Theodore Kennedy

From The Toronto Star, August 14, 2009:

Come on, Teeder!

by Frank Orr

Next to Foster Hewitt's "Hello Canada to open his radio broadcasts of Maple Leafs games, those were the most famous words heard at Maple Leaf Gardens in the glory years after World War II.

The man who shouted the encouragement from the green seats in quiet times during Leafs games was John Arnott, a Toronto garage operator, and the man for whom he was cheering was perhaps the quintessential Maple Leaf, Ted (Teeder) Kennedy.

Kennedy, one of the best Maple Leafs of all-time, died this morning of congestive heart failure at a nursing home in his hometown of Port Colborne.

He was 83.

Kennedy was a Leaf centre for 12 seasons with five Stanley Cup wins, team captain from 1948 to '57, and the last Leaf to win the Hart Trophy in 1955 as the National Hockey League's most valuable player.

Kennedy succeeded his hockey idol, Syl Apps, as Leafs captain when Apps retired after the '47-48 season, and was noted for his lead-by-example approach to the job.

Kennedy's hockey success came through hard work. He was not an easy skater, appearing to run, not glide, on the blades, often with a look on his face as if he were in pain, perspiring from the effort.

To compensate for his lack of speed, Kennedy carefully honed his other skills, especially passing the puck.

He was a master at using the players on the ice with him, notably wingers Howie Meeker and Vic Lynn, and most hockey oldtimers regard him as the best-ever at winning the draws of faceoffs.

"I never had much speed, certainly not in the way a Syl Apps or Max Bentley or Milt Schmidt, the great centres did, so I compensated by using my wingers, Kennedy once said.

"To be able to pass reasonably well made up for my lack of speed.

While Leafs owner and manager Conn Smythe never stated it publicly, in private he said that Kennedy was his favorite player, the man who represented Smythe's ideals of hard work, loyalty and tenacity.

"Ted Kennedy was not a superbly gifted athlete the way some players were, Smythe said. "But he accomplished more than most of them by never playing a shift where he did not give everything he had.

Smythe's comments on Kennedy had a certain touch of irony because how the centre became a Maple Leaf caused a serious split in the team's administration.

Kennedy attracted the attention of a Montreal Canadiens scout when he was 16. The Canadiens moved him to Montreal in 1942 to play for the Royals junior team and practise with the NHL club, paying his tuition at a private school.

"But I just didn't like the situation and I told them I was going home, Kennedy said.

He finished the season with the Port Colborne senior team, coached by the NHL's leading career goal scorer at the time, Nels (Old Poison) Stewart, a star with the old Montreal Maroons.

Stewart told the youngster that Leaf coach Hap Day was a master at developing young players.

Frank Selke, the hockey genius who was in charge of the Leafs during Major Smythe's World War II absence, traded young defenceman Frank Eddolls to the Canadiens for the NHL rights to Kennedy.

Smythe was furious that Selke had made the trade without consulting him, the start of the split between the two men who had combined their talents to build the Leafs and Maple Leaf Gardens from scratch.

After Smythe sacked him, Selke moved to the Canadiens in 1946 to build the most successful franchise in pro sports.

"It was a prime example of the many contradictions in Conn Smythe, Selke said years later.

"Ted Kennedy was justifiably one of Smythe's favorites but he never gave me credit — or forgave me — for getting Teeder without his permission.

At 17, Kennedy made a strong debut in the wartime NHL, producing 26 goals and 49 points in 49 games in the '43-44 season, then leading the Leafs to the Stanley Cup in '45 with seven goals in 13 playoff games.

The top stars (Apps, Turk Broda, Nick and Don Metz, Garth Boesch) returned home from war to join an impressive group of young players led by Kennedy, Gus Bodnar, Gus Mortson, Jim Thomson, Bill Barilko, Bill Ezinicki, Meeker and Lynn.

The team won three consecutive Cup crowns ('47-48-49), four in five seasons, losing to the Detroit Red Wings in a '50 playoff series that featured one of the NHL's most controversial incidents involving Kennedy and the Wings' brilliant young winger Gordie Howe.

Howe tried to check Kennedy, missed him and crashed head-first into the boards. He suffered severe head and facial fractures, his life saved in a 90-minute operation to ease pressure on his brain.

Detroit GM Jack Adams accused Kennedy of causing the injuries and vowed revenge.

We had beaten them three years in a row in the playoffs and were whipping them in the first game of that '50 series, Kennedy said.

It always was hard, bitter, competitive hockey when we played the Wings back then. I had nothing to do with Howe crashing into the boards — the referee (George Gravel) had signalled a charging penalty for the run Howe took at me — but that didn't keep Adams from going a little crazy about it.

Howe later cleared Kennedy of any blame, claiming his wounds were self-inflicted.

The Leafs won the '51 Cup, then fell on hard times during that decade, swept aside by superb Red Wings and Canadiens teams.

By mid-decade, Kennedy claimed he was "worn down by the effort his career demanded and despite winning the Hart Trophy in the '54-55 season, Kennedy retired after a four-game playoff sweep by the Wings.

"The fun had gone out of the game for me, which became labor after a few seasons with the pressure on all the time, Kennedy said.

"Something that made it tough for me was that I couldn't sleep on trains, which was the way we travelled then.

At the urging of Meeker, his long-time Leaf winger who was coaching the mediocre Leafs team, Kennedy returned to the NHL in the '56-57 season for 30 games.

"The team missed the playoffs and I sat out the last two games of the season so they could take a look at a kid named Frank Mahovlich, Kennedy said.

"It was time for a new generation to lead the team.

Kennedy coached Peterborough juniors for a season, then worked for a trucking company for a dozen years.

Always a devotee of thoroughbred racing, Kennedy opened and operated a thoroughbred training centre at St. Marys, Ont., where horses were stabled and trained during the off-season and injury recuperation periods.

He spent several years as director of security at the Fort Erie race track.

Kennedy was named to The Hockey Hall Of Fame in 1966, and he and Apps were the first Leaf players to have honoured numbers. Their 9 and 10 were raised to the Gardens roof in 1993 and now adorn the Air Canada Centre.

"To share that honor with Syl Apps, a superb player and perfect gentleman, was a great moment, Kennedy said.

"When I replaced him as captain in '48, it was the proudest moment of my life.