Supporters
Ballard was well known for his charitable activities, and even leased out MLG for many functions. He was recognized for this on his citation during his 1977 Hockey Hall of Fame induction. However, as Ken Dryden put it in his book The Game, he seemed "like wrestling villain who touches the audience to make his next villainy seem worse."
Dave "Tiger" Williams who played with the Leafs from 1973 to 1980 had a close relationship with Ballard. Years later, Williams would remark that all Ballard would want from his players was an honest day of hard work. In gratitude, Williams shot a bear during a winter hunt and skinned it for Ballard's office.
Read more about this topic: Harold Ballard
Famous quotes containing the word supporters:
“The opposition is indispensable. A good statesman, like any other sensible human being, always learns more from his opponents than from his fervent supporters. For his supporters will push him to disaster unless his opponents show him where the dangers are. So if he is wise he will often pray to be delivered from his friends, because they will ruin him. But though it hurts, he ought also to pray never to be left without opponents; for they keep him on the path of reason and good sense.”
—Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)
“The hydra of corruption is only scotched, not dead. An investigation kills and it and its supporters dead. Let this be had.”
—Andrew Jackson (1767–1845)
“His [O.J. Simpson’s] supporters lined the freeway to cheer him on Friday and commentators talked about his tragedy. Did those people see the photographs of the crime scene and the great blackening pools of blood seeping into the sidewalk? Did battered women watch all this on television and realize more vividly than ever before that their lives were cheap and their pain inconsequential?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1952)