Hadfield’s family ties to Leafs revealed
Chris Hadfield has seen Leaf Nation — and every other nation on Earth — from 409,000 metres high.
He brought the logo of his favourite team aboard the International Space Station and uploaded their games to watch during his daily twohour treadmill work.
Yet from all that way in orbit, Hadfield was amazed to discover this past weekend how deep his family’s roots go with Toronto’s hockey team.
Family legend was his great grandfather, Sgt. Major Austin Hadfield, had a connection to club patriarch Conn Smythe, but never fully explored it. Until the Canadian astronaut was shown proof the drillmaster was the first physical training in- structor for the team in the mid 1930s, likely the first conditioning coach in the NHL. Pictures and news clips were presented to Hadfield and relatives by team historians Mike Wilson and Paul Patskou. Wilson’s Toronto ‘ museum’ is world’s largest private collection of Leaf memorabilia.
“There’s always a difference between family lore and reality,” said Hadfield. “You always have that feeling ‘ did this story grow over time?’ But it’s so delightful to see it’s all true.”
As Wilson and Patskou deduced, Smythe was looking for an edge on other teams to prepare for the 1935- 36 season. Having already advanced the idea of a minor league system, Smythe gathered veterans and prospects for camp at Preston and Galt, Ont., at present- day Cambridge.
“At that time, nobody trained ,” Wilson said. “Smythe told (goalie) George Hainsworth and the players, ‘ better come in shape, you’re in for a surprise’.”
Hadfield made more than 30 Leafs and farmhands rise at 7 a.m. for breakfast and “a stiff hour of physical torture” according to a newspaper report. The youngest Leafs included rookie Syl Apps.
Hadfield was described as ‘a huge chested martinet with army regulations written all over his frame’. He not only trained the players, he gleefully joined their exercises. So much so, he lost 15 pounds, while Smythe would partake, too.
“They were the first to carry other players on their backs, never mind the Russians doing it,” Wilson said. “If you were at the end of the group or did heavy panting, Hadfield made you do double time on the ice in the afternoon. If it rained they went inside the Galt Armoury to run starts and stops. Then you’d play nine holes of golf, have lunch, a short rest and do three hours on the ice.”
“I do remember talking to him, but he died when I was five or six (in the mid 1960s). It’s lovely to see that link strengthened here today,” Chris Hadfield said.