TORONTO (Jan. 31) – As the Maple Leafs endure a season of gut-wrenching losses, a man very much responsible for the club garnering credibility in the 1990s is nearing the end of a much tougher battle.
Former Leafs’ coach Pat Burns – having refused to undergo treatment for a third bout of cancer – is gravely ill right now and appears to be playing out the final act of a life that’s been captivating beyond its years. Friends in coaching and media circles that speak with Burns say his physical condition is rapidly deteriorating; that he’s lost a considerable amount of weight, and that talking and breathing are often laborious. None of this comes as a surprise after Burns, 57, elected to forego conventional medical therapy upon a recurrence of the insidious disease he had twice overcome. Still, it is sad beyond words.
Born in Montreal on April 4, 1952, Burns coached the Canadiens to moderate success during five seasons in the late-‘80s and early-‘90s. When the Habs let him go in May of 1992, Leafs’ general manager Cliff Fletcher quickly hired him to replace Tom Watt. It was a brilliant move by Fletcher, who had acquired Doug Gilmour in a startling ten-player trade with Calgary just five months earlier. Together, Burns and Gilmour became the face of a club that restored hockey pride to this city; the invigorated Maple Leafs advancing to consecutive Stanley Cup semifinal berths in 1993 and ’94. For those who suffered through the wretched final years of Harold Ballard’s ownership reign, it was no small triumph.
Through the entire decade of the ‘80s, the Leafs were a laughingstock. Where young players once dreamt of pulling on the fabled blue and white jersey, top-rated junior and college prospects now instructed their agents to warn the club against drafting them. Ballard maintained a vice-like grip on the hockey operation – flimsy as it was – and refused to let go even as he lapsed into a state of physical and emotional disarray. Sadly, his death in April, 1990 was viewed as a relief in matters pertaining to the hockey club.
Ballard’s court-sanctioned predecessor, a wonderful man named Donald Giffin, immediately went to work at repairing the Leafs’ image – on and off the ice. When Fletcher’s contract expired in Calgary just two years after the Flames won the 1989 Stanley Cup, Giffin lured him to Toronto and gave him the keys to the franchise. The Silver Fox provided the Leafs stability and integrity they had mostly lacked during the previous 12 years, since Ballard had fired long-time, respected manager Jim Gregory and replaced him with an over-the-hill Punch Imlach. Whereas Ballard and Imlach schemed to disavow former players, Fletcher unlocked the gate to the Maple Leafs’ rich heritage, inviting franchise legends back into the fold. He hired Darryl Sittler – the club’s all-time points leader – as a special consultant and established an open-door policy for the team’s copious alumni.
Within 20 months, the new GM hired Burns; smartly traded for Gilmour and Dave Andreychuk, and elevated young goalie Felix Potvin to the No. 1 role. The beloved, hard-nosed Wendel Clark was accorded the team captaincy. What was initially described as a five-year plan toward respectability became an astonishing, almost-overnight challenge for the league championship – the aforementioned converting the Leafs from a club that won just 10 games in the first half of the 1991-92 season to a playoff juggernaut that came within minutes of advancing to the ’93 Cup final.
Whereas Fletcher provided the managerial intellect; Andreychuk the fire-power; Clark the brawn, and Gilmour the soul, it was Burns that brought the fight back to the Maple Leafs. The former cop, his mustachioed face engaged in a perpetual scowl, commanded accountability from all levels of the roster. When opposition coach Barry Melrose of the Los Angeles Kings dared taunt him about his rotund features during the ’93 Cup semifinal, Burns made a bee-line for the visitors’ bench at Maple Leaf Gardens; the video-image of the Leafs’ coach being restrained by his assistant, Mike Kitchen, remains among the most iconic in club annals.
The entire city went along for a glorious, two-month ride.
And that’s why the notion of a terminally-ill Burns; gaunt and struggling for breath, strikes a chord with any person that recalls the healing effect he had on the Maple Leafs franchise.
We can only wish him comfort and peace in his final journey.
E-mail
[email protected] 
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»