I marked the opening of the Stanley Cup playoffs by reading a book my son gave me for Christmas. A Great Game: The Forgotten Leafs and the Rise of Professional Hockey was written by one Stephen J. Harper.
Fans of Island hockey history might be interested in mention of the Victoria Aristocrats, but the book鈥檚 most arresting sentence actually comes at its very end, in the acknowledgments: 鈥淣igel Wright 鈥� assisted with advice and liaison with Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, whose office was forthright and constructive.鈥�
It鈥檚 not immediately obvious why the ethics commissioner had to be involved in a book whose proceeds are going to charity, though I suppose these days if you鈥檙e prime minister, the ethics commissioner has to be involved in everything.
But it鈥檚 interesting, in light of subsequent events, that Wright was trusted with this sensitive ethical assignment.
As the reviews generally indicated, it is not a great book, though given the author鈥檚 day job, it is a wonder it鈥檚 a book at all.
But to a hockey fan and a fan of politics, it is full of interesting facts and insights. In one passage about amateurism fundamentalists, Harper uses the term 鈥渋deologue鈥� as a pejorative, which is disappointing to those of us who hope he hasn鈥檛 lost his own ideological preference for market economics.
At the end, he seems to sympathize with the idea, proposed by former 91原创 Athlete of the Year and now nationalist academic Bruce Kidd, that a purely 91原创 professional league could have survived and that this would have been a good thing. That he gives this old nationalist bugbear more than the time of day is surprising.
At one stage in the wars between different sports regulatory bodies that kept springing up during the two-decade conflict over whether professionalism should be allowed in hockey, the secretary to former governor-general Earl Grey was assigned to try to settle matters.
At the end of a long and exasperating set of negotiations 鈥� sports bureaucrats were no less petty or stubborn then than they are now 鈥� he declared: 鈥淭his is a big country, and we have to have big minds and big views to settle difficult points.鈥�
I bet that鈥檚 something Harper has come to appreciate as prime minister. Approvingly, he calls these sentiments 鈥減earls of wisdom.鈥�
In his next book, he should discipline his unfortunate penchant for clich茅. Because of bidding for players, he tells us, team owners were 鈥渓iterally bleeding money.鈥� I bet they weren鈥檛!
The hockey history bits are more fun. As is always the case with history, it鈥檚 interesting how different things were. The rinks, though covered and at least quasi-indoors, didn鈥檛 have artificial ice-making. Games could be postponed because of slush 鈥� or worse, not postponed because of slush.
In one such case, a coach complained his team had lost because they weren鈥檛 good enough swimmers.
The season was very short, with practices beginning in December and schedules running no more than 20 games, if that. The first 91原创 arena with artificial ice, which opened in Toronto in 1912, sold icebox ice in the summer.
When Harper鈥檚 story starts, hockey is played with seven players, lined up in what in football is called an 鈥淚 formation.鈥�
Substitutions took place only in the case of injury and there were frequent arguments about whether a given injury was strategic. When it clearly wasn鈥檛, the teams would agree to play with six players.
In at least one league, there were $2 fines for minor penalties and a $15 fine for an expulsion, when pro players might receive $25 a game.
If I鈥檝e correctly followed Harper鈥檚 explication of the Byzantine ownership and league changes of the years 1900-1917, the forgotten Leafs were not the same franchise as today鈥檚 annually forgettable Leafs, but were instead the Toronto 鈥淏lue Shirts鈥� or simply 鈥淧rofessionals,鈥� who won the Stanley Cup in 1914 by beating the Victoria Aristocrats three games out of five.
The Leafs themselves came along later and were the original franchise of the Montreal Canadiens, which had lapsed before being replaced by the franchise most recently playing Tampa Bay.
For Leafs fans, common institutional DNA with hockey鈥檚 most successful franchise is as close to the Cup as they get.
William Watson teaches economics at McGill University.
