Ballard, Owner of Maple Leafs, Dies at 86 : Hockey: Controversial NHL figure had been ill for years. He spent a career never backing down from challenging the league.

Harold Ballard, the cantankerous owner of the Toronto Maple Leafs who fought against dying with as much vigor as he lived, died Wednesday in Toronto. He was 86.

Ballard had spent more time in hospitals than out the last few years, and had been seriously ill for several months with diabetes-related heart problems. In July, 1988, he underwent heart bypass surgery after being hospitalized twice in two months.

In January, 1988, he had a heart attack while on vacation and was in the Miami Heart Institute for almost a month. In February, 1986, Ballard was hospitalized 16 days for prostate surgery. He spent most of his time in recent years in a wheelchair.

Ballard’s death moves the National Hockey League another step away from the tradition and lore of the original six-team league. He is in hockey’s Hall of Fame and had come to symbolize a bygone era of the game. Ballard, who also owned Maple Leaf Gardens, was stubborn and opinionated and didn’t so much shape league policy as bend it to his will.

“He was an original, colorful and challenging individual,” NHL President John Ziegler said.

Ballard never backed down from challenging the league, often clashing with Ziegler, whom Ballard once called a “know-nothing shrimp.”

Ballard was 68 when he became president of Maple Leaf Gardens, where he maintained an apartment. He was more a savvy businessman than pure hockey man, and his teams often reflected that.

The Maple Leafs, no matter how dismal their season, never failed to sell out the arena and make a huge profit for Ballard. Under his guidance, the team, which had won 11 Stanley Cups, went over .500 only five times. He hired and fired 11 coaches in 18 years. The team was so inept at times that it gained the nickname, “Maple Laffs.”

The Maple Leafs made the playoffs this season, however, although they are trailing St. Louis, 3 games to 1, in the first round.

Despite the team’s struggles, Ballard remained a popular figure across Canada. He seemed to strike a chord with his renegade and often old-fashioned views. He frequently complained that players were overpaid and underworked; he was critical of foreign players; he was staunchly against allowing female reporters in the locker room, and he gleefully battled with the Canadian media for decades.

Yet, amid the trail of castoff players and dismissed coaches, there are those who harbor the greatest of loyalty toward Ballard.

“He was great to us,” Ed Olczyk of the Maple Leafs said. “Everything we did was first class, contrary to what most people think. He was a great man for hockey.”

Ballard’s colorful life has been chronicled in several books, which if they weren’t labeled as non-fiction, might read as wild imaginations of a novelist.

In 1972, Ballard was convicted on 47 counts of fraud and theft. He was found to have diverted money from the Gardens’ accounts to his own. At 69, Ballard spent three years in federal prison, where, by all accounts, he thrived.