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NHL: Larry Hillman, Six-Time Stanley Cup Champion & Youngest Ever To Have His Name Engraved On The Stanley Cup, Dead At 85.
Hillman famously locked horns with tight-fisted Maple Leafs general manager Punch Imlach in the summer of 1967 following Toronto's upset Stanley Cup win against the Canadiens, haggling for a $5,000 raise that would bring him to $20,000 a year. Imlach set his bar at $19,500 and fined Hillman $100 a day during the latter's three-week holdout.
The North Stars claimed Hillman in 1968, but unhappy that he was down $2,400, the defenseman said that until he was repaid, with interest, the Maple Leafs would never again win the Stanley Cup.
Team president Brendan Shanahan wrote an appreciative Hillman a check for the sum, with compound interest, during the Maple Leafs' 2017 centennial year in a light-hearted bid to lift the "Hillman Hex." Nevertheless, Toronto still hasn't advanced to the Stanley Cup Final since 1967.
"It was terrible," Keon remembered of the contract dispute. "Looking back on it, I think that really destroyed any morale that we had carrying forward from the 1967 Cup, the haggling, because Larry was such an important part of our winning in '67. I don't know what Punch was thinking."