From the Archives: America’s Sport Magazine Loves the Leafs

abraham smithAugust 25, 2022

0 0 4 minutes read

I speak firsthand when I say there was nothing better than being a Leafs fan in the winter of 1947-48. And I say that even though I made my roots far from Brooklyn and not from Toronto.

For starters, my favorite hockey team was the defending champions of the Stanley Cup.

We beat Montreal in the spring of 1947. It was a big surprise and now, a year later, the boys in royal blue and white were even better.

Boss Conn Smythe had added future Hall of Fame center Max Bentley in a trade with Chicago, sending forwards Gus Bodnar, Gaye Stewart and Bud Poile to the Windy City along with defensemen Bob Goldham and Ernie Dickens.

That was all well and good for me, but what I liked so much more was Smythes second Unit who had played so well in the two cup rounds in 1947. It was called “The Second Kid Line” because the original trio – Charlie Conacher, Joe Primeau and Busher Jackson – had won a trophy in 1932 original kids line.

But the updated one was just as good, if not better. It featured Ted (Teeder) Kennedy in the middle, between the boy with the crew cut, Howie Meeker on the right, and bushy-haired Vic Lynn working on the left. If only one word could describe their playing style, it would be it brains.

Back then, North America’s most famous sports magazine was a monthly publication with the simple name Sports. Luckily, the NHL recognized it as an important factor and would provide a big, colorful hockey story in the season.

But the special edition shown here, highlighting the Second Kid Line, was very special in two ways. 1. Sport profiles have almost always been limited to individual players, but this time an entire forward line took center stage; 2. The author wasn’t just a Toronto hockey beatman, it was Foster Hewitt, the dean of all the glamor networks and one of the most important NHL personalities of the century.

Hewitt, once a Toronto Star journalist himself, wrote about The Kid Line as he would, proclaiming, “HE SHOOTS! Foster exuded a certain kind of love that those close to a group of athletes could. In fact, Hewitt began broadcasting hockey as early as the 1920s. In this case, Foster was the man, writing about the right team at the right time.

The editors of the sports magazine splashed a headline – HOCKEY’S TRICKY TRIO – across the head. And just above Hewitt’s byline was a caption that basically told you all about the Second Kid Line:

THEY MAY NOT BE THE BEST IN THE INDUSTRY YET, BUT THE THREE KIDS PLAYING FRONT FOR THE TORONTO MAPLE LEAFS ARE GETTING THERE FAST. THEY HAVE EVERYTHING – PLUS YOUTH.

Of course, that intro just whetted my literary appetite for more. I soon learned that Kennedy was originally owned by the Montreal Canadiens but was traded to Toronto for defenseman Frankie Eddolls.

Vic Lynn was a power forward I’d actually seen play at old Madison Square Garden running for Rangers’ farm team, the New York Rovers. Lynn was later dropped by both the Blueshirts and the Red Wings. But Vic impressed at Leafs training camp in the fall of 1946, as did Meeker, who had previously served in the Canadian Army.

In Jack Batten’s excellent book The Leafs In Autumn, Meeker recalled how The Kid Line found success almost instantly in training camp after coach Hap Day played with a variety of attacking units.

Meeker: “Hap Day got us on the ice on that first day of practice. Kennedy wasn’t a skater, didn’t have the legs, but he was very competitive and a damn good puck handler. With him you had to have two guys who could skate and if anyone could do anything with the two of us it was Kennedy.

“Lynn was a good hockey player. He was always looking for a fight. Vic would cut you from ear to ear if he had half a chance. But boy did he skate. I? I could skate and I could check but I couldn’t pass. It worked for us as long as Kennedy had the wits to get ahead of the game and cross the line before Vic and I.

“With Kennedy shooting the puck to us young scooters, we were able to escape at the net. He was a great passer. He kept Lynn and I in the league.”

Over time, the trio played against three consecutive Stanley Cup winners – 1946-47, 1947-48 and 1948-49 – and helped build the NHL’s first dynasty. It was obvious to Leafs fans like me that Meeker and Lynn possessed the most pzzazz in an already vibrant lineup.

“They were both fast skaters,” Hewitt wrote, “and good shots and as full of rollicking splashes as puppies, and each was a natural born fighter.”

As a trio, they were brimming with excitement and that was conveyed by three color photos in this special issue of Sport Magazine, as well as a black and white action shot of them celebrating a goal against Montreal.

Each night, The Kid Line was able to inspire the rest of the Leafs with their panache, vigor, vitality and fighting spirit. “The tougher it got – and that’s the key – the better the guys played,” Meeker explained.

Finally, I cut out the story from the sports magazine and pasted it into my scrapbook. Miraculously, it has remained in its original form, where it has somehow remained intact for 75 years. And guess what; Every time I look at it, I get the same goosebumps of joy that I did when I turned to page 18 of Sport magazine for the very first time.