This week's announcement that Big Ned, Vlaclav Nedomansky, had been named to the Hockey Hall of Fame stirred up some memories and I guess it won't harm anybody that I'm going to break my vow of secrecy now that some 45 years have passed.
I think, although I am not positive, that I was the third person in North America who knew Nedomansky had successfully defected from the then Czechoslovakia. But I was sworn to secrecy about that, that night, and stuffed it away in the back of my mind as an interesting oddity. Here's what happened.
The memory is that it was a Sunday night. I was an established cub reporter for the Bramalea/Brampton Guardian weekly newspaper at that time, although I was approaching the end of my high school years. By that time, I was three years into my reporting career. That's why it's a little fuzzy. I had been used to going in Sunday nights to write up minor hockey league results for my tenure there. I started off making FIFTEEN DOLLARS A WEEK, going in Sundays for the duty my boss Ken Giles felt was mind numbing. Collect the weekly report sheets shoved through the door at the Guardian offices, located comfortably at the bottom of my street, and turn them into pages of newscopy with little Johnnies and Jills and their goals and assists for various House League teams, like Matti's Opticians.
As an aside, I developed a nervous typing tick for a spell in that stretch, spelling Opticians "Optitions" for about a three-week period before it was brought to my attention. Oops. Easily fixed, but that SHOULD explain spelling errors seen here. Oh, and I have worn glasses since I was five years old.
Okay, I'd passed through that glorified typist phase and was now actually doing reporting for my 40 bucks weekly, frequently covering the Bramalea Blues junior hockey team, who played at the also-conveniently located Victoria Park Arena, across the ball fields from the Guardian offices. So that's why I question whether it was a Sunday night. It might have very well been a night of covering hockey and then back to the office to write it up some time between 10 and midnight.
I do know that publisher Bob Maxwell was in his office, sharing a drink with the man who co-owned the company that owned the Guardian. That man's name was Johnny F. Bassett. It was not a common thing to have somebody there with me while I clattered away at the keys of my beloved sixty-year old Remington typewriter at the end of the building in the reporter wing. In fact, the back office there consisted of my boss' desk and my own. Bob's office was a well-appointed one, just to this side of the Editor's office and across the hallway from the regular writer's bullpen. Prior to the night in question, I had been in Bob's office exactly once ... when I got hired on the recommendation of my Grade 10 Math teacher (and basketball coach) Freddy Chalk. I recall that Bob knew my father, but my father didn't remember him.
For no reason in particular, I decided to get some water from the fountain at the front of the building and was seen walking back to my desk by Bob, who motioned me into the room. That's where I met Bassett. Now, as history would then play out, I had my issues with the Bassets other than Johnny F. I got along famously with the Eatons, who were the other big-name co-owners. But Bassetts and I were slated not to get along. That would have changed in a major way if Johnny F. hadn't died so early in life. He was a good guy, a man of the people in many ways. He loved being in the pro sports business. He'd bought the Ottawa Nationals and had moved them to Toronto to anchor the World Hockey Association as the Toros. Of course, he took great pleasure in the move, his dad being at one point a co-owner of the NHL Toronto Maple Leafs. But there's nothing like being a co-owner when Harold Ballard was also one. The long time in coming exit of John Sr. from the Maple Leafs was not ... let's call it pleasant. And Ballard, being the small man he was, stuck it to Johnny Jr. when he came a-calling to have his Toros play in the fabled Maple Leaf Gardens.
The Toros needed a jolt and Johnny Jr. came up with the plan to import some otherwise unattainable talent to his team in an effort to be the best pro Toronto hockey team. The idea? Raid the Soviet-controlled Eastern Bloc for one of their greatest players, Vaclav Nedomansky of Czechoslovakia. They sent a scout with connections in Europe to sound out Nedomansky. I have tried valiantly to remember the scout's name. I think it was Martin something or other. It might have been Martin Madden, but honestly, I can't say for sure. I can picture the guy, who I later saw in the business of my work, but that picture keeps coming back as Gilles Leger. At any rate, after a little dickering on money and the process for defection, the decision to move forward was made. George Gross of the Toronto Sun was the only other media person in the know and that because Gross was born over there and had connections to help things along.
Late that night (even later over in Czechoslovakia), the defection had been accomplished. In the wee hours of the morning locally, Nedomansky made it to Switzerland. The call for success was made to our offices because that was where Johnny F. Basset was ... stationed. I can't say it was hiding out. But it feels like that all these years later. Remember, there were no cell phones in those days. If you were going to receive a call, the other side better have the number you were at. No call forwarding either. So, the call came in and Bob snatched up the phone (I assume that, I wasn't in the office that second). And soon enough, the phone was handed over to Johnny F. Seconds later, I was passing the door to the office and Bob snapped his fingers and indicated I should come in.
An impromptu party was the response to the short phone call. Except I don't drink. Never have. The other two men in the office were otherwise inclined and were happy to toast each other over the good news. I was happy too. I was well aware of Nedomansky and the fact that he was coming to Toronto made me anxious to go see him play. (I later did when the Toros played the Calgary Cowboys, two teams that moved/folded before I finished high school).
I was sworn to secrecy of course. And, of course I kept my promise until now. It's possible George got a heads up before the call was made to Johnny F. Bassett. So I can't claim for sure that I was the third person in North America to know that the defection had become a reality. But if I wasn't third, I was probably fourth.
Bob didn't live much longer. He was a gruff kind of guy who never had a harsh word for me. That wasn't true of everybody, but he liked me. Johnny F. Bassett was one of the great entrepreneurs in the world of professionals sports. He died of brain cancer too early in life at age 47, on the day the USFL started it's suit against the NFL over it's monopolistic practices. Had the other owners of the USFL listened to Bassett, who owned the Tampa Bay franchise, the league might have had a long run before an accommodation with the NFL. Instead the league listened to the idiotic rantings of the owner of the New Jersey Generals, a blowhard real estate mogul named Donald J. Trump. He goaded his league into the suit and, to his credit, the league won the suit and got treble damages. An episode of ESPN's 30 for 30 show, had a reporter show the buffoon the cheque for the damages. Three dollars and 76 cents, the pennies being for interest. Trump had led the league into non-existence. It also helps explain his insane hatred for the NFL from his bully pulpit. But enough of that blight on humanity.
This entry is in celebration of Big Ned being named what he was for most of the last 45 years. A Hall of Famer. No longer just in fact, now in name too. Congratulations go to him back in Slovakia where he now resides.
NOW, the Hall of Fame must do one more thing. Induct Fran Rider in the Builder's category. She had as much effect on Women's hockey as Nedomansky did by piercing the Iron Curtain.
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