The Draper brothers, Dave, Bruce and Mike, formed a line with the Junior B Buzzers in the 1957-58 season.Courtesy of Mike Draper
In the unpredictable world of sports, where some athletes, coaches and executives go their whole careers without winning a championship, Dave Draper managed to taste victory in various roles in hockey over the years.
As a player in major junior hockey, he won the coveted Memorial Cup in 1961 with Toronto’s St. Michael’s Majors under coach Rev. David Bauer. He had a second Memorial Cup win in 1976 as a general manager with the Hamilton Fincups, as well as garnering three World Junior Championship gold medals as director of scouting for Canada’s national junior team and a Stanley Cup as chief scout with the Colorado Avalanche in 1996.
Earlier in his career, he came within a hair of coaching Montreal’s Loyola College Warriors to a national championship.
Mr. Draper died Feb. 16 at the age of 85 following a lengthy battle with dementia and suffering a broken hip.
Following his first major triumph, winning the Memorial Cup in May of 1961, he and his team were part of a parade along Toronto’s Bay Street, attended by 10,000 fans. They ended up at City Hall, where they were greeted by mayor Nathan Phillips.
Dave Draper (third from front left) and St. Mike's teammates celebrate after winning the George T. Richardson Memorial Trophy as Eastern Canadian champions in 1961.Imperial Oil-Turofsky/HHOF/Supplied
“Dave Draper was that dogged winger who played with his twin brother Bruce and Larry Keenan on the line which led the 1961 championship team in scoring,” said Terry O’Malley, captain of the team at St. Michael’s College School. “He was a grade school pal. In the late spring and late summer, along with his brothers and Roger Neilson, we used to rent Leaside Arena at 4 a.m. to play shinny.”
From then on, Dave Draper and his three brothers set out to etch the family name into hockey history.
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David Patrick Draper was born in Toronto on Oct. 2, 1940, along with his identical twin brother, Bruce Alexander Draper, to Jack and Rosie Draper. The family lived in North Toronto. The boys’ friend Roger Neilson, later coach of the Maple Leafs, used to sleep in their attic so he could be up in time to deliver The Globe and Mail the next morning.
The boys attended St. Monica’s school and later St. Michael’s College School, a private Catholic high school.
The Draper twins and older brother Mike formed a line with the St. Mike’s Junior B Buzzers in the 1957-58 season.
For a short time following high school, Mr. Draper entered the seminary and was considering becoming a priest. But he eventually decided it was not his vocation and returned to ordinary life.
“As soon as he came out the door, I went there and grabbed him,” joked his wife, Charmaine Draper (née Brioux), who was then a student at a Catholic school for girls in suburban Etobicoke. “I had my eyes on him during a sock hop at St. Mike’s.” The couple married on Aug. 28, 1965.
Following his time with St. Mike’s, Dave went on to play NCAA hockey for Michigan Tech alongside his brother Mike while Bruce pursued a pro career with the Rochester Americans of the American Hockey League. Bruce was called up to play one game in the NHL with the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1962-63 season.
Later, while playing for the Hershey Bears of the AHL, Bruce developed cancer. He died in 1968 at the age of 27.
That same year, Dave coached the Loyola hockey team that upset the powerful University of Toronto Blues 1-0 in the semi-final in front of a huge crowd at the Montreal Forum, before losing narrowly 5-4 to the Alberta Golden Bears in the national final.
The win over Toronto prevented the Blues from claiming eight straight national titles. They had won in 1966 and 1967 and proceeded to win the next five after their loss to Loyola.
Dave Draper came from a family with a rich sports heritage.Denis Gibbons/Supplied
Mr. Draper was general manager of the St. Catharines Fincups, the first team to represent Canada at the World Junior Championship in 1977.
A decade later he was director of scouting for the national junior team at the World Juniors in Piestany, Czechoslovakia. The tournament was dubbed the “Piestany Punch-up” after Canada and the Soviet Union got into a full-scale brawl and both teams were disqualified.
Mr. Draper said that his job increased in difficulty after that. “There was three times the pressure on us putting the next [1988] team together,” he told Gare Joyce, author of When The Lights Went Out – How One Brawl Ended Hockey’s Cold War and Changed The Game. “Coaches, players everything- we just felt like we couldn’t afford mistakes.”
But he and his colleagues were successful and Canada struck gold in Moscow in 1988 at the IIHF World Junior Ice Hockey Championships.
Later Mr. Draper was director of scouting for two more gold medal-winning teams, in 1990 and 1991.
“I compare Dave to the Jim Gregorys and people of that era. They looked for character in a player,” said Dave King, former coach of Canada’s national team, invoking the memory of Mr. Gregory, the beloved former Maple Leafs general manager. “When I got to coach Kris [Mr. Draper’s nephew], I felt good about it because I had a Draper in the family.”
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In Quebec City in 1992, Mr. Draper was chief scout when the Nordiques traded the rights to Eric Lindros to Philadelphia for a package of players that included Swedish superstar Peter Forsberg, who together with Joe Sakic led the Colorado Avalanche to Stanley Cup championships in 1996 and 2001 after the Nordiques moved to Denver.
It was one of the most talked-about trades in NHL history.
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Long-time NHL scout and psychologist Paul Henry said Mr. Draper was the architect of that trade.
“Pierre Pagé [then coach and general manager of the Nordiques] relied on him,” he said.
Mr. Draper’s skills in spotting talent led Wayne Gretzky to coax him out of retirement and hire him as vice-president and director of player personnel for the Phoenix Coyotes when he was president of the club in 2001.
In 2011 Mr. Draper was inducted into the Hamiton Sports Hall of Fame and in 2014 into the Concordia University Hall in the Team Builder category. He had retired in 2009.
Until he became ill, Mr. Draper kept himself physically fit, completing half-marathons and rollerblading along the shore of Lake Ontario, and he enjoyed winemaking at home in Burlington, Ont.
The Draper family has a rich sports heritage. Dave’s twin brother Bruce played one NHL game for the Maple Leafs and a few seasons in the AHL with teams in Rochester, N.Y., and Hershey, P.A.
His brother Mike won an Allan Cup championship with the Orillia Terriers and brother Pat also played briefly with Orillia.
His son Sean Draper is a former director of research, analysis and software development for the Edmonton Oilers.
Nephew Kris Draper won four Stanley Cups as a player with the Detroit Red Wings.
Grandson Braedyn Cyr is captain of the Timmins Rock of the Northern Ontario Hockey Association Junior A League and his great-nephew Kienan Draper plays for the University of Michigan.
Dave’s father, Jack, played Senior A hockey with Punch Imlach and the Toronto Goodyears in the 1930s. Mr. Imlach coached the Toronto Maple Leafs to four Stanley Cup titles in the 1960s.
Dave Draper leaves his wife, Charmaine; brothers Mike and Pat; son, Sean; daughter, Kelly Cyr; four grandchildren and one great-granddaughter.
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