Tom Scallen

Tom Scallen photographed by the Globe and Mail at his Minneapolis home in 2011.

Thomas Kaine Scallen
Born: August 14, 1925
Died: March 21, 2015 (Minneapolis, Minnesota)

Tom Scallen, a millionaire businessman and impresario from Minnesota, brought the expansion Vancouver Canucks into the NHL only to lose the team and serve jail time.

He was convicted in 1973 of stealing $3 million from Northwest Sports Enterprises Ltd., the company that owned the NHL Canucks, and using the money to pay off debts of Northwest’s parent company, Medical Investment Corp. (Medicor).

Scallen was also convicted of issuing a false prospectus in raising money to cover the $6-million fee the NHL demanded for an expansion team in Vancouver.

Originally convicted to concurrent four-year prison terms, Scallen appealed to the B.C. Court of Appeals, which unanimously dismissed the appeal, though his sentence was reduced to two years. Scallen surrendered to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on June 3, 1974. He was booked into the British Columbia Penitentiary in the Vancouver suburb of Burnaby that day, eventually serving nine months before being released on parole.

A month earlier, Vancouver-based media mogul Frank Griffiths bought controlling interest in the Canucks from Medicor. Griffiths, through his company Western International Communications, owned the Canucks until his death at 77 in 1994. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a builder in 1992.

Such a future honour might have been on Scallen’s mind when he made his move into professional hockey in 1969. A Second World War veteran and the son of a prominent Minneapolis trial lawyer, Scallen practiced law himself and served as a time as Minnesota’s assistant attorney general. He later became a banker.

When his twin brother, Dr. Raymond Scallen, a physician, cited a need for rentable medical equipment, Scallen formed Medicor. He made a small fortune, some of which he used to buy the Shipstads & Johnson Ice Follies, the traveling show of performing ice skaters. (He’d later purchase a competitor, Holiday on Ice, merging the two troupes.) This taste of the impresario’s life encouraged Scallen to invest in professional hockey.

The NHL had only six teams from 1942 until 1967, when it doubled in size by adding six new teams in the United States. Each new franchise paid a $2-million fee. To the surprise of many, Vancouver was passed over. When the NHL announced it would add two more teams in 1970 in Vancouver and Buffalo, the league demanded what was at the time a shocking a $6-million expansion fee, of which a $1.75-million down payment was due by the end of February, 1970.

The NHL offered the rights to the Vancouver franchise to Northwest Sports Enterprises Ltd., owners of a minor-league pro team in the Western Hockey League also named Canucks. Northwest balked at the offer, complaining about the tripling of the expansion fee. Scallen then stepped in to buy 90 percent of Northwest for $2.8 million. He agreed to the NHL’s price. Unable to finance both the purchase of the old Canucks and the NHL’s expansion fee, he borrowed $3 million from the Walter E. Heller Corporation of Chicago.

Scallen was initially hailed by fans for ensuring Vancouver would have an NHL team for the 1970-71 season. When Medicor’s Lyman Walters sparked controversy by suggesting the word Canucks was “an outdated slang expression,” Scallen assured fans the new team would keep the old team’s name. “Who am I to tell the fans what their hockey team should be called?” he said. Though the NHL Canucks struggled on the ice, ticket sales were brisk and it looked like Scallen had made a good investment.

His problem — the $3-million loan, which became due six months after he borrowed the money. With Medicor’s cash flow limited, Scallen decided to offer shares of Northwest available to the public. The prospectus declared the money raised would be used to retire a small debt, make another expansion franchise payment, and otherwise be invested in other sporting properties. Scallen talked about buying a Canadian Football League team in Edmonton, or Montreal, and mused about getting a major-league baseball team in Toronto.

A one-man operation, Scallen used the money raised to pay off Medicor’s loan to Heller, none of which had been described in the prospectus. When Northwestern’s board of directors discovered what he had done, the news made the Vancouver newspapers and British Columbia’s attorney general ordered an investigation, which ended with guilty verdicts after a trial by jury.

After serving his time, Scallen returned to the razzle-dazzle world of sports presentation. He became president and chief executive officer of International Broadcasting Corporation, which acquired the Ice Capades and the Harlem Globetrotters barnstorming basketball team.

The company filed for bankruptcy protection in 1991. The Olympic figure-skating champion Dorothy Hamill purchased the Ice Capades two years later, while former basketball player Mannie Jackson led an investment group that purchased the Globetrotters.

Scallen held executive positions with advertising and film companies, as well as the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros. Circus. He produced such television specials as “Rockette: A Holiday Tribute to Radio City Music Hall,” which aired on NBC in 1978. He also produced Ice Capades specials for television, as well as live shows at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

He wound up his show business career as a restaurateur who owned the venerable Lexington in St. Paul and the suburban Chanhassen Dinner Theatres. The Chanhassen boasted four stages and was billed as the largest dinner theatre complex in America. Scallen sold it to two longtime employees and a theatre management company in 2010.

Scallen insisted he had been prosecuted and convicted as part of a political and business ploy to remove an American owner from a Canadian hockey team. “It was a pure political play,” he told Josh Wingrove of the Globe and Mail four years ago. Scallen said he was pardoned of his convictions in 1982.

Scallen died at his Minneapolis home. He leaves his Bille Jo Brice, his second wife whom he married in 1990; three sons and three daughters from his first marriage to the former Mary Semsch; 19 grandchildren; eight great-grandchildren; and, three brothers.

A rare reminder of Scallen’s tenure as owner of the Canucks is the recently revived logo of a stylized C featuring a hockey stick and a rink. Scallen approved the “Stick-in-Rink” design by Joe Borovich of North Vancouver.

Dale Marquette

Dale Joseph Marquette
Born: March 8, 1968 (Prince George, British Columbia)
Died: March 13, 2015 (Prince George, British Columbia)

Dale Marquette was a junior hockey coach with a reputation as a troubleshooter who could rescue teams that seemed outmatched by opponents.

In 1995-96, he became a midseason replacement coach for the sputtering Prince George Cougars of the Western Hockey League. The team had started at 2-15. Marquette brought them home with a 15-38-2 record by the end of the season.

Similarly, he was hired by the Quesnel Millionaires early in the 1999-2000 season when the B.C. Hockey League team got off to an 0-5 start. The following season the Gold Pan City team made the playoffs for the first time in franchise history with a 25-25-0-10 record.

Marquette launched his junior-A hockey coaching career with two seasons behind the bench of his hometown Prince George Spruce Kings. In 1994-95, he guided the Kings to a 41-9-2 record before they lost the Rocky Mountain Junior Hockey League finals to the Cranbrook Colts.

Marquette became a coach after a playing career that included two seasons of pro hockey. He spent four seasons in the Western Hockey League divided between the Lethbridge Broncos and the Brandon Wheat Kings. The 6-foot, 195-pound left winger scored 51 goals with 51 assists in just 62 games in his final junior campaign with Brandon.

The Chicago Black Hawks drafted the forward in the 10^th round (No. 197 overall) of the 1987 NHL entry draft.

In the 1988-89 preseason, he scored what would be a game-winning goal for the Black Hawks in a 4-1 defeat of the Detroit Red Wings in an exhibition game.

He spent two seasons in the International Hockey League with the Saginaw Hawks and Indianapolis Ice. In 78 games, he scored 14 goals with 11 assists.

Marquette juggled a job as a gardener with the city of Prince George with his coaching duties.

He died suddenly five days after his 47^th birthday of complications from diabetes.

Mid Houghton

Millard Lawrence Houghton
Born: September 7, 1932 (Calgary)
Died: June 11, 2014 (Calgary)

Mid Houghton played defence for three teams over five seasons in the Western Hockey League in the 1950s.

He signed with the NHL’s New York Rangers organization at age 13, playing a season of junior in Ontario with the Guelph Biltmores and three seasons with his hometown Calgary Buffaloes. He had 27 goals and 49 assists in 124 junior games.

Houghton was still a junior when he became subject of a heated debate in junior hockey. After his Buffaloes were eliminated in the 1953 Memorial Cup playoffs by the Lethbridge (Alta.) Native Sons, the victors got permission to use the two-time all-star as a replacement after three regular defencemen suffered broken bones.

“Unfair,” declared Alex Shibicky, a former Rangers player who was coaching the Flin Flon (Man.) Bombers in a Western semifinal playoff against Lethbridge. Native Sons manager Ed Bruchet dismissed Shibicky’s complaint as “piteous and heart-rending.” With Lethbridge leading the best-of-seven series two games to none, Houghton suited up for the third game in Flin Flon. Lethbridge won and Houghton was not used in the fourth game during which the Native Sons completed the sweep.

His minor professional career began with the old Vancouver Canucks in 1953-54. The 6-foot-1, 185-pound rearguard scored six goals with 11 assists in 70 games in his debut season. He had a goal and three assists in 13 playoff games.

The Canucks sold Houghton to the Saskatoon Quakers midway through the 1954-55 season. He wound up his pro career with two campaigns with the Calgary Stampeders.

In 317 WHL games, he scored 22 goals with 68 assists. He had two goals and seven assists in 33 playoff games.

In 1954, Houghton joined SunLife, joining his father Gordon as an insurance salesman and manager.

He leaves Patricia, his wife of 39 years; two sons and three daughters; a stepdaughter; his stepmother; 14 grandchildren; and, 11 great-grandchildren. He was predeceased by a son, a granddaughter, a brother, and his first wife, Irene (née Earp) Tomlinson.

Larry Zeidel

Lazarus Zeidel
Born: June 1, 1928 (Montréal)
Died: June 17, 2014 (Philadelphia)

 

A tough, bruising defenceman, Larry Zeidel was known as The Rock for his stiff bodychecks.

Zeidel was not a stranger to the penalty box, accumulating an impressive rap sheet in more than 20 seasons of professional hockey.

He had his name engraved on the Stanley Cup with the Detroit red Wings in 1952, but after a brief time in the NHL seemed destined to close out his career in the minors. Instead, at age 39, he was signed by the expansion Philadelphia Flyers for their inaugural season.

A rare Jewish player in his era, Zeidel endured anti-Semitic taunts throughout his career, most notably during an incident which ended in a vicious, stick-swinging duel against Eddie Shack.

Lazarus Zeidel was born in Montréal and raised in the gritty Park Extension neighbourhood, a blue-collar district home to many immigrants.

An older brother, Rudolph, known as Rudy, had been an amateur boxer and a member of the journalism club at the YMHA. After war broke out, Rudy signed up with the Royal Canadian Air Force. On the night of June 11-12, 1943, he was part of a Wellington crew with Squadron 429 assigned to a bombing mission on Dusseldorf, Germany. His plane was shot down over the Netherlands by a German Nightfighter. Flight Sergeant Zeidel, a bomb aimer, was 21. Three of the crew were buried nearby, while Zeidel and one other member have no known burial site.

A year later, Larry Zeidel, aged 16, played two games with the Porcuine (Ont.) Combines, his first experience in senior hockey. After two seasons of further junior hockey with the Verdun (Que.) Maple Leafs and the Barrie (Ont.) Flyers, he joined the Quebec Aces of the Quebec Senior Hockey League at the start of the 1947-48 season. In three seasons with the Aces, Zeidel scored 18 goals with 57 seasons. He also had 57 assists. In 1949-50, his final season with the Aces, the 6-foot, 190-pound defenceman managed to record 176 penalty minutes.

After a season with the Saskatoon Quakers, the defenceman was signed as a free agent by the Detroit Red Wings of the NHL. His only point was a goal in 19 games and he spent most of the 1951-52 season with the Indianapolis Capitals of the American Hockey League. When the Red Wings went on to win the Stanley Cup, Zeidel’s name was included on the roster, despite his short stint and minor contribution to the club.

He played nine pointless games with the Red Wings the following season, most of which was spent with the Edmonton Flyers of the Western Hockey League.

Prior to the 1952-53 season, Detroit sold Zeidel, Larry Wilson and Lou Jankowski to the Chicago Black Hawks. Zeidel skated in 64 games with Chicago (one goal, six assists, 102 penalty minutes) before his rights were bought back by the Red Wings, who sold him a year later to the Hershey Bears of the AHL.

In eight seasons with the Bears, Zeidel cemented his reputation as a take-no-guff roughneck. He was whistled for 211 penalty minutes in 1956-57 and 203 minutes in 1959-60.

Zeidel skated for three Calder Cup winners as AHL champions — the Bears in 1958 and ’59, and the Cleveland Barons in 1964.

He spent two seasons with the Seattle Totems during which he earned a five-game suspension from the WHL for spitting on referee Willie Papp in a 1965 game against Victoria. He was also fined $200.

The suspension and fine was one of many he earned during his career. In 1958, he engaged in an on-ice brawl with Eddie Shack during an exhibition game in Niagara Falls, Ont. The fight continued in the penalty box and spilled into the stands, leading to the arrest of Shack and Zeidel. In 1960, the AHL suspended Zeidel for five games after he kicked Michel Harvey of Quebec during a fight. In 1963, he was suspended for four games and fined $100 for a stick-swinging fight with Willie O’Ree.

After the NHL doubled in size with the 1967 expansion, Zeidel, aged 39, prepared an illustrated brochure describing his hockey skills, which he sent to the six new teams. Philadelphia Flyers general manager Ed Snider signed the defenceman, who had not skated in an NHL game in 13 seasons.

It was while with the Flyers that Zeidel renewed his feud with Shack, who was by then playing for the Boston Bruins. Philadelphia’s arena had lost part of its roof in a storm, so Flyers home games were moved to neutral territory. On March 7, 1968, in a game played at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, Zeidel and Shack engaged in an ugly, stick-swinging brawl midway through the first period. Both men were bruised and cut, Zeidel enduring a nasty gash to his forehead. Both men were assessed match penalties and NHL president Clarence Campbell suspended Shack for three games and Zeidel for four.

Campbell denied reports that Zeidel had been subjected to anti-Semitic slurs. His assessment was backed up by Flyers general manager Ed Snider. “It appears that in the heat of the battle during an important game, Larry might have struck the first blow,” Snider said. “Shack had nothing to do with any vicious name-calling and reports of competitive baiting were blown far out of proportion.

Yet, two spectators at the game in Toronto sent separate telegrams to the NHL offices describing slurs they heard from the Bruins bench. Mary Patterson wrote “the remarks were uncalled for an ignorant.”

Mike Meade, who attended with his wife, named a player and described the slur he heard, which was later rendered by newspapers as “you Jewish …, you Jewish …”

In 2007, the sportswriter Gerald Eskenazi related that Zeidel said a Bruins player had yelled at him, “You’re next for the gas ovens, Zeidel!” Zeidel also said the player who said so was not Shack. The player remains unidentified.

Zeidel wound up his career by lacing up for nine games with the Flyers in 1968-69. He retired instead of returning to the minors. He became an investment advisor and, for a time, provided commentary on broadcasts of Flyers games.

Last year, the Philadelphia Daily News reported Zeidel had been taken in by a neighbouring family after he fell sick. He lived in a basement bedroom, where he was visited by former teammates Joe Watson and Bernie Parent.

Zeidel is survived by four children and his estranged wife, Marie. He also leaves 10 grandchildren. He was predeceased by two brothers. The family’s paid obituary notice noted he had donated to Boston University’s  CTE (Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy) Center to advance the safety of athletes in future.

 

Reg Primeau

Robert Reginald Primeau
Born: August 13, 1936 (Prince Albert, Saskatchewan)
Died: May 28, 2014 (Fort Wayne, Indiana)

A tiny centreman, the elusive Reg Primeau was a star player with the Fort Wayne (Ind.) Komets of the International Hockey League in the 1960s. He helped the Komets win Turner Cup championships in 1963 and ’65.

Primeau spent 7 1/2 seasons with the Komets, who named him to the team’s hall of fame and retired his No. 12 sweater in a ceremony in 2001.

The productive forward was lured to Fort Wayne by manager Ken Ullyot, known as Mr. Komet, who had coached a young Primeau in junior hockey.

Primeau was the second youngest of 16 children born to Mary Catherine and Richard Primeau. He played four seasons of junior hockey with the hometown Prince Albert (Sask.) Mintos, coached by Ullyot. In 1955-56, he scored 51 goals in 50 games. The 19-year-old also earned a three-game tryout with the senior Saskatoon Quakers that season. He recorded three assists.

After a full season in the Western Hockey League in 1957-58 with Saskatoon, during which the team moved to St. Paul, Alta., Primeau divided the 1958-59 season with three teams in three leagues — Quakers (WHL), Trois-Rivieres Lions (QHL) and Troy Bruins (IHL), under the unforgiving direction of Eddie Shore.

In 1959-60, Primeau scored four goals in a game against the Minneapolis Millers, two of those coming just seven seconds apart. Near the end of the season, the Falcons players agreed to take a pay cut to keep the team afloat. Primeau and one other player refused.

A disappointing stint with the Portland Buckaroos (three goals and seven assists in 28 games) was followed by the much more successful time with the Komets. On the midwinter cross-continent drive from Portland, Primeau had considered returning to Prince Albert with his wife and young family. His mother talked him into continuing with his hockey career.

The 5-foot-9, 170-pound player was a second-line centre behind Len Thomson, a league legend, offering the Komets a potent one-two punch. The Komets appeared in the Turner Cup finals for three consecutive seasons, winning twice.

Primeau’s mother was a Cree and his teammates called him Chief and Hawkeye. The organist at the arena in Fort Wayne played “war dance” music from the movies whenever Primeau poised to take a face-off.

His final campaign with the Komets came in 1968-69, when he scored 18 goals with 32 assists in 55 games. It was the only Komets season in which he recorded an average of less than a point per game. His best campaign came in 1961-62, when he netted 39 goals with 66 assists for 105 points.

Primeau worked as a food salesman. Late in life, he lost his right leg to diabetes, but was eventually fitted with a prosthetic leg, returning to the ice to skate.

In 1998, he was inducted into the Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame.

Jim Robertson

James Hanlon Robertson

Born: November 22, 1933 (St. Catharines, Ontario)
Died: April 23, 2014 (Welland, Ontario)

 

Jim Robertson, a pint-sized forward, won a Memorial Cup junior championship in 1953 and an Allan Cup senior title two years later. He also spent parts of three seasons in the minor professional ranks.

The 5-foot-7, 170-pound left-winger played 76 junior hockey games for his hometown St. Catharines (Ont.) Teepees. He was traded to the Windsor Spitfires in December, 1951, before being acquired before the start of the 1952-53 season by the Barrie Flyers.

The Flyers defeated the St. Boniface Canadiens in five games (all played in Manitoba) to claim the Memorial Cup as junior Dominion champions. The Flyers, coached by Happ Emms, roster included future NHLers in Doug Mohns and Don McKenney, while the defence included Don Cherry. In 10 Memorial Cup playoff games, Robertson scored six goals and added six assists.

He had his most productive season in 1953-54, as the 20-year-old forward recorded 56 goals and 57 assists in 59 games. He was named to the Ontario Hockey Association’s first all-star team on left wing, an honour he shared with future NHL star Dick Duff.

Robertson graduated to senior ranks with the Niagara Falls Cataracts in 1954-55, also skating in 17 games for the Hershey (Pa.) Bears of the professional American Hockey League. He scored three goals in 17 games for the Bears. He was seconded to the Kitchener-Waterloo Flying Dutchmen for the Allan Cup playoffs, recording two assists as the Dutchmen went on to claim the trophy by defeating the Fort William (Ont.) Beavers.

The forward spent the following season split between the Bears and the Victoria (B.C.) Cougars of the Western Hockey League. In 1956-57, he played 16 games for the Quebec Aces.

The other Ontario senior-A, senior-B and intermediate teams for which he dressed included the Chatham Maroons, Port Colborne Sailors, Welland-Crowland Combines, Welland Burloaks, Welland Blacks, and Guelph Regals.

Away from the rink, he had a long career with the St. Lawrence Seaway Authority.

Jim Pritchard

James George Pritchard

Born: February 14, 1948 (Winnipeg, Manitoba)
Died: April 1, 2014 (Vancouver)

A rushing defenceman, Jim Pritchard was a first-round draft pick of the Montreal Canadiens in the 1968 NHL amateur draft. He spent nine seasons as a professional in the minors without getting a chance to play in the NHL.

After playing junior hockey with the hometown Winnipeg Monarchs, the 5-foot-9, 175-pound defenceman joined the Winnipeg Jets of the Western Canada Hockey League for the 1967-68 season. He had 30 goals and 34 assists, as well as 158 penalty minutes, in 53 games. He was loaned to the St. Boniface Mohawks for four Allan Cup games in 1968, scoring two goals with three assists.

The Canadiens selected him third overall in the 1968 NHL draft, the first player from Western canada to be taken. (The Canadiens also had the first two picks in the draft, taking goalie Michel Plasse and centre Roger Belisle.) Pritchard spent the 1968-69 season with the Houston Apollos.

The Habs kept Pritchard on their protected list for several seasons.

Meanwhile, the defenceman began a peripatetic career in the minors, skating in four different minor-pro leagues (CHL, WHL, EHL and NAHL) for such teams as the Kansas City Blues, Salt Lake Golden Eagles, Amarillo Wranglers, Jacksonville Rockets, Clinton Comets, Long Island Ducks, Long Island Cougars, Erie Blades and Johnstown Jets.

He was an Eastern Hockey League first-team all-star with the Ducks in 1971-72, and he was a North American Hockey League second-team all-star in 1974-75 with the Cougars and in 1975-76 with the Blades. In his only full season with the Blades, Pritchard had his most productive campaign with 16 goals and 54 assists in 71 games.

“Good defence wins hockey games and Jimmy Pritchard us a top flight defenceman,” Blades coach Nick Polano said after the free-agent defenceman signed with Erie.

Though he never made the NHL, Pritchard did play in two games for the Chicago Cougars of the World Hockey Association in 1974-75. He did not get on the scoresheet.

 Jim Pritchard (middle row, far right) was an EHL first team all-star with the Clinton Comets in 1971-72.

Don Ward

Donald Joseph Ward

Born: October 19, 1935 (Sarnia, Ontario)
Died: January 6, 2014 (Shoreline, Washington)

 

The journeyman defenceman Don Ward had two cups of coffee in the NHL before settling in on the blue line with the Seattle Totems. He skated 11 seasons for the Totems as part of a defensive corps known as the Jolly Green Giants for their sweaters. With Ward anchoring the defence, when he was not in the penalty box, the Totems won Western Hockey League championships in 1967 and ’68.

The 6-foot-2, 200-pounder played a season of junior hockey in his hometown with the Sarnia Legionnnaires. He was playing senior hockey with the Windsor Bulldogs in 1956-57 when he joined the Buffalo Bisons of the American Hockey League. He was with the Bisons the following season when he got a three-game tryout with the Chicago Black Hawks.

Ward divided the 1958-59 season between the Victoria Cougars and Calgary Stampeders of the WHL. In the summer of 1959, the Boston Bruins claimed him in the inter-league draft and he joined a rearguard brigade including Fern Flaman, Larry Hillman, Dale Rolfe, Dallas Smith and Doug Mohns. Seeing spot action over 31 games, Ward recorded a single assist, while being slapped with 16 penalty minutes. In mid-January, 1960, he was sent down to the Bruins AHL farm club, the Providence Reds.

After a season with the WHL’s Winnipeg Warriors, the Bruins traded Ward’s rights to Portland of the WHL, who soon after traded him to Seattle, where he adopted a more pugnacious style of play than before.

“I didn’t run all over the place, but if they came near me, I took them out,” he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2006. “If they were looking for me, I wasn’t too hard to find.”

The bashing blue-liner became a fan favourite in Seattle. Over 11 seasons, he scored 32 goals and added 142 assists. But he more often appeared in the scoresheet in the punishment section, as he served 1,110 minutes in the penalty box for the Totems.

He suffered plenty of ordinary hockey injuries in his career — broken ankle, separated shoulder, surgically-repaired knees, three disks removed from his neck — but it was during a game with Buffalo where he learned a painful lesson about hockey’s brutal ways.

“We were playing Rochester and a guy challenged me,” he told the Seattle newspaper. “I was a young kid and I dropped my stick first and was ready to fight. He two-handed me with his stick, knocking out five or six teeth across the front. I always kept a piece of wood in my hands after that.”

The defenceman was released by the Totems after the team lost a 10-1 exhibition game against the parent Vancouver Canucks in September, 1972.

The Los Angeles Sharks had claimed Ward in the World Hockey Association’s inaugural player draft that summer, so he spent the 1972-73 season, his final campaign in pro hockey, with the Sharks farm club, the Greensboro (N.C.) Generals of the Eastern Hockey League.

He was a supervisor for many years at Ellstrom Manufacturing, a veneer and plywood maker, in Ballard, Wash., retiring in 2006.

A son, Joe Ward, was selected 22^nd overall in the 1980 NHL entry draft by Colorado. The centreman played in four games with the Rockies in 1980-81 without recording any points.

Ward leaves Anne, his wife of 57 years; son Joe; two grandsons; and, two sisters. He was predeceased by three sisters and a daughter, who died in 1978, aged 21.