Kevin Maguire Shows The Money

The Toronto Maple Leaf player in this picture is Kevin Maguire.

He is a former Leafs and Sabres tough guy who played 260 games in the NHL in the late 1980s and early 1990s. He was an all heart and guts type of player, chipping in 29 goals and 59 points in his career. He spent most of his time bending the rules, as his 782 career penalty minutes attest.

After his career as a hockey player ended he remained on the ice as enforcer - this time as an enforcer of rules. He became a minor league referee who saw action in the NHL in parts of three seasons at the turn of the century.

Early in the new century Maguire left the ice and turned to the world of business. He does something called "sales" for a trucking company.

Somehow he must have made some pretty big friends in the world of business, because yesterday he was identified as the head of a group that is trying to land a second NHL franchise in Toronto.

The idea of another Toronto based team is not new. Ask Jim Balsillie. Ask the folks who have lived in Hamilton the last 30 years. The amount of money that would be needed to a) build a rink, b) acquire a franchise and c) compensate the Maple Leafs and probably the Buffalo Sabres would be an astronomical number. So I, for one, would be curious to learn how Kevin Maguire, a fringe NHLer I once admired, has found himself as the front man of this group.

That we may never know, not unless this group and the NHL enter into far more serious talks. These stories tend to be fly by night and closer to fiction than fact, and we may never hear from this group again.

But the Kevin Maguire I do know gave it everything he had on the ice, and I'm sure he's doing that in the world of business. Here's a look at Kevin Maguire.