Not a Wingman Yet, but Ballard on Ice Spells Trouble

TORONTO —  Harold Ballard, the crusty, quick-tongued owner of Canada’s favorite losing hockey team, is fighting for his life in the hospital.

Should he succumb, a huge legal fight looms for control of his beloved team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and their home arena, the Maple Leaf Gardens.

In a country where hockey is practically a religion, all eyes are on him.

At 86, the Maple Leaf’s feisty owner has been at death’s door several times and each time has recovered.

“When he dies, there will be an incredible squabble about the disposition of Maple Leaf Gardens,” said Jim Proudfoot, sports columnist and longtime Ballard-watcher.

“The only people who are going to win in the long run are the lawyers, as usual.”

Ballard was vacationing in the Cayman Islands with his girlfriend, Yolanda Ballard, 57, when he was rushed Jan. 3 to the Baptist Hospital in Miami with heart and liver problems. He is in serious condition.

His Maple Leafs, once the dominant team in hockey, started losing after he took control in 1972. They have not won hockey’s major trophy, the Stanley Cup, since 1967.

Before Ballard’s ownership the Leafs were the pride of Canada, winning more Stanley Cups than any other team in the National Hockey League except the Montreal Canadiens.

Many fans and sports commentators believe that Ballard has run the team into the ground and that it would flourish if other directors took over. Stock in the team’s ownership company, Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd., rockets when he goes into the hospital.

Despite the team’s record, fans have consistently packed the dilapidated downtown arena to support the Maple Leafs and to catch a glimpse of Ballard, the sport’s most colorful character.

Love him or hate him, Ballard, with his sharp tongue and his hands-on approach to management, has regularly captured more headlines than his hockey team.

He has made enough wise cracks to fill a book of quotations, has expelled journalists from his arena for criticizing his team and been described as a crusty, self-made curmudgeon.

Maple Leaf Gardens Ltd. is worth about $165.5 million Canadian. But its future is uncertain.

Ballard controls 80.28% of the 3.6 million shares in the Gardens through Harold E. Ballard Ltd.

Molson Breweries has an option to buy 19.9%. In addition, one of Ballard’s three children, Bill Ballard, has launched a $170-million suit against him in which he is seeking 34% of the common stock.

The National Hockey League has an interest in any changeover, as do the banks that lent Ballard about $36 million in 1989 to buy out the interests of two of his children.

Then there is Yolanda, who changed her name from MacMillan to Ballard in 1988. She has been quoted as saying that Ballard had asked her to marry him three days before he fell ill.

No one knows what deals he had made with her or if Ballard will hold good on his promise and, in the end, hand the organization over to charities.