Sporting “Armstrong” Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys with a “C” emblazoned on the shoulder, several family members of the late Leafs player George Armstrong had a skate on the Ramsey Lake Skate Path in his honour Sunday.
Sudbury.com just happened to run into Greg McCourt and his son and daughter, Lincoln and Nakita McCourt, while out taking photos on the skate path late Sunday afternoon.
George “Chief” Armstrong, who grew up in the Sudbury area and played 21 seasons for the Toronto Maple Leafs, died Jan. 24 at the age of 90.
Even though Armstrong was the Leafs captain and won four Stanley Cups with the team, Greg described his uncle (he was his mother’s brother) as “very humble.”
“He didn’t like the spotlight,” Greg said. “He always took it as a team sport. It wasn’t just him. It was a whole team that did it … He never took it all for himself. It was always shared.
“Even with the family, everybody is included. It wasn’t an exclusion.”
Playing in the NHL in the era that Armstrong did — from the 1950s to the 1970s — the game was different than it is nowadays.
“It was a more gentlemanly game, I think, because you weren’t going to crash a guy from behind into the boards — you could end his life,” Greg said. “There were no helmets, and the equipment wasn’t good.”
McCourt said hockey runs in his family.
“My brother was drafted first overall to the Red Wings — Dale McCourt,” he said. “And my oldest brother Danny was a linesman in the NHL for 25 years. We all followed him. George led the way, and we all tried to play hockey.”
Armstrong was born in 1930 in Skead to an Irish-Canadian father and Ojibwe mother, and grew up in Falconbridge, where his father was a nickel miner.
“Even just ourselves, we were always very proud of being with the Native heritage and that, and always wore it on our sleeve with how proud we were,” McCourt said. “George was somebody to always look up to.”
According to a biography provided on Wikipedia, while attending Sudbury High School, Armstrong played on the hockey team with Red McCarthy and Tim Horton.
Inspired by a newspaper advertisement offering tryouts with the Copper Cliff Redmen of the Northern Ontario Junior Hockey Association (NOJHA), Armstrong convinced Horton and McCarthy to join him in trying out.
They made the team and Armstrong began his junior hockey career at age 16 in the 1946–47 season.
He recorded six goals and five assists in nine games and caught the attention of scouts for the National Hockey League (NHL)'s Toronto Maple Leafs who added him to their protected list. He also played with the Prince Albert Blackhawks for part of that season.
Armstrong quit school in Grade 11 to focus on his hockey career.
He played 1,188 NHL games between 1950 and 1971, all with Toronto and a franchise record, and was the team's captain for 13 seasons. Armstrong was a member of four Stanley Cup championship teams and played in seven NHL All-Star Games.
He scored the final goal of the NHL's "Original Six" era as Toronto won the 1967 Stanley Cup.
Armstrong played both junior and senior hockey in the Toronto Marlboros organization and was a member of the 1950 Allan Cup winning team as senior champions of Canada. He returned to the Marlboros following his playing career and coached the junior team to two Memorial Cup championships.
He served as a scout for the Quebec Nordiques, as an assistant general manager of the Maple Leafs and for part of the 1988–89 NHL season as Toronto's head coach. Armstrong was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1975 and the Maple Leafs honoured Armstrong’s No. 10 in 1998, and later officially retired the number, along with ten others, during a pre-game ceremony on October 15, 2016.
Also in 2016, Armstrong was honoured locally, when a banner featuring his image was unveiled at the Big Nickel, later to be displayed permanently at the Garson Arena.
“I’m so proud of him and all of the things he did, especially coming from a small place he did, Bowland’s Bay, just past the airport, and to make it to the NHL, and make it to the captain of the Maple Leafs,” Greg said.
“Winning four Stanley Cups — three in a row —is amazing even nowadays.”
