Harold Ballard and his cushy detention days in Kingston area
With the Toronto Maple Leafs once again booted from the Stanley Cup dance and the so-called “Ballard Curse” extended to a 57th year, I have a trivia question for you. It concerns the late Harold Ballard, who died in 1990. Ballard, as you may recall, was the infamously unfiltered former owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs and its renowned playpen, Maple Leaf Gardens. Explosive, affable, abusive, bombastic, colourful, blustery, belligerent, generous, tightfisted, outspoken, gregarious, conceited, racist, controversial, kind, miserable, misogynistic: “Pal Hal” was all of these and more.