the coaching was well you play with this guy and that guy and just play the game and The game has improved so much from a coaching standpoint,

and it's spread around the world now. We Canadians used to dominate the hockey world, and it's so good to see it exported, all over the play it in Africa and Australia, New Zealand, everywhere. I have one more question, Brian. In regards to Punch Imlach and the power that this one individual had, the power to basically make or break a player. If he, for some reason, didn't like somebody,

then he'd spend the rest of his career in the minors or whatever. There must be lots of stories about that kind of thing. Oh, yes, yes. Well, Don Cherry had a guy in Rochester, and his daughter said, Don is the coach of the team, banned him from going into this bar, the Orange Monkey or something,

and one of the players went in there, the captain of his team, leading scorer. He was gone the next day and and uh cindy said he never we never heard of him again and don said i told him not to go into that bar and i caught him and he was gone and at the nhl level too you didn't say you didn't speak up uh even gordy when when ted lindsey started the players Players Association and Jack Adams got irate and he went to the press with a contract he'd manufactured, Lindsay getting $25,000 a year. And he showed all the reporters, see how greedy Lindsay is?

Well, Lindsay was making $13,000 a year, legitimately. And now the managers and coaches just conspired to keep these guys under their thumb. So they traded Lindsey to Chicago last place. Glenn Hall went to Chicago because he spoke up defending Lindsey. And here Chicago gets two future Hall of Famers. Detroit goes down the tubes with their goaltending for about 10 years. And that's the kind of decision-making they had and the power they had over the players. You know, a player would sign a contract. He wasn't allowed to have his father join him in the discussion or an agent certainly never Alan Eagleson would shun from the building and,

and how they had this clout for so many years and they controlled all the finances and the insurance plan and the pension plan that Clarence Campbell says, this is so great, this pension plan we have. And the guys found out later there was like $40 million in a surplus fund that they had to go to court and fight for. You know, people don't speak highly of Gary Bettman often. I think he's just been a wonderful addition to the NHL and made it a first class top four league with proper pensions and proper payments and proper expansion plans. And I think he's just a marvelous job.

And they boo him everywhere he goes. And if you meet him, he'd be the nicest guy you'd meet when you meet him socially. So all of those changes I take in stride. I'll talk your ear off today. Well, Brian, I'm curious. So do you still tune in on a Saturday night to watch Leafs versus Habs? Is that something you'll do?

I watched last night, and I enjoy it. But if it's 6-0, I'm not going to watch the rest of the game. I can write an article or go to my computer or paint my pictures. And I don't go to the games anymore and i don't know the players there's all these oddball names coming up now and uh this kid beeksa kevin i like him i like i'm writing about some of them but you know some of them i don't even know and i noticed last night they have the gen the generation and the young lady that's going to be a broadcaster someday. She was there with Chris Simpson. There was a veteran commentator with a

young girl who looked like she was about 18 years old. And I said, that's a good idea. I never would have thought of that. Yeah. And I noticed even the overlays, the chyrons were done sort of like kids writing. I noticed. Yeah. And I think she was overlays, the chyrons were done sort of like kids writing, I noticed. Yeah, and I think she was probably much younger than that. She might have been like 14 or something like that. But I got a question from a fan of yours, Paul Hockyard, and Paul writes, let me get this question right, as always, thank you, and ask him how,

now that Brian's no longer on Hockey Night in Canada, is he a Montreal Canadiens fan or a Leafs fan? Well, when I was working, I tried not to be a fan of any team. But obviously, when you're doing Toronto Maple Leafs games and they're struggling, and when I was a little kid, I had a Maple Leafs sweater. My mother cut out a felt number 10 to put on the back because of the laps. And so I always considered myself a Leaf fan, but I was a great admirer of those Montreal teams too.

When you've got Deleval and the Rocket and Jeffrey on Dickie Moore and Jacques Plante in goal and Harvey on defense, how could you not say those guys really know how to play the game? And it was much like the Boston Bruins with Orr and Espo and Cheevers and, oh, they had so much talent, you get sort of wrapped up in a team that really knows how to play the game. So I was accused of being Mr. Maple Leaf from time to time, and it didn't bother me too much, but Melanby defended me. He was never a Maple Leaf. He was a hockey guy, and he did the broadcast, and he didn't take sides and that sort of thing. So I appreciated that. Now, Brian, before we say goodbye, and again, we're going to do a sequel when this book is out, because we're leaving a lot of good stories on the table here. But please tell me a little bit

about this passion of yours, painting. Again, I see evidence of the work behind our friend Banjo Dunk here. Tell me, is it just a hobby or do you sell these paintings? Oh, no. I was attracted to painting when I was a teenager. And I went to take artists from a famous painter in Ottawa, Henri Masson, and he put some fruit on a plate in front of me and he said, paint that. And he went to dinner. So I painted it and he came back and he said, that's really good. You've got to continue. And I was on the football team and I went to practice one day and the said that's really good you've got to continue and I was on the

football team and I went to practice one day and the coach said where were you yesterday McFarland sure I was at art class 50 cents a lesson Henri Massa I have to go every Wednesday we don't want any artists on our team and I need you in my backfield so he didn't he didn't really need me I wasn't a very good football player and I kind of resented that I gave up art for him and for football. And it was a stupid thing to do because I didn't get back to it for 30 years and then 50 years. And I always had it in my mind that I could paint. And now I'm painting. And I sold 11 paintings in 24 hours two weeks ago. Wow. I'm painting and I'm sell. I sold 11 paintings in 24 hours, two weeks ago.

Wow. I'm not even advertising and I can't advertise. I can't go to shows and I've got 300 paintings in behind me here now that I don't know what to do with. I've got another 200 out in my country place. I don't know what to do with. And, and one guy came by the other day and bought two paintings for his four-year-old kid and paid me 500 bucks each for them.

Wow. Okay. Maybe he's blind. Well, Brian, this is our opportunity. You know, a lot of people are going to be hearing us have this conversation. And if anybody wants Brian McFarlane art, again, it looks like the group of seven painted these,

these are beautiful. Like what should they do? Like, is there any web? I have no idea how to tell them. I hate to give you my phone number. No, I don't.

Yeah. Don't do that. How about this? Okay. So I'll have them email me and I'll get the email to you as well. So this is it. If anybody out there is interested in buying, these are wonderful paintings by Brian McFarlane, write me. I'm

Mike at TorontoMike.com. So there's your call to action. I'll find out how to get this message to Brian. So that's what we'll do. But fantastic. And Brian, again, I know you think you talked our ear off. I could do several more hours of this. So I really hope this is part one and that there's a sequel because I absolutely love this. So thank you. That's so nice of you to say that. It's so nice to be considered for a show like this and to be phone. I was anxious to get on here this morning and made sure my wife had

everything set up and I hope it went well and I appreciate being invited. And thank you, Banjo Dunk, for co-hosting with me and for helping to arrange this. This was wonderful, my friend. Oh, you're muted, I think. Oh, you're still muted, Mr. Banjo Dunk. There, I just pushed that button. It was great fun, Brian. And say hi to lovely john for me

well duncan we've bonded and we're good buddies now for the rest of the time we're together okay good stuff and that brings us to the end of our 826th show you can follow me on twitter i'm at toronto mike i'll get your messages to Brian but Banjo Dunk remind us what is your Twitter handle? Banjo Dunk that's D-U-N-C as in Dunk and Fremlin

and if anybody wants a copy of his great book My Good Times of Stompin' Tom it's a fantastic read everybody I've given a copy to has told me they loved it so contact Dunk for that as well our friends at Great Lakes Brewery, they're at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta, they're at Palma

Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. CDN Technologies are at CDN Technologies. Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Mimico Mike, he's on Instagram at Majeski Group Homes. See you all next week. Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls.

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