Poulin on George Armstrong,
It’s very challenging to write a short column on George Armstrong. Much has been written since his passing last week, and eloquent scribes have done a great job of capturing the person. There was a single word that stood out. The word is special.
Hockey lost a great individual. I had the privilege of working with George for five years in his role as a scout for the Toronto Maple Leafs. I presented fresh eyes on an absolute gentleman then approaching 80 years old.
What separated George was that he was special in every direction, and he didn’t know he was special. Sharp, funny, detailed, caring. He stopped into the offices at Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment every Tuesday around noon, either on his way to or from a workout at the YMCA. You didn’t have to see him, you just knew he was there.
My door could be closed and I could be deep into a call and still know that George had arrived. The room swelled. People waited for his visits. They didn’t leave the office for fear of missing him. You were drawn to him because from halfway across the room you might miss something. He was that kid in class you had to sit near. He was the centre of attention without ever trying to be.
George made everyone feel good all the time. He just had that knack.
When old hockey players get together they love to tell stories, and many of them are very good at it. The stories are about people: some they played with, some against, some they played for.
The stories use a wide variety of descriptors. That guy was quirky, funny, intense, perhaps odd. He was a neat freak, an absolute mess, always early, always late. He was easy to play with, or you never knew what he was doing on the ice; he was a leader, a competitor, a winner.
Then the conversation goes to a very select few. They separate themselves. They are special. George Armstrong was that guy. He stood in a different class.
In thinking about how to tell you about George, I wanted to talk to guys he played with, guys he coached, people he worked for and worked with. Everyone wanted to talk. A lot. Everyone had stories, and more stories.
I kept looking for a way to parse them, to narrow things down, and the easiest way was to feel how the story was being relayed to you. When people talked about George, their voices rose. They got excited to share. They often laughed ahead of telling the story, in anticipation of how much you’d enjoy it.
Leafs teammate Mike Pelyk spoke about being treated as an equal as a 20-year-old by the veteran captain Armstrong, who was fresh off winning his fourth Stanley Cup, and how much that meant to a young player. It was so inclusive.
Mike then “yelled” the word SPECIAL in capital letters in his followup email. He wanted to be sure I understood.
My former teammate Mark Howe was a 17-year-old playing for the talent-laden junior-A Toronto Marlboros where George coached. Mark spoke glowingly of how different he was from any other coach he had in his Hall of Fame career. He was a brilliantly creative motivator who took the time to learn personalities and how to improve them. He understood players and what made them go. He treated them as individuals, with caring and compassion.
Mark wanted those words used: caring and compassion. They are not often used to describe a junior hockey coach. The story he insisted on sharing had Armstrong, with a totally straight face, passing his hat around before a critical playoff game against archrival Peterborough. He insisted the players chip in to help pay a league fine he had received for his involvement in a pre-game brawl earlier in the series. Money collected, he jammed it in his pocket, simply said, “Well, I feel better now — so let’s go play some hockey” and walked out of the room.
Mark called it the greatest pre-game speech he ever heard. It totally loosened up the team and they blew out Peterborough that night, and eventually won the series. At the most intense time, the coach had found a way to be different and have an impact on the team.
Mr. Everything Leaf, Reid Mitchell, reflected on George’s post-game press box tradition involving the painstaking construction of a paper airplane that symbolized game’s end.
He would start the folding process halfway through the third period: very exact with perfect creases, like an engineer would. On hearing of George’s passing, Mitchell repeated those actions last week in Calgary at the Leafs’ game, building “George’s plane.”
Everyone smiled as they watched that final flight postgame. It was long and smooth and had a safe landing in the empty arena.