We had some hopes when Metro Morning sent young Galloway west to Mimico this morning in search of the fourth corner of our fair city. Hopefully, he would not embarrass himself. Sadly, disaster arrived during the remote sports report section of the show. He did have some local help with this one. Together with some local bozo, he managed to treat the question of why Mimico produces such great hockey players without once uttering the three words, “Harvey "Busher" Jackson.” Conn Smythe and his gunsels would be so proud. Mimico, alcohol, and hockey were discussed without bringing up Jackson and the Kid Line of the 1930s.
Smythe felt that Jackson had betrayed him by taking the paltry salary he and other legends of the game were paid in the 1930s and spending it on wine, women and song. Smythe was royally pissed off when Jackson was finally admitted posthumously to the Hall of Fame. Keeping Jackson out of the Hall of Fame was one of Smythe's most cherished retirement projects. According to Smythe "As long as Jackson lives, he must not be admitted to the Hall." In retaliation, Smythe quit the Hall of Fame nomination committee in protest and went off to stew in his own bile up in Baby Point. He could still be happy as a founder of that confederacy of dunces, the Leaf Nation. Good riddance to bad rubbish! Couldn't you find anyone who knew the Jackson story in that vibrant community with its exciting new demographic? If I told the Jackson story to friends in the Morrissey Tavern in the mid-1970s, there'd always be some gravel-voiced drunk across the room who'd break in on the conversation like this: "Harvey Jackson? He was nothing but a drunk!" Times change, but Jackson is still apparently mentionless in Mimico.
Yikes, now as I write this, the real sports guy from home office --he with a history degree--is compounding the outrage by going on and on about some recent flash in the pan named Joey Votto.
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