This is the second part in a two-part series about hockey legend Clarence 'Hap' Day. The first part ran Sunday.
Before he ever stepped on the ice for the Toronto St. Pats, Hap sought out the advice of Penetanguishene's Bert Corbeau.
An earlier Stanley Cup champion with the Montreal Canadiens, “Pig Iron” was well seasoned about life sin the big league.
“Bert at that time was a star with Toronto St. Patricks,” said Day in 1942. “He was a tough, hard-hitting defenceman. When I was playing for junior clubs around Midland, he was my ideal as a hockey player. Every time he returned to Penetanguishene I would gather around and listen to his hockey stories.” Again, the local connection.
Corbeau told the rookie he wouldn't go wrong turning pro, and, following an initial stint playing left wing, Day returned to his customary defence position (ironically, Corbeau and Hap were blueline partners for Toronto) and a career that earned him his Hall of Fame induction.
Local lads Hap Day and Bert Corbeau are seen in their playing days together on the Toronto St. Pats. Submitted photo
Though not as flashy as some of the more heralded defencemen of the era, like King Clancy and Eddie Shore, Day was still very much respected around the NHL. His level head and timely goals helped the St. Pats win games, and after 1927, he became the leader of Toronto's renamed Maple Leafs.
The Leafs of the 1930s were a rollicking crew, what with Clancy and the Kid Line's Charlie Conacher stirring things up on and off the ice.
The fun-loving Day, a teetotaller and non-smoker, loved practical jokes and pulling pranks on his teammates (he once won a bet by diving into a swimming pool wearing his new suit). However, that didn't stop him from taking his business seriously, and during the 1931-32 season, he captained Toronto to a Stanley Cup championship, the first ever won by the Leafs.
Hap played with the Leafs until 1937, when Toronto owner Conn Smythe sold the 36-year-old veteran to the New York Americans. He then refereed in the NHL for a bit, before Smythe tapped him to take over the Leafs' coaching job from Dick Irvin, Sr. in 1940.
The '40s was “Day's decade.”
The former Midland junior proved to be one of those rare hockey figures (Montreal's Toe Blake also comes to mind) who not only was an outstanding player, but one as equally great behind the bench. Preaching his defence-first philosophy, Hap's Leafs, led by Syl Apps, Turk Broda, and Ted (Teeder) Kennedy, captured three straight Cup titles from 1947 to 1949. No other NHL team had ever done that before, just like Toronto was the first squad in league history to overcome a 0-3 deficit to take a playoff series.
That was in the Stanley Cup final of 1942, against the Detroit Red Wings. Three years later, the Leafs were again victorious over the Wings, only this time, the seven-game championship triumph by the Blue and White didn't require any miracle comeback.
In 1951, the year of Bill Barilko's famous overtime goal, Hap would celebrate his seventh and final Stanley Cup following his appointment to assistant manager by Smythe. Day finished his 10 seasons of coaching the Leafs with those five Cup crowns won under his tutelage, and it remains the most ever collected by any Toronto bench boss – one more than Punch Imlach's four in the 1960s.
Just for good measure, Hap also has a Memorial Cup on his record, having previously guided the West Toronto Nationals to the Canadian junior championship. (The manager of that club was the notorious Harold Ballard.)
He was now as much of a fixture around Maple Leaf Gardens as Foster Hewitt's Gondola. During the early 1930s, the then Leaf captain had even opened the Happy Day Pharmacy inside the Gardens, setting up shop right beside the front entrance to the hockey shrine.
Conn Smythe explained in his memoirs that “to make sure he'd stay,” he talked Day into buying 16 percent of his sand and gravel business in 1927, making him a limited partner. “I wanted him around me (in) summer as well as winter,” said Smythe, “for a long time.”
As it happens, Hap's 30-year tenure with the Leafs would not end well.
In 1955, Smythe finally named Day Toronto's general manager. He'd mostly been handling the day-to-day operations of the hockey club without the full title anyhow for the five previous years.
Unfortunately, as glorious as the 1940s were for the Leafs, the '50s turned out to be anything but. Toronto missed the playoffs two years in a row, and the new hockey committee, headed by Conn Smythe's son, Stafford, began to question whether Hap's old defensive style was still effective.
The Leafs were in a rebuilding mode, and at the conclusion of the 1956-57 season, the elder Smythe informed the gathered reporters at a press conference that although he hadn't lost confidence in his GM, Hap would be asked if he was “available” to carry on.
Day had to feel deeply hurt, even betrayed. He told Smythe, “It's strange I should be asked if I was available, after 30 years. But since I have been asked, I don't want the job anymore.”
It seemed a terrible way to treat someone who'd given the organization so much.
After walking away from hockey, Day moved to St. Thomas, Ontario, and bought Elgin Handles Limited, a business he successfully ran until selling it to his son, Kerry, in 1977.
During his life, the Owen Sound native, who passed away in 1990, didn't lose touch of his North Simcoe roots.
On the day Midland's brand-new Arena Gardens officially opened in January 1932, Hap sent his congratulations. Through the Maple Leafs' dynasty years of the 1940s, he also provided photos and autographs of Toronto players for the kids attending district hockey banquets, including the one at Waubaushene in 1947.
And, it's been said that whenever Day had reason to come to the area and stay overnight, it was usually at the Panorama Inn, a long-gone motel that once stood at the corner of Highway 93 and Balm Beach Road.
Some might wonder, is Hap in the Midland Sports Hall of Fame? The answer is, yes. He was inducted in 2000, and 18 years later the Owen Sound Sports Hall of Fame would embrace him, as well.
These are wonderful tributes from two Georgian Bay communities that can honestly claim the man George Dudley, Midland's “Mr. Hockey,” considered one of the best to ever play hockey for the town: Hap Day, the Leafs' original Number Four.
Thomas Paradis lives in Midland and is a writer of sports history. His last article for MidlandToday was on the 1958 Midland Indians baseball club.