Farewell to ‘The Entertainer’
Leafs legend died Saturday after battle with throat cancer
Scrappy Leafs fan favourite Eddie Shack, who has died at 83, won four Stanley Cups with the team and had a colourful career off the ice.
They called him The Entertainer. They called him The Nose. You had to clear the track, because here came Eddie Shack. He could knock you down and give you a whack. He could score a goal, he had the knack.
And he had a knack for business as well as hockey, becoming a successful pitchman and entrepreneur in his post-playing days, despite never learning to read or write.
Shack, 83, died Saturday after a long battle with throat cancer.
The left-winger from Sudbury, Ont., who apprenticed to become a butcher, was born on Feb. 11, 1937. Though he started his NHL career as a New York Ranger and would play for six teams in a 16-year, 1,047-game career, Shack will always be associated with the Maple Leafs.
He could score. He could skate. He could make plays. And he could fight.
Shack was everything Leafs fans wanted in a hockey player. The fans at Maple Leaf Gardens loved him, and he loved them back.
“On the ice, he was a bulldozer and a bulldog,” said long-time defenceman Bobby Baun, Shack’s teammate during the Leafs dynasty of the 1960s. “He went out and did what he did, and you sure as hell didn’t know what he was going to do next.
“You just had to watch what he was doing. But the fans, they loved that.”
If the game was in the doldrums, fans would chant: “We want Shack!” The Entertainer would join in from the bench. The retort, attributed at times to Harold Ballard and Punch Imlach: “If they want you so much, go sit with them.”
He’d taunt the opposition’s tough guys — such as the Plager brothers in St. Louis or the Broad Street Bullies in Philadelphia — and then skate away, daring them to catch him. He said he could skate faster backward than they could forward. His post-goal celebrations also set an over-the-top standard long before today’s media-savvy players started doing “the celly.”
He played on four Stanley Cup winners — 1962, ’63, ’64 and ’67 — in his first go-round with the Leafs (1961-69) and was brought back to end his career (1973-75).
“He was a powerful skater,” said Darryl Sittler, the Leafs’ captain for Shack’s last season. “His body was thick, his forearms, and he could score goals. He did his thing. He had a role to play.
“If he wasn’t playing much, he was on the bench getting the crowd behind him into the game. He was always chirping the players. He was always having a good time. He had lots of fun. He enjoyed the game. He enjoyed life.”
Shack scored the Cup-winning goal in 1963, claiming famously that the puck went in off his backside and he was only trying to get out of the way.
During the 1965-66 season, he broke out with 26 goals on a line with Ron Ellis and Bob Pulford. His popularity was such that a novelty song in his honour — “Clear the Track, Here Comes Shack,” written by broadcaster Brian McFarlane and performed by Douglas Rankine with The Secrets — reached No. 1 and remained on the Canadian pop charts for nearly three months.
Shack was one of just a handful of players to score 20 goals in a season for five or more NHL teams. Ultimately, he played for the Rangers, Leafs, Boston Bruins, Los Angeles Kings, Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres. He finished with 239 goals, 226 assists and 1,439 penalty minutes. In 74 playoff games, he added six goals and seven assists.
When his playing career ended, his popularity continued to grow: as a pitchman for the Pop Shoppe, opening doughnut shops, selling Christmas trees and opening a golf course — all the while declaring he had “a nose for value.” He also had a legendary moustache, once shaved in a Schick razor ad.
Shack was also active with charities, through NHL and Leaf alumni causes.
“There are certain guys who are a little bit different, and he was one of them,” said former Leafs captain Doug Gilmour. “The song. The doughnut shop. He had a golf course. A guy that couldn’t read or write and he had his own businesses after hockey. He could do almost anything.”
Shack loved cars, telling the Star in 2007 that he’d owned a 1938 Dodge, a Meteor Rideau from the 1950s, a Mercury Cougar from the late 1960s, a Mercedes 450 SL from the 1970s, a Pontiac Grand Prix, various Pontiac and Chevrolet convertibles, a dune buggy, Cadillacs, Lincolns, a Lexus and an MG. A 1957 Plymouth convertible was his baby. His love for the dune buggy proved costly, once fined $175 after a police chase.
He was also part of a huge legal victory.
Shack was one of seven players who lent their names to a lawsuit against the league on behalf of retired players over misappropriated pension funds. He joined Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Carl Brewer, Allan Stanley, Andy Bathgate and Leo Reise in the successful case.
Shack was so popular that his biographer, Sportsnet anchor Ken Reid, wondered if he’d set some sort of record of most Canadians met.
“Everybody has an Eddie story and everybody seems to have met him in Canada,” said Reid. “When you met Eddie, he didn’t just scribble his name down for you, he gave you the experience. Even if it was 30 seconds or a minute, people left with a story, not just a signature. Eddie connected to a lot of people.
“I think Eddie’s up there right now having a good chuckle, because a lot of things Eddie did, he did it with a wink. He knew when people came to see him, they wanted to see The Entertainer. He gave the fans what they wanted.”
“When you met Eddie, he didn’t just scribble his name down for you, he gave you the experience. Even if it was 30 seconds or a minute, people left with a story, not just a signature. Eddie connected to a lot of people.”
KEN REID EDDIE SHACK BIOGRAPHER