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Harold Ballard Documentary

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The last (and I think only) Leafs related documentary I watched was that All or Nothing thing on Prime. And I feel very bad about that.
 
I wonder how the book on Larry T will read when he is done. I am guessing similarly. Ballard refused to sell it to him if I remember correctly, gave it to Stavros and we had a good decade out of that.

On Ballard. He's gone and I won't speak ill of the dead.
 
I'm kind of curious about the purported Toronto Maple Leafs for Edmonton Oilers franchise trade. That would have been bonkers.
 
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Apparently there are two more features coming from the producers thT look interesting.



"For Priestley, the Ballard doc marks the first of three Leafs-centric projects in the near future. He will play former Leafs scout-turned-general manager Gerry McNamara in an upcoming series about iconic defenceman Borje Salming and will then helm a feature called Keeper of the Cup, about a trio of long-suffering Leafs fans who decide to take matters into their own hands and steal the Stanley Cup."

The Keeper of the Cup will be starring 3 anonymous posters from HF Leafs. 🤫
 
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Voodoo Child said:
…

As much as I despise the whole posthumous canceling of people 50+ years ago because they didn’t adhere to our 2023 mores, there’s no way in hell someone as micromanaging and cutthroat as Harold Ballard didn’t know that someone was diddling little boys in MLG for over 20 years.
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so then he says
Directed by Jason Priestly? That guy that was on that show almost thirty years ago because he was attractive, and is making this for the CBC because he couldn’t hack it in the States?

This is going to suck.
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Regardless of how Jason Priestly got his start, he's made his living in the TV and film industry and has never left it. How much film school, workshops and the like that he's done, or directors and producers he's worked with who knows, but he's been immersed in it since he was a teen, I wouldn't just write him off because he was in a TV show you thought was limp.

not everyone is enamoured with the US, yeah the money is better but so what if you're already making a good living and the US isn't really going to better that, why would you go?

cheers and GLG
 
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slozo said:
Wow . . . just . . . wow.
That's a real taste of his personality and thinking, geez . . . the reporters laughing about it is also a bit alarming, but that's the power structure of the day there.

Might be an interesting watch (for the documentary), it's not like he'll get the proceeds from the grave or anything.
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there is a reason they changed the rules on reporters in the dressing room, the reporters used to be in the dressing rooms before the 3 stars were finished. Not all players are exhibitionists and the times were very different, some were religious modest, and some were total letches, you know just like today. Most players didn't like reporters in the dressing room but the owners made the rules and they wanted press coverage so they were let in asap.

The players union, the owners and the league drew up a new set of rules soon after legislation gave women access. There was a press room added and the players would go out to answer those same inane questions, however some reporters still feel they have to go rub shoulders and are given limited access to the dressing room.
 
Golden_Jet said:
No idea who you’re talking about. Unless that’s code for Gordon.
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Of course you don't. Randy Lee just pretended to make a pass at that shuttle driver. Then again, the Sens even hired a lawyer to represent him.

WTF are you doing here anyway? Shouldn't you be posting your bullshit in the Sens forum?
 
Watched it last night too .. exactly like I remember him .. an old fart who thought he was funny but reality of him, like my grandad, they were working class stiffs who were products of da great depression who thought they were da cats meow .. and grew up in a TO society where women had almost no say and white anglo saxon males lorded over TO with little to no class at all .. it was a bad time for society in TO back then .. I wish they would have talked more about hockey and development side .. also wished da producer would have interviewed some of da real oldtimers still around team .. there are still a few left, although only 2 or 3, at hot Stove older than me who could have told so much more .. like da betting or da horses or da Florida trips or how they ripped off da govt on taxes etc
 
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As a Leafs fan from the post Ballard i have heard stories from my Dad. Thinking i should watch this to get more of the history.
 
Not a whole lot of new information in this doc that you couldn't easily research yourself if you didn't live through it all. It's good that they did touch on the philanthropy because, for the many many flaws Ballard possessed, he was and continues to be charitable. I've seen one of the Ballard foundation vehicles on the road as recent as last year. yes, he's still giving loooooong after death.

The thing that stood out to me the most from this doc is what a terrible narrator Jason is. The whole production felt high school level - sorry to say Brendan if you're reading this. Also, Donnavan Bennet? No one else available from Media?
 
Donovan Bennett's in this? I think I will pass. My Dad has told me everything I need to know about Harold Ballard. I don't need Media nobodies and faded Hollywood stars to lecture me.
 
I thought it was good documentary. I liked the Leafs of 70s. Lot of character. Sittler 10 point night. On a Saturday night dead of long cold winter. Turnbull 5 goals, Isles upset in playoffs, Keon and Shack. Loved watching games from Maple Leaf Gardens. The mono style of their public address announcer. The Hewitt's, Darryl, Lanny and them. Tiger Williams. Those mid-70s playoff battles with Flyers were some of best playoff series I ever saw. I remember Flyers defending Cup champs and those first two games in Philly. Arguably biggest wins in last 50 years of Leafs hockey. Palmater came up big when needed. That defense was best ever I seen in Toronto. Salming and Turnbull. Carlyle, Hutchinson was a heavy playoff defenseman. The guy who gave those hip checks. Forget his name now. Alexander he was outstanding in Flyer series. I thought he was going to be good one then never heard tell of him again. Trevor Johanson same thing. He started good, played well in playoffs then vanished.
 
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Not bad. I think that Priestley should have hired someone else to narrate. I think he’s a decent enough actor but I don’t think his voice is right for documentary narration.

I wonder how many people turned them down. Priestley and the producer talked about getting th3 captains on board and they got Sittler, Vaive, and Clark but they didn’t get Keon. Now, Keon’s a pretty shy private guy, so it’s not surprising, but I wonder how many people felt like some people in this thread and just didn‘t see a point to it.

I noticed that one of the credits at the end was the Rogers Documentary Fund which may have accounted for the number of Rogers people (from CityTV and Sportsnet) in the doc. Clearly, a few of the commentators like Suneel Joshi and Mary Ormsby were chosen both due to the fact that they were sports journalists who worked in Toronto in the Ballard days and helped add a little diversity to the documentary.
 
Rants Mulliniks said:
I'd burn it before ever watching it. Complete scumbag of a human. I can only think of two positives involving Ballard:

1) When they first came out with curved sticks, during practise they were seeing what they could do with them. Apparently Bobby Hull bet someone if he could hit Ballard in the box up top. As the story goes, Bobby succeeded and knocked him right out of his chair.

2) A big part of why we landed Salming was done to spite Ballard while he was (if memory serves) in jail.
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On the latter point, I think Jim Gregory took advantage of Ballard being in jail to bring over Salming and Inge Hammarstrom, but I don’t think he did it to spite Ballard. Gregory never struck me as a spiteful man.
 
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rojac said:
On the latter point, I think Jim Gregory took advantage of Ballard being in jail to bring over Salming and Inge Hammarstrom, but I don’t think he did it to spite Ballard. Gregory never struck me as a spiteful man.
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I had once read that, can't say if motivation is true. That said, while Ballard may have ended up liking Borje, anyone associating Ballard's name with Borje in any positive way is almost disgusting.....in the sense it feels like Ballard shouldn't even be allowed to associate himself with the name of such a great person.
 
Niagara Bill said:
Ruined part of your life?
Celebrating his death!
You are sick. You need help.
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While the poster you were replying to was being a bit over dramatic, it was certainly frustrating to be a teenage Leafs fan in the 1970s. To watch Ballard refuse to spend money to keep players from jumping to the WHA; to see him fire good hockey men like like Jim Gregory and Roger Nielson and replace them with an out-of-touch Punch Imlach; and to view constant reports of his boorish behaviour including humiliating coaches and staff was very deflating.

And to be honest, there was a definite “Ding dong, the witch is dead” reaction to his death from a lot of Leafs fans. I’m not quite sure I’d call it a celebration of his death but more a celebration of the Leafs being free of his tyranny.

I think living through the 70s and 80s made the 2005-2016 era seem not so bad.
 
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