Canada lost a giant of both politics and hockey with the death on this day in 1998 of Syl Apps, a former olympic athlete (pole vault), a long-time star centre with the Toronto Maple Leafs and a member of the Hockey Hall of Fame.  Apps had interrupted his playing career to serve two years in the army but returned to action and closed out his hockey career successfully, captaining the Leafs to Stanley Cups in his two final seasons.While still playing centre for the Leafs, Apps sought election during the 1940 federal election, narrowly losing. After leaving the NHL, Apps turned his attention to provincial politics and this time he was successful. He represented Kingston for more than a decade as MPP and served in the cabinet of Premier William Davis.A remarkable athlete and political leader, Apps was named by the NHL as one of the 100 greatest players in the league’s history. Here in Kingston, at our General Hospital, the Syl and Molly Apps Medical Research Centre is named after Mr. Apps and his wife and stands as a permanent memorial to the couple's many contributions to the Limestone City.caption id="attachment_599243" align="alignleft" width="244" Syl Apps/captionArthur Milnes is an accomplished public historian and award-winning journalist.  He was research assistant on The Rt. Hon. Brian Mulroney’s best-selling Memoirs and also served as a speechwriter to then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper and as a Fellow of the Queen’s Centre for the Study of Democracy under the leadership of Tom Axworthy.  A resident of Kingston, Ontario, Milnes serves as the in-house historian at the 175 year-old Frontenac Club Hotel.