Bower remembered as 'beautiful man' during memorial service

TORONTO -- So many stories were shared at Air Canada Centre on Wednesday, the life and career of late, legendary goaltender Johnny Bower celebrated by family, friends, former teammates and old foes.
One that was untold was about the seven stitches Bower had sewn into his forehead in Toronto on April 25, 1964, the happiest sutures of any he took.

The goalie's Toronto Maple Leafs had defeated the Detroit Red Wings in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final, Toronto winning its third consecutive championship. At the final siren, Bower threw his stick into the air in celebration, losing sight of it as his teammates rushed to mob him.

And then he looked up and found the stick just as it slashed down across his forehead, slicing him open. He was never happier to see a doctor's needle and thread, champagne serving as the perfect anesthetic.

For 65 minutes on Wednesday, Bower was remembered for his skill in goal and the giant heart that fueled him on and off the rink, until his death to pneumonia on Dec. 26.

Fans gathered in the arena bowl, with invited guests on the floor in front of Bower's Maple Leafs flag-wrapped coffin, including the entire current Toronto roster, general manager Lou Lamoriello and coach Mike Babcock.

On either side of the casket were photos of the goalie with his arms outstretched -- one celebrating a game victory, the other with him symbolically embracing fans during the Maple Leafs' 2016 home opener as his No. 1 was retired to the rafters.

Outside Air Canada Centre on the Maple Leafs' Legends Row, Bower's statue stood with flowers at its skates, beside fellow Toronto goaltending icon Turk Broda.

The afternoon began and concluded with the stirring 48th Highlanders, whose pipes and drums have been a part of every Maple Leafs home opener since 1931. The corps' signature "The Maple Leaf Forever" preceded the exit of Bower's coffin from the arena, with current Toronto goalies Frederik Andersen and Curtis McElhinney honorary pallbearers.

Beside NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly for the tributes sat Jim Gregory, the League's senior vice president of hockey operations.

"On a scale of 1-10, I'd give the ceremony a 200," he would say later.

Bower has a special place in Gregory's heart. Gregory was the Maple Leafs' general manager when Bower retired in March 1970. It was Gregory who immediately put Bower back to work, as a scout and the team's goaltending coach, by all accounts the first goalie coach in NHL history.

Gregory spoke before the ceremony of having met Bower in the 1950s when the goalie was toiling in the American Hockey League. He marvelled at Bower's work ethic and quality of play, which would take him to four Stanley Cup championships in Toronto. But Bower was much more than a hockey player to his friend of many decades.

"As far as a person, and everyone has said this, you couldn't find anyone who was more cooperative, more appreciative of anything you did for him and harder working," Gregory said. "He was an unbelievable person."

On Tuesday in Montreal, Canadiens defense legend Serge Savard was saying many of the same things. Savard recalled Bower as a gentleman whom he got to know after their playing days were long done, a fun-loving spirit who was eager to play ball-hockey goal when Savard assembled Maple Leafs and Canadiens alumni teams at the latter's hotel properties in Cuba.

"What a nice, beautiful man," Savard said of Bower.

Savard was surprised, indeed almost disappointed, when he was told that he'd scored the final goal against Bower in his career, coming in the Canadiens' 6-3 victory at the Montreal Forum on Dec. 10, 1969.

"I'm sorry to learn this only after Johnny's gone," Savard said of his historic goal, which came at 11:30 of the third period in Bower's 552nd and last NHL game. "Oh, I'd have had a lot of fun with him about that had I known."

The first NHL puck to have beaten Bower had been shot long before during his League debut for the New York Rangers, a goal scored by Detroit Red Wings defenseman Red Kelly at 19:00 of the first period of a 4-1 road loss on Oct. 8, 1953.

Thirteen seasons later, with Kelly and Bower about to win their fourth Stanley Cup title as Toronto teammates in 1966-67, "Hockey Night In Canada" sponsor Imperial Oil produced a series of 10 records called "Maple Leaf Hockey Talk" for distribution at its Esso gas stations; they were breezy interviews and instructional tips for kids featuring nine Maple Leafs players and coach Punch Imlach.

"He has the greatest attitude of anybody," Imlach said of Bower on the goalie's recording. "Every time a fellow shoots the puck at the net, Johnny wants to stop him. Practice, game… it doesn't make any difference."

Indeed, former Bower teammate Ron Ellis would mention in his Wednesday tribute that Bower was the toughest goalie he ever faced -- and that was in Maple Leafs practice.

Black Hawks star Bobby Hull, whose slap shot terrified unmasked goalies of the day, was crushed when he learned of Bower's death.

"Johnny was a tremendous competitor and a credit to the Maple Leafs, to every team he played for and to the game itself," Hull said Tuesday. "What a wonderful man. To be able to live that long, and play as well as he did after getting his NHL start later in life. He deserves all the affection he's being shown now."

Representing the Canadiens on Wednesday was Hall of Famer Yvan Cournoyer, whom Bower had forever said he hated to see rushing toward him.

"That's funny," Cournoyer said. "I always hated to see Johnny in the net I was rushing toward."

For all of the praise coming from former teammates, opponents and those in the hockey world, the true measure of Bower's legacy can best be found in the online tributes beside his funeral-home notice, written by people from all walks of life.

One spoke of the Bower family being "the best neighbors we've ever had," of the family's dentist, Rick Bell, manufacturing the goalie's first fiberglass mask in a dental lab in the late 1960s, then baking it to a finish in the kitchen oven.

Another: "I had the honor of meeting Mr. Bower in 2015 when he hired me to have his driveway paved, and right away I realized that he was one of a kind."

Wrote Shelley Jackson of Bobcaygeon, a two-hour drive northeast of Toronto in Ontario cottage country: "Johnny was a kind soul. I will remember him for all he did for the Maple Leafs but more for the years he came into my bait shop at Nogies Creek for the cheap worms that he supplied for his grandkids … he always took time to talk to other customers and share stories."

Branch 197 of the Royal Canadian Legion in Acton, Ontario, thanked Bower for his energetic promotion, just a few weeks before his death, of a shirt-signing campaign to raise funds for homeless veterans.
And Wendy Bailey offered this: "My grandfather, Ace Bailey (a Maple Leafs legend from 1926-33), used to work the penalty box during Johnny's reign. I met him as a young child on a few occasions and my grandfather always spoke highly of him."

In their Wednesday tributes, former teammates Frank Mahovlich, Ellis and Dave Keon remembered a dear friend who was an intense competitor, a man to whom his family meant everything.

Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan thanked the Bower family "for sharing a husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather with the NHL and the city of Toronto," then quite wonderfully referred to the late goalie as "a gentle warrior … who since 1958 was never not a Maple Leaf."

But it was Keon, who will be among those at Bower's funeral service on Friday, who might best have captured the spirit of a lost friend and teammate.

"John is a huge reason for all those (four) Stanley Cups," he said. "Winning the Cup takes heart. John was our soul."