Leaf legend remembers team’s ‘healer’
Karl Elieff was among unsung heroes for team that won Cups in ’60s
During the Maple Leafs’ run of four Stanley Cup championships in the 1960s, Johnny Bower sometimes suffered from a sore left hand. It wasn’t enough to keep him out of games, but an advantage for opponents to exploit — if they found out.
“No one knew about it,” Bower recalled Wednesday.
No one but Karl Elieff, the Leafs’ physiotherapist at the time.
Bower, like many Leafs of the day, trusted Elieff completely. Players called him “the healer.” And so it was that Bower, with sadness, spoke after learning his former colleague had died last month.
“Ah gee, that’s too bad. He was a great guy. Everyone got along with him,” Bower said. “He knew what had to be done with us players. When he treated you, you knew he knew what he was doing. What can you say. He was like a doctor to us. He helped me a great deal.”
Elieff, born just after Christmas in 1924, passed away peacefully and surrounded by family. No other details were available.
The Leafs, like many NHL teams, have unsung caretakers — in the dressing room, on the medical staff — who play important roles almost every day of the season.
Elieff served through all four Leaf championships in the ’60s and earned a role with Team Canada at the 1972 Summit Series against Russia. When the Canadian team assembled in Toronto for Game 2 of the September showdown, his task was to work on Bobby Orr, who suffered a serious knee problem after leading Boston to the Cup the previous May.
Elieff maintained an office on Parliament St. in the ’60s, and several Leafs were regular clients including former captain George Armstrong.
“He’d always have apple strudel there for us,” Armstrong joked Wednesday. “It was always good, too, and I don’t know what was better: the treatments or the strudel.
“He was a great guy. He was very good at what he did. We players didn’t know that at first, but we found out pretty quick. There’d be a few of the players at his office all the time . . . we were always happy to go to see him.”