Punch Imlach

Punch Imlach

George "Punch" Imlach (born March 15, 1918 in Toronto , Ontario , † December 1, 1987 ) was a Canadian ice hockey coach and general manager in the National Hockey League . In both positions he worked for the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Buffalo Sabers . He celebrated several Stanley Cup victories with the Maple Leafs . He has been a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame since 1984 .

Career

Beginning in the lower leagues

Born in Toronto, he played with the Toronto Young Rangers in the OHA in his youth and later joined the Toronto Goodyears and the Toronto Marlboros . During the Second World War he had the opportunity to train a team for the first time when he was drafted into the army. After he was discharged from the army, he received an invitation to the Detroit Red Wings training camp from the NHL , but since he believed he had gained too much weight while doing military service, he canceled.

He then worked in Québec City for the Pulp and Paper company. 1945 began to play for the company owned team Quebec Aces in the QSHL . He later took on the positions of trainer and general manager and became a co-owner of the Aces. Under his leadership, the future NHL superstar Jean Béliveau played for the Aces, who Imlach considered the best player of all time.

1956 rose Imlach a professional hockey into business and became general manager of the Springfield Indians , the AHL - farm team of the Boston Bruins . During the season he used himself as the coach of the team, but was relieved of all offices after the season by team owner Eddie Shore .

Toronto Maple Leafs

In July 1958, Imlach was appointed Assistant General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs . The team did not have a manager, but was led by a seven-person committee led by Stafford Smythe , which Imlach now also belonged to. A few months later, Punch Imlach was named a general manager and shortly afterwards he also took over the position of head coach. He led the team in the 1958/59 season , which was still played with six teams, from last place to the play-offs and the final of the Stanley Cup .

He celebrated his first Stanley Cup victory with the Maple Leafs in 1962 and had three more to follow in 1963, 1964 and 1967.

Imlach showed during his time in Toronto that he is a difficult character who had his own methods of moving the team and players forward. For years, he bullied Frank Mahovlich , who had to leave the team twice because he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. He then achieved top performances that later helped him to be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame . Another method was to move the players' contract negotiations to the training camp until shortly before the start of the season, as he hoped that the players would perform even better in the pre-season due to the uncertain future. Usually he set over 15 preparation games, for which the management did not have to pay any salaries to the players, but where money flowed into the box office through audience income. The players who joined the NHLPA players' union, founded in 1967, had to find out in particular that Imlach had its own laws , because from then on he spurned and vilified them. But if players were loyal to him, he would give it back to them in the form of trust.

As great as the success was, one had to admit that he didn't always have the right sense for good business. In 1963 he gave the players Dick Duff and Bob Nevin and three young talents to the New York Rangers and got the experienced Andy Bathgate and Don McKenney . Although the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup with the new players, they left the team after only a year, while Duff and Nevin had successful years with New York and other teams. The departure of the young goalkeeper Gerry Cheevers , who had a great career in Boston, also had to be committed to Imlach.

In December 1968, the President of the Maple Leafs, Stafford Smythe, suggested that John McLellan take the post as coach, but Imlach refused and decided to continue to take care of the team alone. In the play-offs came a surprisingly clear end against the Boston Bruins and Punch Imlach was dismissed. Some players stood behind their coach and said they would not play for Toronto again if Imlach left. But there was nothing that could be done about President Smythe's decision.

Buffalo Sabers

Shortly after his release, many assumed that he would join the organization of the Vancouver Canucks , which were to start their first NHL season in 1970. But that did not happen and Imlach became the trainer and general manager of the Buffalo Sabers , which joined the NHL at the same time.

Already in the NHL Expansion Draft in 1970 , in which the new teams could choose players from the existing teams, Imlach caused displeasure among some people. Boston's general manager Milt Schmidt had planned to transfer striker Tom Webster to the Detroit Red Wings after the draft to get goalkeeper Roger Crozier for it, which is why he informed Imlach about it and asked Webster not to select Webster in the expansion draft. Schmidt was sure that he had an arrangement with Imlach, but he chose Webster with his first right to vote and transferred him himself to the Red Wings for goalkeeper Crozier.

With the first draft pick in the NHL Amateur Draft in 1970 , he brought Gilbert Perreault and made an important decision, because Perreault should play a total of 17 seasons for the team and due to his good performance later be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

During the 1971/72 season Imlach suffered a heart attack and then gave up the post of coach. But he continued to build the team as general manager, which made it into the Stanley Cup final in the 1974/75 season .

At the beginning of the season, Imlach made headlines again when he selected Taro Tsujimoto, the first Japanese in NHL history, in the 1974 NHL Amateur Draft in the last round. The newspaper reported on it, and several NHL record books included it, but a few weeks later it was discovered that Imlach had taken a joke and had simply picked a name from a Buffalo phone book. With this joke he wanted to show his dislike for the draft system .

Over the years he has clashed with players again and again, especially with team captain Jim Schoenfeld , whom Imlach had publicly criticized.

After the elimination in the second playoff round in the 1977/78 season , Imlach promised that there would be decisive changes in the squad, which however never occurred. When the Sabers started the next season weak, Imlach was released in December 1978.

Return to the Maple Leafs

In July 1979, Imlach returned to the Toronto Maple Leafs as the right-hand man of team owner Harold Ballard , but his return should not be particularly positive for the team. Over time, he dissolved the team that had fought their way to the semi-finals of the playoffs in 1978. On his first day at work, he had announced in the media that the team only had five to six good players in its ranks. He also introduced a rule that players were only allowed to enter the team leadership's office in suits and ties. Tiger Williams violated it several times and had to pay a total of US $ 500 fine.

This time, too, he quickly ran into a few players, especially team captain Darryl Sittler . Imlach tried to undermine Sittler's authority in the ranks of the team. He later tried to prevent Sittler and teammate Mike Palmateer from appearing on TV by means of an injunction . Since Sittler had a clause in his contract that forbade the team to transfer him to another team, Imlach tried another way to get Sittler to leave the team by sending his best friend Lanny McDonald to the Colorado Rockies . The changes within the squad should lead to a 13-year decline.

Imlach Sittler later offered the Buffalo Sabers in exchange for his former protégé Gilbert Perreault, but the Sabers refused. On the other hand, Imlach turned down an offer from the Philadelphia Flyers . In March 1980 he appointed himself head coach of the Maple Leafs, but soon passed the post to Joe Crozier , who was already in Buffalo under Imlach coach.

In August 1980, Darryl Sittler was about to move to the Québec Nordiques when Imlach suffered a heart attack. Team owner Ballard took the chance and made himself general manager and held talks with Sittler, who eventually stayed in Toronto. In addition, Borje Salming received a new contract, which Imlach had rejected. Imlach was back at the end of the year and continued to work as General Manager.

In September 1981, Imlach had to undergo bypass surgery after his third heart attack . During this time, team owner Ballard took over the reins of the Maple Leafs and explained that Imlach is leaving as general manager due to his health problems. Imlach wanted to continue his work in November, but when he learned that his parking lot at Maple Leaf Gardens had meanwhile been transferred to someone else and that Gerry McNamara was the new GM of the Maple Leafs, he never returned to the organization.

In November 1985 he suffered a fourth heart attack and died in 1987 of complications from a fifth at the age of 69.

After all his successes, he was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1984.

successes

• Stanley Cup 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967

Web links

• Punch Imlach in the database of the Hockey Hall of Fame (English)
• Punch Imlach at hockeydb.com (English)