Imagine this scenario.
You’re a kid who’s lucky enough to attend his first Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game at age six in historic Maple Leaf Gardens. As you watch the game, there’s one player on the home team that you suddenly take a shining to. He skates lightning fast. He can turn on a dime and leave a nickel change. He doesn’t get any points in that 3-0 Leaf victory over the Boston Bruins, but it doesn’t matter. You decide he’s your favorite player, and you begin to watch his career with great interest. Naturally, you get your parents to buy you his jersey.
A few years later, you and your younger brother are at another Leaf game, faces up against the glass, watching the team do its warmup drills. For some reason, an usher comes over and not very politely tells you to get lost, while letting a dozen other adults remain.
Fortunately, you’ve got a mother who detests injustices, so she writes to the Leafs and complains about the double standard. The front office actually writes her back, apologizes for the treatment, and insists that when the boys next come to the Gardens, they come visit the Leaf dressing room after the game.
And that’s how I first met Ron Ellis, 54 years ago.
Left: The author (right) with his brother, Jeff, and Ron Ellis (centre) in the Leafs' dressing room in 1970. Right: The author (right) with Ellis at a game in 2023. (Courtesy of Steve Paikin)
People often say, “Never meet your heroes. They can never live up to the hype.” Those people never met Ron. Next to my own father, he is the finest man I have ever met.
Ron’s health took a sudden turn for the worse last week. He was rushed to hospital in Belleville, where he and his wife, Jan, lived. He died on Saturday at age 79.
Let’s get the hockey stuff out of the way, because, in the end, Ron’s contribution to our world was so much more than whatever he achieved on the ice. And he achieved a lot on the ice.
Ron Ellis’s name on the Stanley Cup for the 1966-67 season. (Steve Paikin)
First and foremost, he was one of those rare players who spent his entire career with just one team. He debuted with the Maple Leafs in 1964 as a Grade 13 student, then spent 15 seasons with the club. He was part of the last Leaf squad to win a Stanley Cup (in 1967), and he scored the first goal in the unforgettable and decisive 3-1 victory over the Montreal Canadiens in Game 6.
Ron wasn’t a flashy superstar, but he was beyond dependable. You could put him down for 20 goals almost every year — a couple of years, more than 30. Ask fans who the top goal scorers are in Leafs history, and they wouldn’t have much trouble coming up with the top four: Mats Sundin (420 goals), Darryl Sittler (389), Auston Matthews (368), and Dave Keon (365). But in fifth place is the guy who quietly did his job without a lot of fanfare: Ron Ellis, with 332 goals.
The author (centre) at a fundraiser for the Hull-Ellis Concussion and Research Clinic with Ron Ellis (left) and former teammate Frank Mahovlich; the author with Ron Ellis. (Courtesy of Steve Paikin)
He's fifth all-time in games played in the blue and white (1,034), seventh all-time in points scored (640), and fifth all-time in game-winning goals (50) — this for a franchise that’s more than a century old.
What makes these numbers even more impressive is the fact that Ron had to step away from the game for two years at age 30. He sustained numerous concussions during his career, at a time when concussion treatment consisted of giving a player some smelling salts and telling him to get back out there. After the break, Ron returned for three and a half more seasons before permanently retiring.
Dave Keon (left) and Ron Ellis leaving teammate "Red" Kelly's funeral in 2019. (Steve Paikin)
Somehow, over the years, Ron and I got to know each other. We knew some of the same people and began supporting each others’ charities. One year, I got invited to his birthday party. To my everlasting joy, we became friends.
Perhaps Ron’s proudest moments in hockey came in 1972, when he was selected to try out for the first ever “Team Canada,” which would take on the Soviet Union in the Summit Series. With so many superstars on the roster, Ron figured he’d get very little, if any, ice time. But he, his Leafs teammate Paul Henderson, and the Philadelphia Flyers’ Bobby Clarke proved to be one of the most important and effective lines in the tournament.
Two years ago, on the 50th anniversary of Team Canada’s success, many of the team members were feted on the floor of the House of Commons, including Ron. It was a magnificent moment as they paraded into the chamber to a standing ovation from all MPs. Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and opposition leader Pierre Poilievre smiled at each other — it was just so magical.
Training Camp | Canada Vs Russia | Summit Series 1972 | Paul Henderson & Ronnie Ellis
I snapped some pictures of Ron off the TV and sent them to him, adding my congratulations that he and his teammates were getting such well-deserved recognition. He replied saying how thrilling it’d been: a seat on the floor of the House rather than in the gallery, a private session with the PM after, a dinner at Rideau Hall hosted by the Governor General.
Ron started his career wearing #11, then switched to #8. But “Ace” Bailey, whose #6 had been retired to honour him in 1933, urged the team to “unretire” his number so Ron could wear it. And that’s what happened. That’s how much the iconic Bailey respected Ron’s game.
While Ron loved the Leafs, the Leafs didn’t always love him back. Those concussions caused Ron to suffer from debilitating chronic depression. When old-school general manager George “Punch” Imlach decided he wanted to dump Ron in 1980, he did so by having the hockey sticks of one of the team’s classiest players ever removed from the dressing room and left in the parking lot.
“Punch” could be a real jerk.
The author's Ron Ellis Muskoka chair. (Steve Paikin)
I was never prouder of Ron than when I watched what he did in his post-hockey career. In a game that prizes macho, “suck it up” behaviour, Ron went public with his struggles with depression, helping to reduce stigma and promote greater understanding. He worked at the Hockey Hall of Fame and at the Christian “Teen Ranch,” trying to keep young people on the right path. Ron was a devout Christian but didn’t proselytize. He wouldn’t raise religion unless you did.
He also teamed up with Chicago Blackhawks star Dennis Hull (his 1972 Team Canada teammate) to raise money for the Hull-Ellis Concussion and Research Clinic, in Toronto. It was one of the great honours of my life when Ron asked me to emcee the annual fundraiser for that clinic. I’d show up every year wearing my Leaf jersey with “ELLIS 6” on the back, then tease Dennis about how the facility should have been called the “Ellis Hull” clinic. Dennis would respond by saying, “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” It always got a laugh. The two men volunteered hundreds of hours of their time for concussion research — both well understood the havoc concussions can wreak.
Interviewing Ron and Dennis Hull at the annual fundraiser for the Hull-Ellis Concussion and Research Clinic. (Steve Paikin)
More than a couple of decades ago, I hosted a TVO program called Studio 2. We wanted to do a segment on how wonderful Canadian homemade backyard frozen-ice rinks were, so we planned a shoot in the backyard of a family in Newmarket. The producer said, “We’d like to get an ex-NHLer to participate. You think you can get anyone?”
I think maybe I can, I said.
Ron immediately agreed to join us, and there we were, on shoot day, skating in circles on the family’s backyard rink. As we turned a corner, Ron ever so slightly stuck out his hip and sent me flying into the snowbank. “Keep your head up!” he laughed. I’ve never been happier to have been knocked on my ass in my life.
As the years went on, I became more and more irritated that the Leafs didn’t seem to appreciate Ron as much as I did. The club has now retired numbers for 19 players, but somehow, never #6 for Ron (only for Bailey). Outside Scotiabank Arena, there’s a huge sculpture called Legends Row, where 14 former Leafs are immortalized with statues sitting on a granite bench. Ron is conspicuous in his absence.
Team Canada vs Soviet Union in their second game in the World Series of Hockey, on September 4, 1972. Ron Ellis is behind the goal. (Photo by one of three photographers covering the game: Barrie Davis, Tibor Kolley, or John Maiola/Globe and Mail.)
Ron was always a goodwill ambassador for the Leafs. Never, during any of my conversations with him over the years, did he slag the team or its subpar treatment of him. One time, he invited me to come to the Leafs alumni box at Scotiabank Arena and watch a game with him. I was over the moon. At one point, he said, “I’ll be right back.” He disappeared for about 10 minutes — then I saw him up there on the Jumbotron above centre ice, giving Leaf jerseys to three Canadian Forces veterans, as the fans gave all of them a standing ovation. Ron was so modest, he wouldn’t even tell me he was about to do something super-cool.
Ron Ellis presenting jerseys to Canadian Forces soldiers. (Steve Paikin)
In 2016, some organization released a list of, in their view, the greatest Leaf players of all time. When I saw that Ron was 24th on the list, I wrote him an email:
“It is a crime that you're not in the Top Ten. Absolutely ridiculous. And I'm telling everyone via Twitter and Facebook! Ron, you're too modest to make a stink about this, but #24? Really? For the [then] fourth leading goal-scorer in team history? For a Stanley Cup champ? A 4-time all-star? Summit Series hero? That list is a joke! And I'm mad about it.”
Ron responded with his typical modesty.
Steve:
Thank you for your loyalty and support of my career.
Honestly, I am not overly disappointed with my ranking.
No doubt, with different criteria I may have moved up a few spots.
What is more important at this stage of my life is knowing that I have impacted the lives of people like my friend Steve Paikin by how I played and what I stand for.
Warm regards,
Ron
How could you not love that man? What a mensch.
Ron Ellis: Class of 2016 Ontario Sports Hall of Fame Inductee
More than two decades ago, author Kevin Shea called me to get some quotes for a book he was writing on Ron called Over the Boards: The Ron Ellis Story. During our conversation, I mentioned to Kevin that my car had recently been broken into and my wallet stolen.
“I didn’t mind losing the cash or credit cards,” I told Kevin. “What really hurts is that I kept a souvenir Ron Ellis hockey card in that wallet, and now it’s gone. I had that thing for ages.”
A month later, I received a letter from Ron. In the letter was a new autographed hockey card to replace the stolen one. That card is still in my wallet.
Ron Ellis was my idol. Remarkably, he became my friend. I’m not the least bit hesitant or embarrassed to say I loved him. He was born on January 8, and he wore Number 8. He died on May 11, and he wore Number 11. When I attend his funeral on Victoria Day, I shall do something that’s sort of not done at funerals. I will wear a hockey jersey — one with “ELLIS 6” on the back, so all three of his numbers will be represented.
Rest in peace, my hero.
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