Punch Imlach facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Punch Imlach
Hockey Hall of Fame, (Coach) 1984
Punch Imlach with the Maple Leafs (c. 1964)
Born	(1918-03-15)March 15, 1918 Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Died	December 1, 1987(1987-12-01) (aged 69) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Height	5 ft 8 in (173 cm)
Weight	161 lb (73 kg; 11 st 7 lb)
Position	Centre
Shot	Right
Played for	Toronto Young Rangers Toronto Goodyears Toronto Marlboros Quebec Aces
Playing career	1941–1949

George "Punch" Imlach (March 15, 1918 – December 1, 1987) was a Canadian ice hockey coach and general manager best known for his association with the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Buffalo Sabres. He is a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame, and the Ontario Sports Hall of Fame (2004).

Early career

Born in Toronto, Imlach attended Riverdale Collegiate Institute and played junior hockey in the OHA for the Toronto Young Rangers (1935–38) and senior hockey with the Toronto Goodyears (1938–40) and the Toronto Marlboros (1940–41). He enlisted in the Canadian Army during World War II, where he coached for the first time, with an army team in Cornwall, Ontario. He was invited to training camp by the Detroit Red Wings after being discharged, but felt he had put on too much weight and declined.

Imlach played for the Quebec Aces of the QSHL from 1945 to 1949 and spent 11 seasons with the team, becoming coach and then general manager, and then vice-president and part-owner of the franchise. After the 1956–57 season, Imlach moved to professional hockey, hired by the Boston Bruins as general manager of their Springfield Indians farm team. Before the season ended, Imlach had made himself head coach as well. After the season, team owner Eddie Shore took back control of the team, leaving Imlach without a job, although he was still under contract to the Bruins.

Joining the Maple Leafs

In July 1958, at the age of 40, the Toronto Maple Leafs hired Imlach as one of the team's two assistant general managers, along with King Clancy. However, the Leafs did not have a general manager, and Imlach instead reported to a seven-member committee headed by Stafford Smythe which oversaw the team's business operations. In November, Imlach was named general manager—only the third full-time general manager in the team's 40-year history. Only a week after his hiring, he fired coach Billy Reay. Reay had been offered the manager job before Imlach was hired, but turned it down. Initially, Imlach said he was replacing Reay with Bert Olmstead as player-coach, but almost immediately, he changed his mind and made himself head coach.

Imlach was known as a harsh taskmaster who frequently abused his players verbally and physically. He had a preference for older players, many of whom were his strongest supporters as they felt Imlach was giving them their last chance at winning the Stanley Cup. By contrast, many younger players, such as Frank Mahovlich, chafed at Imlach's autocratic coaching style.

Imlach took over a team that had finished last the previous season and was mired in last place again at the time he took over for Reay. However, the team staged a strong run late in the season and finished a point ahead of the New York Rangers for fourth place, allowing them to squeeze into the playoffs. They defeated the favoured Boston Bruins in the first round before losing to the league-leading Montreal Canadiens in five games in the Stanley Cup Finals. Three years later, Imlach led the Leafs to their first Stanley Cup in 11 years. He coached three more Cup-winning teams, in 1963, 1964 and 1967.

In February 1964, he traded Dick Duff, Bob Nevin and three young prospects – Rod Seiling, Arnie Brown and Bill Collins – to the Rangers for Andy Bathgate and Don McKenney. Nevin played a major role in the Rangers' resurgence in the late 1960s, while Duff won four more Cups with the Canadiens. The players acquired by the Leafs were both gone following the next season. In the 1965 intra-league draft, Imlach left Gerry Cheevers, a young goaltending prospect, unprotected. He was snapped up by the Boston Bruins and went on to have a Hall-of-Fame career there.

Following expansion of the NHL from six teams to 12 for the 1967–68 season, the Leafs struggled and Imlach responded by pulling off another big trade. In February 1968, he sent Mahovlich, 20-year-old Garry Unger, Pete Stemkowski and the rights to Carl Brewer to the Detroit Red Wings for Paul Henderson, Norm Ullman and Floyd Smith. Two months later, he sent 28-year-old Jim Pappin to the Chicago Black Hawks, where he would become one of that team's top scorers.

In December 1968, Imlach was asked by Stafford Smythe to give the coaching job to John McLellan, but Imlach refused and told Smythe to fire him or leave him alone. During the season, Mike Walton walked out on the team, saying he wouldn't play for Imlach again. He returned about a week later. On April 6, 1969, minutes after an early and embarrassing playoff elimination at the hands of the Boston Bruins, Imlach was fired by the Leafs. He still had a year remaining on his contract, which paid him about $35,000 a year. In the dressing room after the announcement was made, veteran Leafs Johnny Bower and Tim Horton both said they would leave with Imlach (they both returned the following season, although neither would remain with the Leafs for long). Imlach's assistant, Clancy, had previously said that he would walk away if Imlach was fired, but he was persuaded to stay with the team. Jim Gregory was immediately announced as Imlach's replacement as general manager.

Building the Sabres

After being fired by the Leafs, it was expected that Imlach would join the NHL's new Vancouver franchise. Imlach, Joe Crozier, and Foster Hewitt had become partners in the Vancouver Canucks of the Western Hockey League and were in line to become owners of the Vancouver NHL team. But they didn't have the financial resources to buy the team, which went to Medical Investment Corporation (Medicor). Medicor bought the WHL Canucks for $2.8 million, with Imlach making a reported gain of more than $250,000. He was offered a job with the NHL Canucks, but instead accepted an offer from the NHL's other expansion team, the Buffalo Sabres, as their first coach and general manager in 1970.

In the team's first draft, it was a foregone conclusion that the first selection would be junior phenom Gilbert Perreault. The first pick would go to the team that won the spin of a roulette wheel. Imlach opted to take numbers 11–20 on the wheel, since 11 was his favourite number. When league president Clarence Campbell spun the wheel, he initially thought the pointer landed on 1. However, while Campbell was congratulating the Vancouver delegation, Imlach asked Campbell to check again. As it turned out, the pointer was actually on 11. Imlach promptly selected Perreault, who would go on to play 17 years with the Sabres and still holds every major offensive record in Sabres history. (Perreault, incidentally, would himself be assigned the number 11 for his entire career in Buffalo - the same number he had worn for his three seasons with the Montreal Jr. Canadiens - a number that has since been retired by the Sabres organization.)

Imlach suffered a heart attack on January 7, 1972, and stepped down as Sabres coach in May after being told by doctors that fatigue would put his health at risk. Joe Crozier filled in as interim coach after Imlach's heart attack and was given the job outright for the 1972–1973 season.

In the 1974 entry draft, Imlach—frustrated with the excessive tedium and length of that year's draft proceedings—deliberately selected an imaginary Japanese centre, Taro Tsujimoto, supposedly of the Tokyo Katanas, in the 11th round (183rd overall). Only after weeks had passed did the league discover that Tsujimoto did not in fact exist. Today, the league officially records the 183rd selection of the 1974 entry draft as an "invalid claim"; the Sabres still list Tsujimoto among the team's alumni.

During the 1974–75 NHL season, the Sabres, coached by one of Imlach's former players, Floyd Smith, made the Stanley Cup finals in only their fifth year of existence. With notable exceptions like Gilbert Perreault and Rick Martin, many Sabres players feuded with Imlach, particularly Jim Schoenfeld, Sabres' captain from 1974 to 1977, whom Imlach criticized publicly. After being eliminated in the second round of the playoffs in 1978, Imlach promised sweeping changes to the roster, but the changes never came. With the team off to an 8–10–6 record, Imlach was fired by the Sabres on December 4, 1978, along with coach Marcel Pronovost. Nevertheless, he was one of the inductees in the inaugural class of the Buffalo Sabres Hall of Fame.

Coaching record