‘THE LAST NIGHT HE PLAYED HOCKEY’
Ron Joyce remembers commissioning Tim Horton painting from Ken Danby
BEFORE YOU REALIZE IT’S HAPPENING, your eyes are locked with his. Which feels a little odd since he’s two-dimensional and made from oil spread on canvas.
The perfect “At The Crease” hangs nearby at the Art Galley of Hamilton. As does “Lacing Up.” Both are iconic Canadian images that have a permanent home in the imaginations of hockey fans. But Tim Horton, standing handsomely in his Toronto Maple Leafs’ sweater as imagined by legendary artist Ken Danby, is a magnet. Especially in this town.
The work is just so realistic — and surprisingly, so nearly life-sized — that it feels as though the familiar man whose coffee you drink every day is staring right back at you. Still, Ron Joyce doesn’t usually notice. When he glances at the painting of his old business partner, he looks slightly to the right of centre. That’s where a second, more ghostly image of Horton gazes
He gave no instructions. Didn’t even tell him to use the image from the last game. Just do something amazing.
over your shoulder and past you. This Tim Horton is 44 years old, slightly less chiselled and wearing the blue and gold of the 1974 Buffalo Sabres.
“That was the last night he played hockey,” Joyce says.
That evening’s game was at Maple Leaf Gardens where Horton had become a star defenceman before moving on to the New York Rangers, Pittsburgh Penguins and finally the Sabres. He was no longer the superstar he’d been but he could still contribute.
During practice the day before, a wayward puck had slammed into the point of his granite jaw. It caused swelling and bruising but he was determined to play the next night in front of many family and friends. Which he did, though he lasted just two periods.
After the game, he was supposed to meet Joyce and some investors from the East Coast at a Toronto restaurant to discuss expanding the business to Prince Edward Island. He never showed up. Yet when Joyce popped in at the company’s head office in Oakville a couple hours later, there was Horton. Sitting in the dark in a big coat, wearing his driving gloves and holding a giant bag of ice to his face.
They chatted for a while. The businessman recalls teasing the player about the ice and being told in no uncertain terms by Horton how much his jaw hurt.
“That was the last time I saw him,” Joyce says.
It was hours later that the phone rang. Buffalo general manager Punch Imlach was on the other end asking Joyce to call Horton’s family to let them know there had been an accident. The seemingly indestructible defenceman had been racing back to Buffalo in his Italian sports car when he lost control at high speed — reports at the time said he was going at least 160 km/h — rolled the vehicle and was ejected.
In later years we learned his blood-alcohol level was twice the legal limit. But Joyce knew none of that when he took Imlach’s call.
“How bad is it?” the former police officer asked the GM.
“He’s dead,” Imlach answered.
THIRTY-TWO
YEARS later Joyce still halts when describing that night. It was awful.
The years that followed saw massive growth in the company. But Joyce was always bothered by one thing. The print of a painting of Horton that hung in each of the stores wasn’t to his liking. It wasn’t terrible, it just wasn’t great, he felt. So in 1992 he commissioned Danby to come up with something else.
The instructions he gave were, well, he gave no instructions. Didn’t even tell him to use the image from the last game. Just do something amazing. He doesn’t even recall how much he paid. Yet he certainly remembers exactly what he thought and felt the first time he saw the unveiled work.
“Oh, I thought it was fantastic,” he says. “It’s a painting but it’s almost a photograph.”
In typical Danby fashion, it certainly is. The three images of Horton — yes, there’s a third as well from late in his Leafs career — show a maturing man at various stages of his professional life. Look closely enough at the Sabres Horton and you can even see the swelling on his jaw.
While some critics blanch at the work (“Olympic gold medal swimmer Alex Baumann’s portrait, waist-deep in the pool, is topped for pure cheese here only by one of late Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Tim Horton, painted in cringeworthy, ghostly triplicate,” scolds Murray Whyte in the Toronto Star. The public seems quite entranced by it. Gallery CEO Shelley Falconer says the Danby exhibition, which runs until Jan. 15, is drawing big crowds. With most visitors stopping for a close look at the portrait.
At one point, posters of the image were hung in each store. But a disagreement with Mrs. Horton that Joyce doesn’t want to get into saw them eventually come down. Still, people of a certain vintage almost certainly remember it.
The original found a home in a hallway at the corporate office on a well-lit wall. Where Joyce sees it often, though usually glancing at the Horton on the right. Would he ever sell it? The question isn’t even fully asked before he answers.
“No.”
sradley@thespec.com 905-526-2440 | @radleyatthespec Spectator columnist Scott Radley hosts The Scott Radley Show weeknights 7 to 9 on 900CHML