The King is dead; love live the King. My memories and recollections of a hockey legend, Borje Salming.

The King is dead; long live the King.

Borje Salming loses his battle to ALS less than two weeks after emotional appearances in Toronto.

He left his fans one more indelible image. A series of them in fact over two days of the annual Hall of Fame weekend in the big smoke his adopted home for sixteen years. In back to back appearances in front of an adoring crowd at Scotiabank Arena and several million more watching on TV, as we watched the unbridled emotion of Darryl Sittler, Salming’s former teammate on those solid 1970s Leaf teams bookended by his stoic country man and also a Leaf legend, Mats Sundin, they gave hockey fans an unreserved look into the ravages of ALS and one more opportunity to cherish and cheer for the man whether you were there or as it was for the majority of us in his Leaf days, watching on TV.

I have two personal recollections of Borje Salming. The first came in the 1982/83 season, my second year as a student at Seneca College. I and two classmates in the RTV program ( Radio/Television Broadcasting) were a crew that produced video segments on junior hockey, school hockey and of course the Leafs. Our efforts were edited for class work but also for MacLean-Hunter cable TV for a weekly show that aired on Monday nights called, Sports Spectrum. We were nicknamed ‘the wrecking crew’ by our classmates – which was somewhat appropriate. Rob Ritchie was our cameraman and he was exceptional. I was the host and our producer/consultant/enforcer when needed was Chuck ‘Spider’ Jones, a mature (older) student who had entered college life in 1980 then enrolled in the Radio and Television broadcasting program with myself and our group in 1981.

During our very first visit to Maple Leaf Gardens as we hung at the back of the media pack wondering how we could slide in to obtain some interviews post-practice the bombastic and larger than life Harold Ballard came rolling in like a hurricane. You heard him about thirty seconds before you saw him. As the ink stained wretches of the day hovered around for the inevitable quotes Ballard always provided, he perused the crowd in front of him when his eyes rolled over our threesome which included the only black man in the entire contingent, Ballard stops mid-sentence and walks over to us and looked right at Spider. He put his hand out. ‘You look familiar’, he said to Spider. Spider shook his hand and replied, ‘I met you before Mr. Ballard. I fought here, Friday night Fights, I headlined a couple of your amateur cards, I’m Chuck Jones, Spider Jones.’

Well sir that was a game changer. Ballard bellowed for his communications guy, a very kind gentleman named Stan Obodiac who dutifully walked over whereby Ballard stated – for all to hear – ‘Stan, make sure these guys get whatever they need!’ And just like that we were elevated to the front with the other TV crews and within minutes I was doing my first ever on camera interview with an NHL player and it was none other than, Borje Salming.

I could not have looked more out of place. Wearing attire conducive to early 1980’s college life, 23 years of age but looking 16 I nervously began my line of questioning for Borje. He did one thing before we began and it was so simple, so minor yet meant so much. He put his hand out, touched my arm and said, ‘just relax, you’ll do fine.’ And then I hit him with my first question, ‘ Borje, as you enter your tenth season in the NHL could you ever have envisioned being here after you played those two games against Team Canada during the Summit Series in 1972?’ Well sir….he was not expecting that question and away we went to a 5-6 minute hit we had to edit down to 40 or so seconds for the soundbite for TV and something more manageable for our class work and I can tell you the three of us walked out of there on cloud nine. Definitely because of the engagement with Harold Ballard but also because we got Salming, before any other TV crew, three guys from Seneca College, all because Ballard recognized Spider.

(Note; later that year Stan Obodiac would ask Spider to hit the heavy bag which was positioned outside the Leaf dressing room. When Spider began hitting it the entire Leaf team who had just come off the ice from practice would emerge from the room. Specifically Bob McGill and Jim Korn who would ask Spider questions of what you could use on the ice in a fight from a boxing perspective.)

Fast forward six years, Sunday October 16, 1988. I was in Montreal for a few days for some radio work and a taping of Dick Irvin’s TV show Hockey Magazine. The Habs were hosting the Leafs on the Monday so I stayed right through the weekend and that Sunday I went to a bar called Thursday’s only to find most of the entire Leaf team in attendance.

Toronto had flown to Montreal after blowing a lead against Detroit on Saturday night and losing 5-3. That Sunday night was blow-off-steam night as several of them notably Russ Courtnall were drilling back the pints. I saw my friend Luke Richardson so I made my way to the group, introductions were made all around including to Borje Salming who I took up a spot beside at the bar and immediately recounted my encounter with him six years earlier which he kindly said he remembered when in fact he absolutely did not. Just a class guy. As I talked hockey with him for a few minutes our time at the bar was interrupted when the players had to race to the other side of the bar and grab Courtnall who in a rage had gone over to accost a gentlemen who he thought to be Leaf coach John Brophy.

Those of you who are astute about your hockey dates would have realized by now this night was only a couple of weeks before Courtnall was traded to Montreal for John Kordic. (Montreal threw in a 6th round pick-Michael Doers) That night Luke and Borje among others pulled Courtnall off the startled older gentleman, steered him back to the bar and we restarted our conversations. It was the last time I would see Borje personally and as we all know his career both in Toronto and the NHL was winding down. Nobody called him the King at that time given legendary former Leaf defenseman King Clancy had passed away only two years before however it became a frame of reference for him, the Swedish King if you will and over time it stuck and it’s a beauty nickname because he was all that and then some as a player and even more so off the ice.

Salming wasn’t the first Swede to play in the NHL in fact he and his countryman Inge Hammerstrom were 4/5 when they joined the Leafs in 1973. (Gustaf Forslund, Ulf Sterner, Tommie Bergman were the first three Swedish born NHL players) But nobody took on the league and particularly the antics of many players at that time who wanted to test any Euro player, nobody took on that battle and came through it like Salming. The abuse he took at the hands of the Philadelphia Flyers in particular was disgusting and I love fighting in hockey but no matter what they did to him in particular the Mel Bridgeman fight, none of it stopped him for one iota. He had more guts in his little finger than ? of the league and he had to prove it night after night after night. And he did.

Salming caught the tail end of the Bobby Orr era, the beginning of the Denis Potvin era and the emergence of the Larry Robinson era. He had two runner-up Norris Trophy seasons, 1977-1980 (both to Robinson) and for six years in a row he was top 5 in voting. Brad Park was still very effective as well and Borje just got caught up in the numbers. None of that diminished what he meant to the Leafs, he holds most of the blue line records and he received lifetime recognition and honour when he joined legend row and his statue was unveiled in 2015 and again when his number 21 was raised to the rafters in 2016. Twenty years earlier he received league wide recognition when he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1996. He achieved it all, he deserved it all.

Borje, on behalf of a young college kid forty years ago, thank you for your class, your skill, your commitment to the game of hockey and for being one of the finest human beings I have ever met in the sport of hockey. Condolences to your family. I thank them also for sharing you one final time with us just a few short days ago. Rest in peace, King. You more than earned it.