Those Were The Days: Turk Broda

Here's a funny story about Maple Leafs goaltending great Turk Broda, as told by Max Bentley to Jack Batten in the excellent book, The Leafs In Autumn:

"This one night Turk took me to a Chinese restaurant. In the middle of the place there were some very deep stairs. Turk had had a lot to drink and, my gosh, he fell all the way down the stairs. He hurt himself something bad. Next day at practice, he went up to Hap Day.

"Boy, do my bones ache," Turk told him. "I got a really bad case of the flu."

All week he kept that up. "Boy, I wish this flu would go away."

I don't know if Hap ever caught on. The thing was, you couldn't ever get mad at Turk. I was always grateful to him.