Allan Stanley, the Hockey Hall of Fame defenceman of four Maple Leafs championship teams, has died at age 87.

Stanley, known for matinee-idol good looks and a cumbersome skating stride that earned him the nickname “Snowshoes,” played 21 NHL seasons, including four as a member of the Leafs’ Stanley Cup-winning teams in 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967.

“He was a damn good teammate,” said Dick Duff, who played on the first two of those 1960s Cup teams. “He was smart on the ice. He was always prepared to play. He put a lot into hockey.”

Often paired with his friend and teammate Tim Horton, Stanley was one-quarter of an all-time great quartet of Leafs defencemen that also included Bob Baun and Carl Brewer. Stanley, who grew up in Timmins, Ont., played in seven all-star games and toiled for four of the NHL’s so-called Original Six franchises, breaking in with the Rangers before spending time with the Blackhawks, Bruins, Leafs and, in a post-expansion swan song, the Flyers. He was inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame as a player in 1981 and was once commemorated on a postage stamp.

Stanley nearly didn’t make it to the 1960s. He was supposed to be a passenger on the plane that ferried his friend Bill Barilko on a 1951 fishing trip, this in the wake of Barilko scoring the winning goal in the Maple Leafs’ Cup win that spring. Stanley didn’t make the trip. Barilko didn’t return, perishing in a crash.

After Stanley retired as a player, he was the longtime proprietor of a resort and hockey school near Bobcaygeon, Ont. In an interview in 2005, he told reporter John MacKinnon that he didn’t watch much NHL hockey.

“Personally, I think there’s too much animal stuff out there,” Stanley said. “I think it should be cleaned up. There’s too much boarding, too much high-sticking, too much fighting.”

Still, he appeared to enjoy his fame as one of the greats of Toronto’s last hockey dynasty.

“I don’t go through a day without somebody reminiscing about the old days,” Stanley told the Star’s Paul Hunter in 1987. “I love talking about it. It was my life. I loved every part of it.”