Mahovlich was nearly sold by Maple Leafs on eve of 1962 NHL All-Star Game

TORONTO -- On Friday evening at Scotiabank Arena, one of a dozen players will be presented a check for $1 million as winner of the 2024 NHL All-Star Skills presented by DraftKings Sportsbook (7 p.m. ET; ESPN, ESPN+, SN, TVAS).

Sixty-two years ago, the Toronto Maple Leafs nearly hit a similar jackpot without even touching a hockey stick, the Chicago Black Hawks ready to offer their rival $1 million for the rights to unsigned superstar forward Frank Mahovlich.

The stunning, almost-historic deal hours before the 1962 NHL All-Star Game in Toronto was born over late-night cocktails at the Royal York Hotel. By morning of gameday, the spark of an idea had become a raging inferno in the city’s newspapers and on its airwaves.

Ultimately, it was extinguished at Maple Leaf Gardens before noon, Black Hawks general manager Tommy Ivan shown the arena door with a $1-million check from franchise chairman James Norris still in his pocket, Mahovlich down the hall signing a four-year, $110,000 contract just hours before he would play in the 16th NHL All-Star Game.

In its edition of Oct. 13, 1962, dated a week after the blockbusting offer had been tabled and turned down, The Hockey News featured a front-page photo of Mahovlich in which they’d put him in a Black Hawks sweater.

“The midnight hour offer was rejected by Stafford Smythe, president of the Leafs, the next afternoon, but it certainly had members of the press, radio and television choking on their nightcaps,” The Hockey News reported.

“Many visualized the offer as a scheme to chase the World Series off the front pages. Apparently, it succeeded.”

Toronto Globe and Mail hockey writer Jim Vipond suggested that the Norris “caper” for the Big M was a game of “highball roulette.”

The case of Mahovlich, an unsigned holdout, had been the talk of players and team and NHL executives during the Oct. 5 All-Star Game dinner at the Royal York. The Big M was expected to miss the Oct. 6 game, a contract resolution not at hand.

Chicago Black Hawks chairman James Norris’ $1-million check to buy Toronto Maple Leafs superstar Frank Mahovlich, the offer ultimately turned down.

Team brass retired upstairs to Suite 11-268, conversation growing about a brilliant forward who in his fifth NHL season led Toronto with 71 points (33 goals, 38 assists) and played a huge role in leading the Maple Leafs to their 1962 Stanley Cup championship, the first of three straight.

As refreshments flowed, Black Hawks boss Norris suggested that he’d pay any amount, say $1 million, to have Mahovlich and his unsigned contract.

Harold Ballard, a Maple Leafs vice-president and member of their management committee, replied to Norris, “A million dollars and he’s yours,” shaking hands as the latter pulled 10 $100 bills from his wallet as a down payment.

A sheet of Royal York letterhead was produced, on which Norris scrawled the date of Oct. 6 atop his intent to purchase the Big M, this “contract” then signed by Ballard and Jack Amell, another member of the Leafs’ “Silver Seven” management committee.

Chicago Black Hawks chairman James Norris in a 1960 photo and the Toronto Daily Star story published Oct. 6, 1962, breaking the news of the Black Hawks’ bid to purchase the rights to Frank Mahovlich.

Maple Leafs president Stafford Smythe wasn’t in the room and Toronto coach and GM Punch Imlach, declining to shake on the proposed deal, walked out.

“I’ll recommend it be accepted, though,” Imlach told Toronto Daily Star hockey writer Gordon Campbell, who’d crashed the party for a drink and began taking notes.

“I don’t think Mahovlich is worth that kind of money,” added Imlach, who would make the Big M’s Maple Leafs career miserable through 11 seasons, despite his winning the 1958 Calder Trophy as the NHL’s top rookie and being a part of four Stanley Cup championships.

Perhaps owing to the hour and the cocktails, the ballpoint-scribbled note was a mess: The figure $1,000,000.00 added an extra zero that was scratched out, Mahovlich was misspelled “Mahaloich” and Ballard’s acceptance on behalf of Maple Leaf Hockey Club was spelled “Excepted.”

Toronto Maple Leafs legend Frank Mahovlich with his 100th goal puck, posing on Jan. 25, 1961, with coach and GM Punch Imlach and team captain George Armstrong.

At 12:53 a.m., Campbell filed a deadline-busting story to his editors about a proposed transaction that nearly sent the city sliding into Lake Ontario.

Norris instructed his GM, Tommy Ivan, to call the team’s publicity director in Chicago to feed the story to wire services Associated Press and United Press International.

Reading the bulletin in Toronto, the Globe and Mail’s Vipond called both Norris and Ivan at the Royal York for confirmation.

“I may have to bench Bobby Hull,” Ivan cracked of the Black Hawks’ star left-wing.

Vipond raced to the hotel and found Norris and others, Smythe among them, in Suite 11-268.

“We’ll get the World Series out of the sports pages tomorrow morning,” Smythe said. “Jim Norris has made an offer of $1 million for Mahovlich. I will not consider such a deal at a party. If he would like to meet me in my office at noon and make the same offer, I am interested.”

Two fans outside Maple Leaf Gardens on the morning of Oct. 6, 1962, shortly after hearing news of the apparent departure to Chicago of Frank Mahovlich, and the Big M in his team’s dressing room signing autographs for young admirers.

Ivan arrived at Maple Leaf Gardens late the next morning but quickly left in a huff, refusing to stop for the gathered photographers.

Of course, the bombastic Ballard, who was in Smythe’s office when Ivan walked out, had no right to unilaterally make the explosive deal, something of this scope needing the approval of Maple Leaf Gardens’ board of directors.

It’s unclear whether this had been an elaborate publicity stunt which, some suggest, saw Norris get cold feet and withdraw his offer.

On Oct. 11, Mahovlich by then signed, Smythe issued a statement saying that Norris’ offer would be considered at a board meeting the next day. A few hours later, another release insisted that any deal was dead and wouldn’t even be considered.

In the end, it was Conn Smythe, the Maple Leafs’ founder, who from the background torpedoed the deal.

Toronto Maple Leafs’ Frank Mahovlich (right) with his younger brother, Peter, the latter playing with the major-junior Hamilton Red Wings, at Maple Leaf Gardens on Nov. 13, 1963.

In the eye of the hurricane, Mahovlich was both flabbergasted and skeptical.

“I think it’s a lot of guff,” the Big M was quoted in the Star’s Oct. 6 editions, hours before he signed a four-year contract. “Some people were happy and just got carried away. Personally, I want to stay in Toronto and play my hockey here.”

But if sold, he would go to Chicago “if they pay my expenses,” he joked.

Mahovlich’s father, Peter Mahovlich Sr., was thunderstruck as he read the morning headlines.

Mahovlich Sr. realized that if Chicago was willing to spend $1 million for his son, he was worth far more than what the penny-pinching Maple Leafs had been offering in stalled contract talks.

Frank Mahovlich tumbles in front of Chicago Black Hawks captain Pierre Pilote, Elmer “Moose” Vasko and goalie Glenn Hall during a Jan. 1963 game at Maple Leaf Gardens.

He awoke his son with the news early Saturday morning, saying to him, “Frankie, you’ve been traded. Now you make sure they buy your train tickets and pay for moving your furniture.”

Arriving at Maple Leaf Gardens, urgently summoned to report, Mahovlich thought he might be a member of the Black Hawks -- until he saw Ivan walking out without a word.

The Maple Leafs still short-changed their smooth-skating superstar, signing him for $110,000 -- $27,500 per season for four years.

The fallout was tremendous, Maple Leafs management slammed by fans for entertaining thoughts of unloading one of the most popular players in franchise history.

“After that, Ballard didn’t like me because he was embarrassed by the whole situation. He didn’t want to back off,” Mahovlich said in “The Big M: The Frank Mahovlich Story,” a 1999 biography written by his son, Ted.

The public relations disaster further soured the Big M’s by-now bitter relationship with Maple Leafs management. His tenure in Toronto would end March 3, 1968, with his trade to the Detroit Red Wings as the marquee star in an eight-man transaction.

Frank Mahovlich takes a twirl on Maple Leaf Gardens ice with his wife, Marie, during Toronto’s Christmas party in Dec. 1962, not quite three months after he’d signed a four-year contract.

Challenging Maple Leafs management with his 1962 holdout gave strength to other players who sought to improve their contracts, which angered Imlach to no end.

“I tried to make money and it hurt me,” Mahovlich said. “They’d control my play and say, ‘We can’t let him score too many goals or he’ll ask for more money.’ Instead of going to Chicago, I ended up playing for a team that didn’t even want me -- and yet wouldn’t trade me. I would have felt better in Chicago, where they would have let me play.”

The ink barely dry on his contract, Mahovlich joined his teammates before a happy, relieved Maple Leaf Gardens crowd of 14,236 for the 1962 NHL All-Star Game. He scored Toronto’s insurance goal against Jacques Plante in a 4-1 win, the All-Star team coached by Chicago’s Rudy Pilous.

You can only imagine what Pilous was thinking about having the Big M in a Black Hawks sweater that night, and beyond.

Top photo: Frank Mahovlich in a 1961-62 Toronto Maple Leafs portrait, and the Oct. 6, 1962, handwritten agreement between the Chicago Black Hawks and Maple Leafs to acquire the player’s services.