Remembering former Maple Leafs GM Gerry McNamara

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Though facing much criticism in his tenure as general manager of the Maple Leafs, Gerry McNamara was at peace in his final years.

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Believing that time vindicated both his draft picks and the direction of the team after he was let go, McNamara spent the last of his retirement attending team events and hockey forums, telling stories of the 1980s and reminiscing about his playing days with St. Michael’s College and briefly as an NHL goalie for the Leafs.

Friends and Leaf alumni say they were informed by McNamara’s family that he passed Friday night at age 90 after some recent health issues.

GM for seven seasons in the 1980s, McNamara was also the team scout who first laid eyes on the great Borje Salming in Sweden in 1972 and quickly put him on the team’s negotiation list. As GM he announced Wendel Clark’s name first overall at the 1985 draft when his selection wasn’t a slam dunk.

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“He changed me from a defenceman to a winger,” Clark told Postmedia on Saturday. “I didn’t know that was his plan, but it worked out for me to make the NHL, though I remember my dad wasn’t happy about it at first.

“Gerry drafted a lot of young guys and treated us well. We were starting to put it together, went a couple of playoff rounds and you could see our potential. Then it kind of got blown up, but that wasn’t because of him.”

McNamara was promoted to GM by Harold Ballard after the second coming of Punch Imlach soured and then Imlach got sick. Where Imlach quickly clashed with the unpredictable owner, McNamara rarely challenged his boss, but gained autonomy to make the call on many high picks that resulted from years of futility during the Leafs’ regular seasons.

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However, Ballard’s disdain of proper developmental resources left McNamara to rush early-’80s names such as Jim Benning, Bob McGill, Russ Courtnall, Al Iafrate, Gary Leeman, and goalies Ken Wregget and Allan Bester into NHL roles and hope they could swim.

When there was roster progress after Clark arrived and the Leafs upset Chicago in the ‘86 playoffs and took St. Louis to seven games, Ballard wouldn’t reward coach Dan Maloney, becoming enamoured with farm club ruffian John Brophy. But the old-school Brophy used an iron fist on the younger Leafs, causing conflict with them and ultimately, McNamara.

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“I never ever dissed him,” McNamara said of Ballard in a 2015 interview. “He treated me and my family tremendously well. That doesn’t mean he did some things he shouldn’t have, but I still respect him. He gave me the opportunity and I appreciate that.

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“I said, ‘You own the club, you have a right to do whatever you want with it’. And he did.”

In a 1988 showdown, Ballard sided with the coach and McNamara was fired — while in a phone booth at the Hartford Civic Center. Brophy didn’t last much longer either, while McNamara was hired as a scout by Calgary GM Cliff Fletcher.

He was warned he’d be stepping into a mine field taking the Leafs job, but having worked a few humdrum jobs after his playing days and turning down a promotion as a salesman at Moirs’ Chocolates, he vowed to get back in the NHL in any capacity.

“All you ever have to do is get there and you’ll come along pretty fast,” he said in 2015. “You do it your way, because in the end, you have to answer for it. I grew into that GM job and think I did darn fine, though lots of people won’t agree.”

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Like many future Leafs of his day, McNamara was born in Northern Ontario in Sturgeon Falls.

His father put the 15-year-old on a train down to St. Mikes, following older brother Hal, a defenceman on the school’s junior team. Disembarking at Union Station, McNamara said he couldn’t stop staring at the Royal York Hotel, the tallest building he’d ever seen.

He came to St. Mike’s primarily to study, but had some experience in net. Hal arranged for a tryout with the Majors with the first goalie skates and proper gear his younger brother ever wore. Only a few minutes in, Majors coach Peanuts O’Flaherty kicked him off the ice, though he eventually played on a school team that included Dick Duff and Frank Mahovlich. At the end of 1954-55, he signed a C-form with the Leafs for $2,500 and started in Sudbury of the Eastern League.

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There were just six No. 1 jobs in the NHL, but in February 1961, with Johnny Bower hurt, Imlach called McNamara up for four games. He won one at the Gardens versus Chicago and a rare Leafs victory at the Montreal Forum among his starts.

McNamara didn’t return to the NHL until February 1970. While playing senior hockey in Orillia, Leafs starter Marv Edwards got hurt and GM Jim Gregory asked him to back Bruce Gamble. The recall lasted the rest of the season and Gregory never forgot the contribution. A couple of years later, he offered McNamara the job as special assignment scout.

“Best thing that ever happened to me,” McNamara said.

lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby

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