BOWER REPRESENTS A UNIQUE FIGURE IN HOCKEY LORE
Only one Maple Leafs legend could bring so many together for such a celebration
There will never be another Johnny Bower. There can’t be.
His story was too impossible, improbable. So different from anyone who came before him and from anyone we will ever know again.
It wasn’t just the 12 years he spent in the minor leagues before he grew into a Toronto Maple Leafs legend who won Stanley Cups. It wasn’t just the years in Cleveland where he thought sportswriters would have trouble writing his real name — he changed his last name from Kiszkan to Bower.
It wasn’t just that he lied about his age to enter the Canadian Army at 14 during the Second World War and returned in time to still play junior hockey.
It wasn’t just the past half-century he spent signing autographs and shaking hands and making appearances as the face of the Maple Leafs.
It was all that and so much more. A life and then some. All of it captured wonderfully by the memorial service and celebration of his life at the Air Canada Centre on Wednesday afternoon that had you laughing and crying and smiling.
And thankful for the little bit we knew about the man. We cared for him, cared about him, were touched in our own way by his humility, his humour, his handshake. And for 93 years, he made others feel better about themselves after meeting him.
When will the Leafs have reason to do this kind of personal, sad and poignant celebration again? Who knows if they ever will? Because this is a once-in-alifetime occurrence for a oncein-a-lifetime figure.
There hasn’t been another player in the Leafs’ 101 years who was more beloved. There hasn’t been a player — any player — who gave more back than was ever asked of him.
Dave Keon, never known for his words in his years in Toronto, may have said it best while speaking so eloquently Wednesday.
He said it “takes heart to win the Stanley Cups.” The Leafs won four of them with Bower. “Johnny was our soul.”
After the event, the Maple Leafs alumni gathered in reverence. Gary Bettman, the NHL commissioner, was there, and his associate Bill Daly. Lou Lamoriello was there talking in one corner and Mike Babcock in another and Brendan Shanahan, who has changed almost everything that matters in his time running the Leafs, was there, as were players in their alumni blazers, some stars, some lesser known, some scouts and coaches, from the 1960s through to the 1990s.
Only Johnny Bower could bring a group like this together for this kind of warmth on a cold winter’s day. He had a power he never completely understood yet never gave up on. People loved him and he loved them and that love survived through the best and worst of times — now getting back to the best of times for this hockey team.
The Leafs, frankly, through some of those years, have at times been something of an embarrassment. They couldn’t win on the ice, couldn’t bring people together off the ice, failed at all the little things, least of all the ceremony business.
But Tuesday night before the Tampa Bay game and then in the afternoon that followed, the Leafs took a place right behind the Montreal Canadiens, hockey’s clubhouse leaders in the celebration game, in how to do ceremony.
They hit all the right notes in Tuesday’s pre-game, then followed with Leafs radio voice Joe Bowen speaking. Then it was John Bower, the grandson, followed by the hockey players after Shanahan spoke, including Frank Mahovlich, Ron Ellis and the once-wayward Keon.
Keon told a story that hasn’t been told often over the years. The famous Bob Baun broken leg overtime game in 1964 is part of hockey history. The replays get shown every Stanley Cup season of Baun celebrating and limping simultaneously for his Game 6 winner.
Then Keon told the rest of the story.
The Leafs trailed 1-0 to Detroit on a night they could have lost the Stanley Cup. Larry Jeffrey, who would later be a Cup winner in Toronto, had a terrific chance to score in the second period to make it 2-0. But Bower made one of those athletic, impossible saves that he was so famous for in goal.
If he doesn’t make that save, there is no Cup that year, there is no Baun goal. There are no four Stanley Cups.
“Only teammates remember the save that got us into overtime,” Keon said.
Then Keon talked about the road that got Bower to the NHL. He called it bumpy, hard and long. Keon was a can’t-miss kid. So was Mahovlich. They were identified as stars as teenagers. Bower won his first Stanley Cup in the 1961-62 season after winning four American Hockey League titles.
That’s all part of the legend. Arriving late and then never leaving, a Maple Leaf for life. A long life so full of family and smiles. A life worthy of this kind of celebration.
A true end of an era.
His story was too impossible, improbable. So different from anyone who came before him and from anyone we will ever know again.