Inside story of Cliff Fletcher, hockey’s greatest dealmaker

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Cliff Fletcher arose from his seat at the front of a charter jumbo jet, making his way down the aisles, checking on everyone.

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He kibitzed with his staff, the coaches, players, media and his special guests, Maple Leaf Gardens janitors, office clerks, accountants and the Zamboni drivers, making sure all had ample food, drink and in-fight entertainment.

It was the 1994 playoffs, the Leafs were headed to San Jose, and Fletcher was one of the first NHL execs to invite everyday employees on a playoff trip to reward their service, loving his grandfatherly role.

Treated people the right way

“He just knew the right way to treat people,” recalled former Gardens business manager Bob Stellick. “A true egalitarian and after that gesture of the trip, the whole Gardens was ready to go through a wall for him.

“From the first day Cliff came to the Leafs (in 1991), it was like a collective weight was lifted in the building. He was an exemplary man, who brought instant credibility. He re-set everything in Toronto.

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“It’s a sad day, but there’s a lot of good to remember him by.”

Fletcher died at age 90 on Friday in Arizona, working for the team as a senior adviser to his final days.

“Things were so chaotic before he arrived,” Stellick reminded. “Harold (Ballard) had just passed, Floyd Smith was trying to find his way as GM and there was uncertainty about who’d ultimately run the place.

“Donald Giffin (briefly MLG’s president) asked me for prominent names around the NHL and I said Bill Torrey, Scotty Bowman, Harry Sinden, Cliff, but thinking, ‘No way any of them will ever come to Toronto.’

“But Don was intrigued by Cliff and said, ‘I’ll get him,’ and people started working the back channels to Calgary. If you’d told me in just one year we’d get Cliff and he’d get Pat Burns from Montreal to coach, I’d have said no way. But Cliff took control from his first press conference.”

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After a rough first year as president, Fletcher changed coaches, sweater design (bringing back the classic Leaf logo on the shoulder) and most importantly, flipped the roster with several jaw-dropping deals for Doug Gilmour, Glenn Anderson and Dave Andreychuk. Two years with back-to-back conference championship appearances followed for a team that hadn’t been to the third round since the ‘70s.

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“When we hired Burns and unveiled the sweaters, we thought of a launch at the Gardens,” Stellick said. “The ice was out for summer, so we put up the wrestling ring for Cliff and Pat and 14,000 people showed up in the middle of summer for free hot dogs and ice cream. That’s when we realized, ‘Wow, we’re sitting on a lot of love here.’ The average fan said, ‘I’m buying in.’

“Cliff wanted everyone to be happy. I only really saw him down once the first season, right after Pittsburgh killed us 12-1. But then he went out a couple of days later and made the (10-player) Gilmour trade.”

A highlight video was made of that campaign after the Leafs made it to Game 7 against Los Angeles called ‘The Passion Returns’. The team thought it might sell 20,000 copies, but went well into six figures.

A few other Fletcher favourites

When winger Mike Foligno broke his leg in a home game two days before Christmas – ruining a planned family drive with his wife and future NHL sons to Sudbury for the holidays, Fletcher sprang to action.

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He arranged team hospital visits for Foligno and had his mother flown in from Sudbury for a Christmas dinner around his bedside.

In a bygone era of harmonious team and press relations, Fletcher might seek out beat writers on the morning of a routine practice and whisper, “I wouldn’t make dinner plans with your family if I were you,” a tip that a trade or signing was imminent, trying to make our home and work lives a bit easier.

During his GM years and later as Leaf senior adviser, Fletcher and partner Linda would host a dinner for players, coaches, staff and media at their off-season home in Scottsdale, Ariz., for the team’s annual visit to play the Coyotes. One year, everyone got off the bus to be greeted by a mariachi band.

Cliff’s only stipulation: “I want to see a drink in your hand, not your notebook.”

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When my son was born, Cliff had a small sized No. 93 Leafs sweater delivered to my house with his name on the back and a note:

“Congratulations on the birth of your future Leaf draft pick. Or if things go south for him, a Toronto Sun sportswriter.”

Fletcher had a fellow writer and his wife over to sup at his Toronto abode. During post dinner fine wine (Cliff was quite the connoisseur), talk turned to previous trades and the scribe asked what the “future considerations” were in the last-minute 1997 deadline deal that sent defenceman Larry Murphy to the Detroit Red Wings. Cliff just smiled.

“You’re drinking it.”

Poured first pint of beer at Gardens

Fletcher pushed for the sale of beer at Leafs home games at a time when the Gardens was the last “dry” NHL rink. In early 1993, he poured the ceremonial first ale – at what was then a shockingly-high $4.25 a pint.

One of Cliff’s proudest moments was son Chuck joining the NHL GM fraternity with the Minnesota Wild after an internship as a player agent, businessman and working under Torrey among others. Chuck had written a Grade 4 school project in Montreal on his goal to follow his father into the NHL.

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“The biggest things he taught me were patience, to make sure you treat people the way you want to be treated, and to hire good people and let them do their jobs,” Chuck told the Sun years ago. “He was always so good at utilizing his own staff when he was in Toronto. Look at all his proteges working around the NHL today.”

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We once asked Fletcher why he insisted keeping the Leaf AHL farm team in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, in the 1990s, despite the high travel costs, its old arena at the time and the difficult logistics of getting Leaf farmhands and scouts in and out of The Rock.

“First of all, they’re great people down there. Secondly, it’s the Canadian thing to do.”

He was one of the first NHL GMs to lend players to the Canadian Olympic team before a formal agreement was reached in the late ‘90s.

Fletcher was employed as the Leafs’ senior adviser right to the end, close to 20 years after his second stint as GM, and did not consider his title to be nominal. While Fletcher had mobility issues in later years, son-in-law Jim Neish spoke with him regularly about news in the hockey world.

“He’d have about three or four TVs and monitors going in his office on a game night,” Neish told us. “Junior, NCAA, Europe. He never stopped working.”

lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby

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