2 L.A. Kings scouts who died in Sept. 11 attacks remembered 25 years later

Friday marks 25 years since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, and KTLA is rememberingsome of the thousands of victims of that day.

Two professional scouts for the Los Angeles Kings died on board the second hijacked plane that crashed into the World Trade Center.

KTLA’s Rachel Menitoff took a look back at their lives as sportsmen but, more importantly, as family men and loyal friends.

They’re two people connected through hockey whose lives are forever linked by one of the darkest days in American history.

Garnet “Ace” Bailey was a longtime NHL player with seven Stanley Cup wins to his name as a player and a scout.

At the time of his death, he had risen to Director of Scouting for the Kings and had been with the NHL for 33 seasons.

Mark Bavis was a young scout at just 31 years old, seen as a rising star in the sport. He was entering his second season after spending time as a coach on the NCAA level.

On Sept. 11, the pair boarded United Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angeles for the first day of training camp.

“I was in western Canada that morning, and I remember my older brother called me to see if I’d talked to him,” remembered Mark’s brother, Michael Bavis. “Kind of knew immediately something was wrong.”

Their flight was intentionally crashed by terrorists into the south tower of the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, a sight etched into many people’s minds as they watched it happen live on television.

Their untimely and cruel deaths are still felt to this day when Michael talks about his twin brother.
“People truly haven’t forgotten, and it’s taken a long time and, as you can see from my response, it still can trigger a really emotional response,” he said.

For the last 25 years, the Kings have made sure their colleagues’ sense of sportsmanship is carried on through scholarship funds for high school seniors and some quirkier tokens, too.

Their mascot is appropriately named “Bailey,” and the team’s helmets also bear the names “Ace” and “Mark.”

In 2012, after the team won their very first Stanley Cup, some of the team executives brought the trophy to Ground Zero and invited the families of Bailey and Bavis to join them.

“They were passionate about what they did,” remembered L.A. Kings President Luc Robitaille. “Mark loved hockey and he was one of those guys, he was slowly but surely growing in his career. Ace Bailey was a little bit older. He loved hockey, he was going to be, we call it, a hockey guy for life.”

Bruce Boudreau became close friends with Bavis when he was coaching the Kings’ AHL in New England. He was supposed to be on that fateful flight but ended up taking one out the day before.
“I was lucky enough to coach until last year, and I wanted every one of my players to be like Ace,” Boudreau said. “He was the type of friend you wanted to go to war with. That’s what I try to tell my friends and my teammates, and that’s the exact kind of person that I wanted to be at my side.”

A quarter-century later, a new generation of players and fans have a chance to learn about their predecessors. Their stories live on through the people who love them and the game they cherished.
“The Kings have always supported us and our family, and the Kings fans and, quite honestly, people from the great state of California didn’t forget our family, and Ace Bailey’s family,” Michael Bavis said. “I chose to do this because I wanted to make sure I had a chance to say that.”