One fine morning
Leaf fans, Bill Barilko and the pursuit of the Cup
By Dave Read
Issue date: 3/31/04 Section: Stranded
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It is an annual love affair between city and team that blossoms as friendly courtship at the rookie draft in June, escalates to full-scale romance by December, and reaches a feverish pitch of passion as the Boys in Blue head down the homestretch in March. For many, the phenomenon is as bewildering as it is captivating. Why do we do it? Why do we allow ourselves to be fooled into thinking that this will be “our year,” when every year since 1967 has been “our year,” and we are always disappointed? The answer is simple: we believe in the Leafs because we believe in Bill Barilko.
Statistically, Bill Barilko was one of the least remarkable defencemen to wear the blue and white. The 5’11" defenceman scored only 26 goals in 252 games, and just five in 47 playoff games. He was a solid, hard-hitting workhorse, but had it not been for one goal, he could easily have been forgotten.
In the spring of 1951, Barilko scored the overtime winner in Game 5 of the Stanley Cup finals against the Montreal Canadiens. The puck was in Montreal’s end when Toronto’s Harry Watson took a shot that deflected to the right side. Barilko rushed in from the blueline and slapped the puck over goalie Gerry McNeil to clinch the 3-2 victory. As he shot the puck, Barilko tripped over a teammate’s skate and took a dive that is described in Jack Batten’s book, The Leafs:
"For an instant, Barilko was entirely airborne, both skates off the ice, both gloves preparing to stave off the downward thump. Not that Barilko cared about a hard landing, not right then. His eyes and mind were on the goal he’d scored, the one that had just meant another Stanley Cup for Toronto".
The following summer, Barilko took flight again, but this time, never to return. He was coming back from a fishing trip when his single-engine plane disappeared in northern Ontario. When Barilko did not arrive at his destination, the biggest air search in Canadian history was launched. Leafs’ owner Conn Smythe helped to fund an investigation that covered more than a million square kilometres of spruce forest, muskeg and water with 28 military, private and commercial aircraft, but the missing bodies could not be found. For the rest of the summer, and into the season, Barilko’s spot in the Leaf dressing room was left open. There were rumours that Barilko, who had Russian roots, had defected to the Soviet Union to teach hockey, while some suspected he had been looking for gold, rather than fish.
