“He is a man of serious mien. He doesn’t smoke and he doesn’t drink. He dresses conservatively, favoring brown suits and white shirts with French cuffs — except on the golf course, where his raiment looks as though it had been dragged through a maze of molten rainbows. He never hurls a harsh word into the sensitive ears of a referee.”

“Kennedy, who carries 180 pounds on a frame that is just an inch under six feet, is a dogged player, full of stamina and courage,” Lunny continued. “He combines the brainy play of a Bentley with the robust aggressiveness of, say, Boston’s Milt Schmidt.”

That’s Vince Lunny profiling legendary Leaf centreman Ted Kennedy in 1951. Born in Humberstone, Ontario, on this date in 1925 (also a Saturday), Kennedy played 14 seasons with Toronto, half of them as captain. The Hart Trophy he won in 1955 was the last to have been claimed by a Leaf.

Kennedy  was aboard for five Stanley Cup championships, including one in 1949, happening here, above. It was April and the Leafs had swept past the Detroit Red Wings in four straight games to become the first team in NHL history to win  the Cup three seasons in a row. That’s Wing captain Sid Abel sharing a moment with Kennedy. Both men, of course, would be elevated, eventually, into the Hall of Fame, Kennedy in 1966, Abel in ’69. Ted Kennedy died in 2009 at the age of 83.

 (Image: City of Toronto Archives, Globe and Mail fonds, Fonds 1266, Item 132804)