Each day from now until the Winter Classic, Sportsnet will count down the greatest Toronto Maple Leafs of all time.
Ask Maple Leafs fans who they’d rank as the toughest Bud of all time and you’d probably get a consistent response: Wendel Clark. And, pound for pound, you can make a solid case for No. 17 (apologies to “Tiger” Williams and Tie Domi). Sure, there were some resumé-padding scraps with Bob Brooke, Mark Hardy and Craig MacTavish, but Clark battled the biggest boys in the NHL, including Bob Probert, Behn Wilson and Rick Tocchet. That said, Clark’s legendary slugging skills don’t stand up to Reginald “Red” Horner. “The late 1920s and 1930s were as tough as any era in the league’s history, and Horner was among the toughest of the tough,” says hockey historian Kevin Shea, one of the last people to interview the long-time Leaf.
Horner, who wore the sheriff’s badge for the Maple Leafs from 1928 to ’40 and was described by Maclean’s in 1935 as “Hockey’s bad boy,” led the NHL in penalty minutes for the final eight seasons of his career. It was his job to patrol the blueline (paired mainly with King Clancy), protect the franchise’s smaller players and keep the opposition honest around the “Kid Line.” And as Clancy was quick to start scraps he had no intention of ever seeing through, it was up to Red to finish the business. And he did so willingly. “He was part of a very wild group of Leafs known as the ‘Gas House Gang.’ They were characters.” says Shea, “While not as wild as Conacher and Jackson, and not as mischievous as Clancy, he liked his fun and was one of the boys.”
And he was quick to come to one’s defence. While Dec. 12, 1933, at Boston Garden will forever be remembered as the night Boston’s Eddie Shore ended Ace Bailey’s career, Horner was front and centre. He had been pounding the Bruins’ leader with punishing bodychecks all night. Frustrated at one point in the second period after getting drilled, Shore mistook Bailey for Horner on his way back up the ice and violently upended the Leafs forward, slamming his head on the ice. (Emergency brain surgery would save his life, but Bailey would never play hockey again.) While trainers, doctors and players tended to an unconscious Bailey in the Leafs’ end of the rink, Horner skated up to Shore, informed him that this behaviour would not be tolerated, and promptly laid him out with a single punch.
But often lost in the tales of Horner’s toughness was the fact that he could flat-out play—he captained the Leafs in his final two seasons. While his skating was always the biggest knock against him (he’d never be confused with Howie Morenz in a foot race), Horner was one of the best at moving the puck out of his own zone.
And he was sharp right to the end. Shea remembers his last meeting with the hockey star 15 months before his death in April 2005. “He was 94 years old but still feisty,” says Shea. “I was given a very strict 30 minutes with him. And at that 30-minute mark, he waved his hand and told me, ‘Thanks. That was fun.’ He was about to head down for his second workout of the day—his usual regimen was 30 minutes on the bike–and didn’t want to miss Happy Hour at his retirement home. Classic!”