Garret Sparks will never forget the first time he met Johnny Bower.

Sparks was a teenage goalie with the OHL’s Guelph Storm, who had just made a harrowing journey to Owen Sound for a Friday night game in the dead of winter. In whiteout conditions, their bus driver couldn’t see the car in front of them.

When the Storm finally arrived at the Harry Lumley Bayshore Community Centre, Sparks was shocked to learn that Bower was also in attendance.

“We did it as an OHL team — and we thought it was crazy,” Sparks said. “I can’t imagine doing it as an 85-year old Hall of Fame legend, going to the (rink) that holds 5,000 Owen Sound locals. He showed up, was signing autographs and taking photographs and, really, fulfilling a lot of people’s dreams just by being there and being yourself.”

While preparing for the game, Sparks was surprised when his equipment manager brought Bower into the visitor’s dressing room. Bower heard that Sparks had just been selected by the Leafs in the NHL draft and his eyes lit up.

He wanted to talk to the young goalie.

“From that moment on, he took a real interest in talking to me,” Sparks said, describing the impact Bower had on his career. “Knowing that one day, if I did all the right things, I would also get to be a member of the organization he proudly represented for many years.”

Their conversation wasn’t always centered around any practical advice on making it to the NHL. It was, instead, memorable to Sparks because of the possibilities he began to see in front of him.

“It was more about the energy that he gave off than the words he said,” Sparks said. “It was more about his excitement at the possibility of me one day wearing a Maple Leaf. It was his excitement for me because he knew what it meant to him. He knew what the opportunities afforded to him were. And he genuinely wanted the same for me.

“I wasn’t a highly touted pick,” added Sparks, who was taken in the seventh round in 2011 after playing only 19 games for Guelph in his draft year. “The way that he kept treating me, he gave me hope. He gave me hope that if I loved what I did and did solely that, every day, there would be obstacles but nothing would get in my way, ultimately.”

Sparks wanted to tell his story on Wednesday, a day after Bower passed away due to a brief battle with pneumonia at the age of 93. Reached by phone from Syracuse, where he was set to start for the Marlies later that night, Sparks explained that he wanted people to know that Bower’s legacy went beyond his remarkable on-ice career — the Stanley Cups and Vezina trophies and everything else.

What made Johnny Bower special is he made an impact on the future Leafs, connecting with players 70 years his junior, tying together the fabric of the franchise’s last glory years with its hope for the future.

To this day, Sparks marvels at the lengths Bower had to go to to make a career out of hockey.

“It puts a lot of it in perspective,” Sparks said. “He had to go fight a war for three years to get into the crease. All I had to do was play three years of junior hockey. And he did it all without a mask. And I get to be fully padded. I’m sure that I’ve already complained about little things more than he complained about anything in his entire career.

“I spent a lot of time thinking about that last night. Thinking about the way he would’ve approached things a little bit more. It’s sad and it’s unfortunate that it took his passing to make me get a bit more introspective on myself. But those are the things I take away from a guy like that, how much he truly loved what he did.”

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That love was on full display to start the 2016-17 season.

Johnny Bower stood on the Air Canada Centre ice with his arms stretched out wide, watching as his iconic No. 1 was finally being retired by the Leafs.

As the banner was raised to the rafters, Bower pulled his arms in and hugged himself, corralling the deafening cheers of the ACC crowd around himself.

“For my grandfather, that was the greatest honour he ever received — having his number retired alongside that of Turk Broda,” said John Bower III, Johnny’s grandson, on Wednesday afternoon.

By that point, Bower had become the definition of a living legend, synonymous with the Leafs franchise and adored by its fans — many of whom had never seen him play.

What they knew was his smiling face, at the arena for so many games even into his 90s. What they knew was his unbelievable passion for their team, an affinity for the Leafs that endured the worst lows the franchise ever had.

“Regardless of where the Leafs were in the standings, Johnny’s love for the Leafs never wavered,” Leafs president Brendan Shanahan said. “We don’t really know of a former player that was as loved by Leafs fans but (who) loved them back equally as much.”

Bower’s career path to even get to the Leafs was unusual.

Born John William Kiszkan in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, he lied about his age to be able to enlist in the army for World War II at just 15 years old. He was stationed in England between 1940 and 1943 before being discharged due to arthritis in his hands.

He returned to North America and became a minor-league star in Cleveland with the AHL’s Barons. He spent parts of 11 seasons in the minors, not becoming an NHL regular until he was nearly 30 years old.

It was during the 1952-53 season in Cleveland that Bower first earned the nickname The China Wall. Bob Duff, who co-wrote The China Wall: The Timeless Legend of Johnny Bower, said the moniker was given to him by Cleveland writer Geoffrey Fisher after Bower was vying for his fourth consecutive shutout one season.

That success in the minors finally translated to the NHL with Toronto. After debuting with the New York Rangers and bouncing back and forth to the minors, Bower was eventually picked up by the Leafs in the 1958 Inter-League draft.

Despite reservations about yet another move, Bower was eventually convinced by coach Punch Imlach to play for the Leafs.

It didn’t take long to make an impact.

Bower won the Vezina Trophy in 1961 and then again in 1965. He helped lead the Leafs to four Stanley Cups in their last dynasty era, including three straight (1962, 1963 and 1964) and the team’s last championship in 1967.

Nine years later, Bower was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame.

Last January, as part of the Centennial Classic and the NHL’s 100th anniversary celebration, Bower was named as one of the NHL’s 100 greatest players ever.

Those accomplishments helped solidify his stature in Leafs lore with a generation of fans who saw him man the crease from 1958 until his retirement in 1969 at age 45, then the oldest full-time player to ever play in an NHL game.

Unlike other Leafs’ Hall of Famers like Dave Keon, Bower never lost his connection with the team.

“Once he got here, he was around people he really liked and respected,” Bower’s grandson said of his grandfather’s “symbiotic” relationship with the organization. “For all of his faults and the outlandish things that he would say, (former owner) Harold Ballard was very good to my family. When my grandmother came down with cancer in the 1970s, Harold offered to fly her anywhere in the world to get treatment. So loyalty was two ways. My grandfather always felt very loyal to the Maple Leafs because they were very loyal to him.”

Growing up in Toronto in the 1970s and early ’80s, Shanahan recalled just how iconic the Bower name was in the wake of his unforgettable career in the city.

“Not too many people in sports have a name where it almost becomes a verb,” Shanahan said. “If you were playing street hockey and you poke-checked somebody, you yelled ‘Johnny Bower. I just Johnny Bowered you.’ I’d never seen Johnny play as a young kid, but I knew that this was the man who invented the poke check, growing up here in Toronto. It wasn’t until the last few years where I got to know him on a more personal level. And really saw up close what everybody talked about.”

When he later got to know him as a person, what impressed Shanahan was Bower’s love of the Maple Leafs, a passion that endeared him to a fan base full of those who never saw him play.

“There’s a whole new generation of young fans that don’t really know him for the goalie, but just know him for his charity, his generosity and his good-naturedness and warmth,” Shanahan said. “I’ve never in my time here — and I hear this from a lot of a people — nobody ever really came upon Johnny Bower at any moment, at any time, at any hour, and saw that he was uncomfortable, frustrated, impatient. He was never any of those things. Anytime anybody saw Johnny Bower, they came away with a great experience. He’s a great lesson for all of us.”

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One of those experiences involved the Leafs’ annual Christmas party on the ice of Maple Leaf Gardens, and for a time, the Air Canada Centre. There, Bower would reprise one of his most important roles, year after year.

“He’d be the Santa Claus for everybody,” former Leafs captain Wendel Clark said, explaining how Bower would sit on the ice in a full costume, handing out presents to the Leafs families and their children. “Every time, you’d wait to see on the ice who it was. Then you’d see those black skates, and it was Johnny again. It was so fitting because he was such a goodhearted person. He did it for so many years for the community and for the team. He was such a big part of all of that.”

Clark believes Bower was the franchise’s most cherished player, on and off the ice, with alumni and fans.

“As good a player as he was, winning four Stanley Cups and Vezina trophies,” Clark said, “he was a better person.”

Bower’s smile became a constant at not only the ACC but rinks and charity functions across Ontario. He raised money for causes including the Canadian Kidney Foundation, Canadian Arthritis Society and was an advocate for the Canadian military.

Clark was always struck by how much Bower loved and lived the game of hockey, up until he passed away on Tuesday.

“He treated it like a game,” Clark said. “He knew he had the greatest job in the world.”

Bower’s passing was felt around the NHL on Wednesday as the league reconvened after the Christmas break.

“I bet you it’ll be the biggest funeral gathering in the city of Toronto — maybe ever,” Minnesota Wild coach and Leafs alum Bruce Boudreau said. “He was loved by everybody.”

Boudreau had known Bower for most of his life. Bower worked at Boudreau’s hockey school for 10 years and never showed up late. He worked overtime, and after being told what the job paid, Bower replied, “Whatever you want.”

“A better man ever, you’ll never find,” Boudreau said.

His no-nonsense attitude was part of what made him so universally adored.

“I played with his son, John, Jr., the whole time growing up in bantam, midget and juvenile,” Boudreau said. “And Johnny was there every game the Leafs didn’t play. He was just a regular dad.

“The one quick story (I remember) is he couldn’t make the hockey school one year because he was 82 years old, and he fell off the roof when he was still doing stuff. So he sent John Jr. to work the goalies that year. That’s the kind of guy he was. Just worked hard and was a great man.”

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It was men like Bower that in part led to the Leafs organization’s recent honouring of players of the past. Shanahan spearheaded an effort to finally retire honoured player’s numbers to start last season. He invited former players to share the Leafs’ dressing room ahead of the Centennial Classic. And he helped create the concept of Legends Row, where Bower’s statue now stands outside Air Canada Centre.

“We’ve always felt it was important for our players to know the history of the men that set the example and paved the way for them to follow up on,” Shanahan said.

Shanahan explained that any young athlete can look at a player like Johnny Bower and learn that, regardless of the statistical achievements, success never went to his head.

“He was always very conscientious about the community he lived in,” Shanahan said. “He was more than just a hockey player; he was an ambassador to every community he ever lived in.”

Shanahan’s constant memory of Bower, he said, was how he was always in such positive spirits, even with the pain that he carried in his hands long after his career due to arthritis.

Shanahan remembered how gently he would shake hands with those he encountered.

“He always enjoyed being with people, and he enjoyed the ovations when there was 20,000 people in the building,” Bower’s grandson said. “But I don’t think he appreciated how many people he truly touched. Because he was just being himself: genuine, authentic and having nothing to do with trying to impress people. He just felt that he had a certain role to play in society as a former athlete. That’s just the way that he was.”

Bower’s last public appearance was only nine days before his death. With fans lined up out the door, he signed autographs for hours at a collectables store in Vaughan, Ontario.

He wore silly Christmas hats and had the same beaming grin that he did much of his life.

Later that evening, he was rushed to the hospital with early signs of pneumonia. The proceeds from items he signed that day will now go to charity in his honour.

We have received about 35 online orders so far for Johnny Bower memorabilia. We endeavor to fill all orders at Boxing… Posted by Frozen Pond on Tuesday, December 26, 2017

Few get to live the kind of life surrounded by the joy that Johnny Bower inspired. Those that met him were touched by his grace and his passion.

That’s not lost on any generation of Maple Leafs fans and players. They will remember who he was and what he did.

They will try to be more like Johnny Bower.

“If you can do any fraction of what he did, you’re doing a good job,” Sparks said.

With a report from Michael Russo in Minnesota

Main photo: Nakita Krucker/Toronto Star via Getty Images

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