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Friday, February 12, 1999
Still bitter, after all these years
He didn't elaborate. He didn't explain. But the sound was his voice, not the usual dial tone.
"If people are talking about me, they must be hard up, I guess,'' the reclusive Keon said on a long-distance line from his home in Florida during a rare and brief interview with the former Maple Leafs captain.
And then he kind of giggled.
"I never talk about it,'' he said of the Leafs and the reasons he left so angrily in 1975 after 15 seasons in Toronto. "I never talk about it, never have, I'm not going to talk about it now.
"Hey, we move on with our lives.''
When asked another question, Keon paused and said quietly but tersely: "You obviously didn't hear me.''
The captain won't be here tomorrow night when the country says goodbye to Maple Leaf Gardens and he doesn't seem to care.
"I might watch (on TV),'' he said. "I might not. I'm not even sure it's on here. I don't know if I'm going to be home.''
Twenty-four years have passed since Keon left the Maple Leafs for the Minnesota Fighting Saints of the World Hockey Association, but whatever happened between Keon and the late Harold Ballard, whatever happened to cause so many bitter years, never has been fully explained.
DIFFICULT TIMES
"Some of those times were very difficult,'' Keon's brother, Jim, said in the book Captains. "My family's credo was always, if you can't say anything good about somebody, don't say anything at all. His silence says a lot in my mind. That fact that he won't say anything means he hasn't got anything good to say.''
Leafs assistant coach Rick Ley is still friends with Keon. They played together with the Maple Leafs and the Whalers for parts of eight seasons. During the recent all-star break, Ley stayed with Keon in Florida. Keon told him then he wouldn't take part in any celebration involving the closing of Maple Leaf Gardens.
"He is still stubborn and bitter as to what happened to him,'' Ley told Tim Wharnsby of The Toronto Sun yesterday. "You have to understand Davey. He is a stubborn guy. He is still very bitter. It's a hard thing to explain. In fact, I really can't explain it because only Davey knows what his reasons are.''
"It's a very personal thing,'' Maple Leafs president Ken Dryden said. The Leafs wrote Keon asking him to take part in tomorrow's extravaganza. Keon didn't respond. Last weekend, Dryden called Keon.
"I didn't try to convince him,'' Dryden said. "It's not a matter of persuasion. We all have our personal reasons and they make sense to us.
"Dave Keon is a great Leaf. He earned that the hard way. All I would hope is someday it will be different for him.''
It was different for Keon when he left Toronto to play in Minnesota. He became friends with Harry Neale, his coach. He became friends with Johnny MacKenzie, his winger.
"You knew he was unhappy when we first met him,'' said Glen Sonmor, who was then the general manager with the Fighting Saints. "He's a different guy. He's not very expressive.
"But I do know he loved his time playing here. One time, he told me how much more fun it was to play here than it was in Toronto. It was like the pressure was off him and he was enjoying that.
"People always said it was the money, but I always got a sense he left Toronto for something more than the contract. It wasn't just the money. It was more than that.''
NOT EASILY DEFINED
It was Dave Keon being Dave Keon. Not easily defined, not easily explained.
Long after midnight one season, the Maple Leafs arrived in Boston on a late flight. Punch Imlach gave the team a few minutes to grab a bite to eat before curfew. Most of the team went across the street from the hotel for a sandwich.
They sat together, ate together, talked together and then someone wandered upstairs in the restaurant. There, past 2 a.m. sat Keon by himself, eating his sandwich, talking to no one.
"It's sad,'' Neale said. "I would have liked to have seen him here. I know Toronto fans would have wanted it.
"I don't know the reasons why he feels as he does, but I know it's his privilege to feel that way. When he makes up his mind, he can be pretty stubborn.''
Stubbornly, Keon played 15 seasons for the Leafs, was captain for six years, won a Calder Trophy, a Conn Smythe Trophy, two Lady Byngs and four Stanley Cups. Remember, as the names are called tomorrow night, he was as big a Maple Leaf as anyone who ever played here.
His memories may be grim. Ours cannot be trampled on so easily.