Artist Gary McLaughlin stands in front of his massive painting picturing every hockey player who ever wore a Toronto Maple Leaf uniform. The team’s all stars are enlarged and in the centre.
Georgina
October 01, 2008 08:15 PM
John Slykhuis
The original Robert Bateman oil painting may have been the centre of the auction bidding at last month’s Dinah Christie Celebrity Challenge, but it was local boy Gary McLaughlin who stole the show.
Mr. McLaughlin, a talented artist in his own right, unveiled a massive original oil on canvas of the entire Toronto Maple Leafs hockey franchise.
The painting, entitled Blue Sky - White Snow, was commissioned, but with the understanding that it would be for sale, said Mr. McLaughlin, who grew up in Keswick and Sutton, but now resides in Neustadt.
It is 12 feet long and six feet high, standing nine feet tall with the pedestal.
“This was the biggest project that I had ever attempted,” he said. “I’d done murals before that are 20 to 40 feet, but not with the detail of 762 portraits.
I hired a guy, a pretty good hockey guy, to help with the research. No one knew how many Leafs players there were.”
He thought it would take as much as a year to complete.
It took 18 months.
“No one has ever attempted to do an entire sports franchise,” he said.
“It really excited me to do something I’d never done before and (having watched) the Leafs growing up. everybody around here was a Leafs fan.”
The Toronto Maple Leafs history started in 1927 when Conn Smyth bought the Toronto St. Patricks and changed the name to the Maple Leafs, later building Maple Leaf Gardens.
The painting includes players from that initial year to 2007.
Leafs’ player Carl Voss occupies a special rectangle in the painting.
“He was the very first Maple Leaf to sign,” Mr. McLaughlin said.
Mr. Voss went on to play for the Detroit Red Wings, winning the first Calder Trophy as rookie of the year and was credited with the Stanley Cup clinching goal when the Chicago Black Hawks won in 1938.
He was inducted into Hockey Hall of Fame in 1974.
Latest Leafs captain Mats Sundin occupies the other rectangle.
Since creating the painting, he has gotten calls and e-mails from ex-Leafs and their families, he said.
“Just last week, I got a call asking if I had a player named Ron Hurst,” he said.
Feeling a little surge of panic, he carefully checked his list, “and sure enough, Ron Hurst was there. It was his daughter who called.”
For trivia buffs, Mr. Hurst, now 77, played for the Leafs off and on from 1955 to 1957.
He scored a total of nine goals and played on a line with the great Billy Harris at one point.
“Another aspect of the piece was to recognize the players who never were the superstars, who played for maybe two or three years and were gone. Some of them played just one game, but they’re in there. He’s recognized as having worn the blue and white if only just once.”
Mr. McLaughlin left Sutton in 1974 to attend the Ontario College of Art after graduating from Sutton Public School and Sutton District High School.
His family has deep roots in the area, his great grandfather, Martin McLaughlin, having built the red brick home at 48 River St. after immigrating from Ireland.
He is also related to the Crate family who hosted the celebrity challenge.
Before moving to Sutton, his family lived on Wynhurst Beach in Keswick.
“I grew up on Wynhurst and I’d go through Dawson’s to get to Crate’s to hang around the water, the docks and the boats. I played hockey on the ice in the harbour in winter. It was one of those idyllic childhoods you take for granted,” he said.
His other accomplishments include magazine and book covers, collector plates and limited edition sports prints.
His corporate clients include Coca Cola, Coors Beer, Honda, Canadian Tire, Tim Horton’s, Esso, Harlequin Books, Reader’s Digest, the CBC.
He was also commissioned to do the 50th anniversary poster for the Maple Leafs, recalling less than pleasant encounters with then Leafs’ owner Harold Ballard.
Mr. McLaughlin and wife Pat Crocker, a writer, live with their teenaged daughter in a century old building in the picturesque mill town, located south of Owen Sound.
For more see www.riversonggallery.ca