Discover Toronto's history as told through its plaques

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Bill Barilko

Photos and transcription by contributor Wayne Adam - Posted February, 2012

Photo Source - Wikimedia Commons

Inside the former Maple Leaf Gardens, now a Loblaws, at the "Canteen" on the main level imbedded in the top of a table is this plaque. Here's what it says:

Coordinates: 43.66205 -79.37973

Click here for a larger map

The last goal he would ever score was one that would be immortalized in hockey history, in myth, and in song.

But on April 21, 1951, at Maple Leaf Gardens, when hard-hitting defenceman Bill Barilko pinched in on the left wing and fired a shot high on the stick side just before being knocked to the ice that beat Gerry McNeil and won the Stanley Cup, most of what would make the moment special was still to be revealed to the spoiled fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs. "It was as clean as a hound's tooth," Red Burnett wrote of Barilko's shot in the Toronto Star. "McNeil never had a chance."

Certainly it's not every day that you win the Stanley Cup, in overtime, on home ice. Barilko's teammates lifted him on to their shoulders in celebration, and in the papers, there was a picture of his mom, ladling him a drink out of the Stanley Cup.

But that year every one of the six games in the finals against the Montreal Canadiens was decided in an extra period, and as for the Leafs winning championships...well, that was old hat.

This was the greatest dynasty in the long history of the franchise, winning the Cup in 1945, 1947 and 1949, before the 1951 victory.

But this was also the end. The following August, while returning home from a fishing trip, Barilko and a friend flying in a small plane disappeared over northern Ontario. He was just 24 years old.

Their fate remained a mystery until 1962, when the remote crash site was finally discovered. And just as Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip sang in Fifty Mission Cap, it was only then, after Barilko's body was found, that the Leafs again won the Stanley Cup.
-Stephen Brunt

Related webpages
Bill Barilko
Stanley Cup
The Tragically Hip

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