With all of this week’s news of three Maple Leafs getting their overdue Stanley Cup rings, here’s a story about a Toronto champion getting his jewelry more than 50 years late.
It began with a small homemade chest that hockey fan Kevin Shea discovered in 1991, private contents of his late father Howard, a hard-working custodian at a public school in Windsor.
Howard, who had died of cancer at age 64, was a huge Leafs supporter and among items in the box were newspaper clips from World War II that included several mentions of winger Jack McLean.
Kevin figured McLean must have meant something special to his father, but the trail went cold after McLean was on Toronto’s 1945 Cup team. As Kevin wanted to know everything he could about Howard’s youth, he began a search for McLean.
“My curiosity became an obsession,” said Shea, a former record company promotions exec who in the ‘90s had begun a new career as a Hockey Hall of Fame researcher and author. “I’m certain the librarians (working the microfiche machines in Windsor and Toronto) knew me by name.”
Shea went to autograph sessions with Leafs from their dynasty teams, six Cups between 1942-51. But Syl Apps, Bob Davidson, Wally Stanowski and Teeder Kennedy only had vague recollections of McLean as a fast skater, great teammate with no idea what became of him.
The wartime NHL saw several young players come and go, recruited for the NHL with regulars serving overseas. The Winnipeg-born McLean was a teenager when he broke in during 1942-43, splitting his Leafs time studying engineering at the University of Toronto.
“Here’s where I have to thank the Toronto Sun and several newspapers across the country,” Shea said. “I wrote them all to print a letter asking about Jack which the Sun published in August of 1995. The day it appeared, my phone rang off the hook.”
Former Leafs coach Tom Watt and general manager Gerry McNamara had vivid memories of McLean, with Watt cutting out McLean’s picture in the paper among his larger Leafs collection. Don ‘Shanty’ McKenzie, post-war superintendent of the Gardens, once filmed practices then and recalled McLean was a swift skater, but had no surviving footage.
Shea’s bigbest break was a call from longtime Boston Bruins scout Bob Tindall, who had a side project to get signatures of every Cup winner. Years earlier, Tindall corresponded with McLean at his home in Ottawa to secure his signature. He didn’t know if McLean was still there, but Shea plowed through the directory for every J. McLean in the nation’s capital.
When he finally cold-called the 72-year-old McLean, Shea found him gruff and not keen on talking about his Leafs past. But Shea intrigued him with details in his father’s clippings. McLean asked him to repeat his surname.
“I knew a Howard Shea. He was my cousin,” McLean told him.
Thus opened a warm relationship, eventually helping McLean repair his relationship with the Leafs and led to Shea’s most recent book, Jack and the Box. It’s a great read of the Depression and war-time Leafs — famous players, family secrets and the search for closure.
McLean’s role with the Leafs in ‘45 didn’t end well. He suffered a severe ankle injury the previous autumn and was often relegated to watching practice from the stands. When he finally got back in the lineup against the Montreal Canadiens in the semifinal. he was knocked into the boards head-first, sans helmet, he suffered dizziness and hallucinations.
When precious Cup bonus money was handed out, which such low-paid players needed, McLean was angered to be given just $500, less than a third of the starters, and fired off a letter to general manager/coach Hap Day.
“When I played for you, I always tried to give my best and work my hardest,” he said in noting other players with less service were given more cash.
Day met with him, but there was no resolution and McLean washed his hands of the Leafs, refusing to attend the Cup banquet.
Of the wristwatch each player received, McLean scoffed his only worked two months before breaking.
He played minor and senior hockey, running into old NHL pals, then married his Toronto sweetheart Marjorie and moved to Ottawa with a federal government job. No one would’ve known his history until Shea looked him up.
When Leafs president Ken Dryden decided in 1997 to patch up relations with the Alumni in the post-Harold Ballard years and find all its players who never received Cup rings prior to their creation in 1948,
Shea, now at the Hall and his boss, ex-Leaf Ron Ellis, were asked to help. The template of a ring from that era was secured from Anne Klisanich, sister of Bill Barilko who had kept his ‘51 bauble after his death in a plane crash.
But the Leafs initial list didn’t include McLean, which Shea was quick to point out, sending Dryden a close-up of the Cup with his name and all his previous findings. Rather than an alumni member to present McLean’s ring, the club asked Shea to deliver it as a surprise to the 80-year-old’s nursing home in Ottawa in the summer of 2002.
McLean’s three children, TV, radio and newspapers were let in on the ceremony. McLean opened the door in his Leafs slippers to find a smiling Shea hand him a dark blue velvet box. When he saw the ring, his name and the 1944-45 world champions stamp, McLean began to sob.
“Kevin, I’ve waited since 1945 for this,” he said, breaking up the media with a crack about “that old s.o.b. Ballard.”
A year later, McLean sadly passed. But there’d be one more surprise for Shea five years later when a courier delivered the ring to him, a joint decision by McLean’s kids to bequeath it.
“It means everything to me,” Shea said. “We developed such a special relationship, him 80, me in my 40s a real Tuesday’s with Morrie thing.
“People always ask me about it (there aren’t many Leafs title rings in circulation since 1967). The Cup rings are so big today, but you can wear this one. And I’m never taking it off.”
Jack and the Box is available on Amazon.com and kevinsheahockey.com
ONCE A LEAF
Featuring one of the more than 1,100 players, coaches and general managers who’ve played or worked with the club since 1917
C/F Kris Newbury
Born: Feb. 19, 1982 in Brampton, Ont.
Leafs years: 2006-09
Stats: 44 GP, G-A -P 3-3-6, 60 PIM
Number: 54
THEN
A 104-point player with the Sarnia Sting, Newbury was a San Jose draft choice, but started in the Leafs chain with St. John’s before the farm team’s move back to Toronto.
During that stretch and between various recalls with the Leafs, Newbury accumulated 56 goals and 112 assists for 168 points, the franchise record which Alex Steeves was three shy of breaking before his recall by the parent club this month.
“I am familiar with that and it’s great for Alex because records are made to be broken,” said Newbury, now an assistant coach with the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires. “I loved my Marlies days, Paul Maurice was a great coach the one year, very understanding of kids in that situation.
“There was lots of high-end talent there through the years. We lost to the Chicago Wolves one year with a chance to go to the (Calder Cup) final.”
Ben Ondrus and Brett Engelhardt were two of Newbury’s favourite linemates, a trio that p;layed well at both ends and earned he and Ondrus a look with the Leafs. The stocky Newbury was no stranger to the penalty box, the Marlies leader with 215 minutes in ‘05-06.
“Life in the NHL was an eye-opener, the travel, the nice hotels, the big planes,” he said. ‘I think about that on our long bus rides now. The other day, ours broke down near North Bay. Someone called a billet family they knew and we all got to hitch rides in OPP vehicles.”
NOW
Newbury didn’t bow out after his Leafs years. He played a further 32 NHL games with Detroit, the Rangers and Philadelphia, and more minor league time, as well as a year in Germany that took him up to the COVID-19 halt in play.
He got into coaching through minor hockey, the Trenton Golden Hawks of the Ontario Junior League and onto Greg Walters’ staff with the Spitfires, a team once coached by Maurice.
“It’s hard to believe 20 years have gone by,” Newbury said. “The Marlies have done quite a job establishing themselves and Alex is very deserving of the record.”
FAVOURITE LEAFS MEMORY
Newbury’s first NHL game was against the Washington Capitals.
“Going up against Donald Brashear with all my friends and family watching at the Air Canada centre was a little intimidating,” he said. “But the guys on the team treated me really well,”
His first goal was on Boston’s Tim Thomas.
“Not a highlight play, but I remember right after it that Wade Belak and (Boston’s) Zdeno Chara started something in front of their net.
“I’m (5-foot-11) and your neck tilts up watching two very big humans go at it. It was fun to relish it the goal after. The puck is still hanging in my house.”
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