On behalf of the family, I would like to thank those who reached out to share their stories and memories of my father-in-law. It is so comforting to hear how he touched people’s lives.

Frank Bonello’s life had three priorities: family, work, and hockey. To a certain extent, those three things defined who Frank was, although not necessarily in that order.

I distinctly remember the first time I met Frank. It was December 1, 1979. Mary Anne and I were going up the escalator at Maple Leaf Gardens to attend a Leaf game. Frank was at the top of the escalator wearing his familiar fedora. I suspect that some people probably confused him with former Maple Leaf General Manager Punch Imlach because they both wore fedoras and hung out at the Gardens.

I think it would be safe to say that I didn’t receive a warm welcome, but things did warm up over time. Surprisingly, we had common backgrounds. We both had immigrant parents who struggled in the early years. Frank’s parents came to Canada in the 1920s from Malta. Joseph Bonello came first, followed by Guiceppa and Frank’s sister Mary. My father-in-law and his brother were born in Canada. Frank was the youngest.

Frank’s dad worked on the slaughtering floor of Swift Foods. Thirty years later, when he first arrived in Toronto, my dad did the same at Toronto Packing Company.

The Bonellos lived on Maria Street in Little Malta which is in Toronto’s Junction District. Close by were the Ontario Stockyards, Swift, where Joseph worked, and Canada Packers, where Frank worked years later.

At a young age, Frank fell in love with hockey. His first hockey team was the St.Cecilia’s Pee Wees. When he was fourteen, he was recruited to play hockey for De La Salle High School.

In 1949, he played with the Toronto Marlboro Midgets. He then spent the next two years with the Unionville Jets Junior “B” team. In 1952, he graduated to the Junior “A” ranks, playing for the Galt Black Hawks.

Frank was a very good hockey player. He was a great passer and an outstanding forechecker. Unfortunately, the NHL was still a six-team league and turning pro wasn’t in the cards. He was invited to the Chicago Black Hawks training camp in 1953 but was a late cut. Instead of becoming a professional player in the minor leagues, he decided to remain an amateur and play senior hockey.

After his pro tryout, he played the next two seasons in Senior “A” hockey for the Chatham Maroons.

Frank met Carol Hales while playing hockey in Chatham. Carol was in a restaurant with friends after a hockey game when Frank walked in with a teammate. The rest was history. They were married in 1954 and were together for 69 years. They moved to Toronto in 1955, and a few months later, Mary Anne was born.

For the next five years, they lived with Frank’s parents on Maria Street until they were able to purchase a bungalow on Burrows Avenue in Etobicoke. Frank worked in sales for Canada Packers but remained involved in hockey.

In 1955, he joined the Whitby Dunlops, which won the Senior “B” championship. The team moved up to Senior “A” and went on to win the Allan Cup in 1957. The Dunlops represented Canada at the World Hockey Championship in Oslo, Norway, in 1958, winning the gold medal.

The team travelled to Europe on the Queen Elizabeth. Frank was sick the entire voyage. Playing hockey in Norway was quite the experience. The arenas were outdoors, and there was no seating for the fans. They stood through the entire game. It was so cold that the players wore toques.

Shortly after the Worlds, Frank’s playing career ended, and he spent a few years out of hockey, concentrating on his family and work.

In 1963, he returned to hockey and started a long and successful career in coaching and managing. His first position was the manager of the Knob Hill Metro Junior “A” club. From there, he was manager and coach of Neil McNeill and Markham Waxers Junior “B” teams. He led the Markham Waxers to the Metro Junior “B” title in 1968 and the OHA Junior “B” championship in 1969. The following year, his long-time friend Jim Gregory hired him to coach the Toronto Marlboros. Two years later, he became their manager, a position he held for 16 years, winning the Memorial Cup in 1973 and 1975.

Frank was a workaholic. While running hockey teams, he continued to work full-time at Canada Packers. Frank was not one to go on a vacation. He would sometimes use his vacation time to travel with the hockey team on road trips. He was not a man of leisure, always finding projects to work on at home. Although he would find time in the summer for golf.

The late Harold Ballard was fond of Frank and promised to keep the Marlboro franchise in Toronto as long as Frank was interested in running the team. In 1988, Frank retired from Canada Packers and decided to leave the Marlboros. Jim Gregory, who was now the Senior Vice President of the NHL, hired Frank to run the league’s central scouting office in Toronto.

The following year, Harold Ballard was looking for yet another Maple Leaf General Manager after Gord Stellick resigned. He was eager to sign Frank until Harold heard how much Frank wanted to be paid. I remember Harold’s interest cooled off after they met. Harold declared, “I’ve never paid anyone that much.” While in charge of Central Scouting, he expanded the department’s scope exponentially during a significant domestic and international growth period for the League; Frank remained with the NHL until 2007. That was the end of his involvement in hockey, which stretched back 63 years.

He was very much old school. I remember he was not pleased when Sarah began playing hockey. I persuaded him to come out and watch a game. He then realized that the girls’ game is played differently than the boys’ game.

He was meticulous in everything he did, which is a nice way of saying he was somewhat OCD. He was very conscious of how he appeared in public. His suits were always tailor-made. His closet was full of shoes, largely identical black oxfords. Those shoes were polished on a regular basis. On weekends, when Sarah slept over, she would wake up to find her shoes expertly polished. Well there was the one time she had come with suede shoes.

He hand-washed his cars, even in the winter. He regularly painted the walls and floor of his garage. There was never a speck of dirt. Friends would refer to it as the operating room.

He had a very steady hand. Watching him cut a turkey at Thanksgiving was like watching someone perform surgery. He was the family painter and probably the best painter I’ve ever seen. When he arrived at my house to paint, I wasn’t allowed to pick up a paintbrush. Sometimes I was relegated to paint a closet but most of the time I was sent out to get coffee. He would arrive with Carol’s brother Bill, who was assigned to do all the high painting work at the top of an extension ladder.

His last family painting job was Sarah and Arthur’s first home. He was about 80 years old at the time. When someone dared to suggest that he was getting a little old to be painting, he became visibly angry.

Like many workaholics, Frank had a difficult time dealing with things like retirement and aging. When he no longer had work or hockey to keep them occupied, he spent much of his time puttering around the house and managing his investments. I often got the impression that this wasn’t enough for him. But as he got older even these things became more challenging. Mary Anne and I would plead with him to sell their home and find something more suited for him and Carol. In 2017, he finally agreed and spent his final years in Sunrise Retirement home.

It was very sad to watch one memory after another disappear, his accomplishments and friends slowly slipping away. In the end, as he struggled to keep going, Mary Anne held both of his hands and told him the Leafs weren’t going to win anyway.  He passed in peace, surrounded by love.