The Paikin Podcast - Gord Stellick & Ronnie Shuker: The Greatest Goal in Toronto Maple Leafs History?

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

Gord Stellick and Ronnie Shuker join Steve to discuss the 75th anniversary of Bill Barilko’s overtime goal to win the Leafs the Stanley Cup in 1951, if it was the greatest Leafs goal ever scored, and the mystery around his disappearance that summer while on a fishing trip. They also discuss the new feature-length documentary in production, “Frozen in Time: The Bill Barilko Story,” that will break new ground on the story. Support us: patreon.com/thepaikinpodcast Follow The Paikin Podcast: YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/@ThePaikinPodcastSPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/1OhwznCIUEA11lZGcNIM4h?si=b5d73bc7c3a041b7X: x.com/ThePaikinPodINSTAGRAM: instagram.com/thepaikinpodcastBLUESKY: bsky.app/profile/thepaikinpodcast.bsky.social Email us at: [e-mail] 

Hi everybody, Steve Paken here. Normally we do talk a lot of Canadian politics and international affairs on the Paken podcast, but we're going to mix it up today because this is a big day. Tuesday, April 21st is the 75th anniversary of the greatest goal ever scored in Toronto Maple Leaf history. That's not my opinion, friends. That's a fact. If you score a goal in overtime to win your team the Stanley Cup, it is by definition the greatest goal ever, and that's what we're talking about today.

The guy who got the goal, Bashan Bill Barilco. But that overtime goal to win the Stanley Cup is just the beginning of the story. A few months later, Barilco and a friend went on a fishing trip in northern Ontario. Their plane crashed, and despite the biggest manhunt in Canadian history,

they could not find the bodies. The Leafs had won four cups in five years, and then during the time that Barilco went missing, they didn't win for more than a decade. The original goal was in 51. it wasn't until 1962 that the Leafs won another cup, and coincidentally that year, they found the bodies. Too many people, I think, don't know this story,

so we are going to go through it today, plus tell you about a new feature-length documentary currently in production that will break new ground on this story. The greatest goal in Leafs history coming right up on the Paken podcast. Delighted to welcome on this 75th anniversary of Bash and Bill Barilco's greatest goal ever, Gorge Stelich, he's the former general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs back in the 1980s, author of a book called 67, The Maple Leafs, Their Sensational Victory and the End of an Empire. You can hear them every morning on NHL Morning Skate on Sirius XM Satellite Radio's NHL Network Radio.

And Ronnie Schuker is here. Ronnie is the author of a book called The Country and the Game, 30,000 miles of hockey stories. He's also the co-producer and writer of this new documentary currently in production called Frozen in Time, the Bill Barilco story, and I am delighted to welcome both of you guys on this 75th anniversary to a wonderful conversation. And without further ado, Ronnie, get us started. Tell us about Bill Barilco. Who was he? Well, the Cole's Notes version is, he was a defenseman for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the late 1940s, early 50s. boy from Timmons

grew up, couldn't skate for a lick, skated himself into the ground to get himself out of the net, which is where he started, became a defenseman, rose through the ranks, played a year in Hollywood

for the Hollywood Wolves, which would be about maybe the level of the ECHL today. Two levels down from the NHL, he got called up, and it was it was a scripted scripted career for five years

four Stanley Cups in five years 1951 final scores the overtime goal in game five to win the Stanley Cup for the Leafs in an iconic photo taken by Nat Tarovsky of him soaring through the air much like Bobby Orr in 1970

and then like you said four months later takes a fishing trip he'd love fishing all his life he went fishing every summer every off-season And on the way back, the plane disappeared. They flew into a storm, and it launched the largest aviation search and rescue mission in Canadian history. Didn't find him. And 11 years, 11 years later, a pilot passes, happens to see a reflection off some metal in the forest,

and finally the mystery was solved and he was found. And his story has been legendary ever since. Indeed. Although I don't think enough people know about it, which is why, and full disclosure here, Ronnie and I are working on this documentary together. Barry Averich's company, Melbar Entertainment, is producing, shooting, editing, and so on, making the documentary. And I think more people need to know about it. And, Gordon, that takes me to you.

Because I know when I was a kid going to games in Maple Leaf Gardens, I'd look up in the rafters, and I'd see that number five retired number for Barilco. But I wonder, how many people do you think knew the story? How many Maple Leafs knew the story? What sense did you have about whether or not? not people actually got it. No. No, people didn't. And I know, I don't know if his sister's still alive, but she sort of carried on a lot

of the tradition later on. And, of course, the song by the tragically hip kind of paid homage to it. So so much so, Steve, that the clip of the actual goal, a guy you know, Mark Askin, years ago, there just was tape around movies. They just had movies, right, of game action. And he happened to see it go, that's the goal. Like, they didn't even know where the goal was. It wasn't like it was documented that here's Bill Barocco's goal.

It was just, you know, taking a look at Aunt Peggy's old home movies and let's go through them. And that's what he was doing and said, son of a gun, that's the goal. And greatest goal in Toronto Maple Leaf history, you could say arguably, I know it wasn't a seven-game series, but to win a Stanley Cup, you know, we think of Nikki Borshefski's goal. That was to win a playoff series against Detroit back in 1993. And then he's the buddy Holly of the Leafs.

He was only 24 when he was killed in the plane crash. So so much happened. He's the Timmons guy, went to Hollywood, and he actually was a Hollywood guy. Okay, who thinks of a hockey team in Hollywood? And then the Leafs win all those Stanley Cups, like Ronnie and you are talking about, that an era that gets glossed over,

the post-war era under a guy named Dick Irvin before he went to Montreal, was a rather successful era. And then Kahn Smyth didn't like the way things are going to come back from the war years. So Irvin went to Montreal, and after Barical scored, they didn't make the playoffs for eight years.

years, or did not win a playoff series for eight years. And then his body gets found. And later on, you put it all together. What, are we writing a movie script here that they don't win a Stanley Cup for 11 years until his body is found again? So I think that mystique part came into play. But what I like you're talking about is appreciation, what a great player he was. Like he was led the team in penalty minutes a couple of years, was always up there. And as a veteran could have been on with his buddy out childhood buddy, Alan Stanley, on those teams in 62, 63, 64, all those years later.

Just for the record, his sister, Anne, is dad. However, her son Frank, Frank Clissonich is his name. Right. He lives in Minnesota, and he will be in our documentary, and Frank is, I guess, the keeper of the flame today, the guy who, you know, obviously never knew his uncle and really wants to keep the legend going, so we are happy to help him in that regard.

Ronnie, I think we need to go back and talk about the kind of player, Gord alluded to it, that Bill Barilco was. They called him Bashin Bill Barilco. How come? Well, he hit like a Mack truck for what I've read. I mean, there's so little video, at least publicly available. There'll be lots in the documentary that people haven't seen. But from what I've read and from what people who have seen him live, Stan Fisler, for one,

say about him is that he just loved body contact, whether it was hitting or whether it was being hit. And there were reports in Tim's newspapers that this is something that he just was about his game, even as a teenager. So he rose through the ranks, and that was his calling card, was heavy, hard hitting. He's a big tough Ukrainian kid, wasn't he?

He grew up in a Ukrainian, household. Yep, to immigrant Ukrainian parents. And he's arguably the greatest hitter of his, of his, of his, of his time, of his generation. And the people he knocked out, sent off on stretchers, guys like Kenny Reardon and, uh, Milton Schmidt. Um, he went after Rocket Richard, time after time after time. He was absolutely a fearless hockey player. And it wasn't just, you know, two years into his career. It was the very first game against Montreal in the forum. He's still 19 years old. He's just called up from the Hollywood Wolves. And who does he take game at first? The rocket. The rocket and Elmer Locke and everybody else on the Canadians. Now, they got thumbed eight two, but there's a

quote from Khan Smyth. He said once he saw Barilco's first game, he was hooked and Ford's coming down on the right wing. Although he shot right, he played left defense. predominantly. And he either paced those wingers into the boards or he crushed him with open ice hits. Later, he would develop a bit of offensive flair. He loved to jump in the play, hence his overtime goal. But his calling card definitely was his heavy hitting. Gordon, I'm I guess sort of facetiously saying,

I don't think there's any debate about the greatest goal in leaf history. I mean, to me, when you score a goal in overtime, that wins your team, the Stanley Cup. I mean, it's like Joe Carter's home run. You hit a World Series game, you know, a World Series winning home run in the bottom of the ninth. That's the greatest home run ever. But I know a lot of people are not necessarily going to go there. You mentioned Nick Borshefske, but that was an early round series. That was not for the Stanley Cup.

You know, Rick Vive, the first time he knocked 50 goals in. I mean, you could argue that had never been done before. That's a big deal. Bobby Bond's goal on a broken leg. Dougie Gilmore's goal in overtime against Curtis. Joseph, but I don't know, let me get your opinion on this. Those are certainly memorable goals in Leaf history, but they didn't win a Stanley Cup in overtime,

as every game in that series did, went into overtime. So do you think Barucho really is number one? Yeah, 100%. And that's why even, you know, Bobby Orr scoring that goal against the expansion St. Louis Blues. Like the Bruins won that series four straight. So it's not like it was a hard fought game seven, but it goes because it clinched the Stanley Cup that it,

It is the indelible mark of the Boston ruins. And so that's what I got to appreciate more, Steve, to your point about, I don't, like, we had to learn leaf history. Even then, there's a little bit of flair, not, you know, you mentioned it, kind of a Bobby Or-esque thing once they found the video. Like, like, this guy suited Hollywood as well. Like, so it's funny, because as you guys were talking about, it's kind of the end of why Conn Smyth loved this guy. The whole slogan was, if you can't beat him in the alley, you can't beat him on the rink. And that, that was the Toronto a Maple Leafs Cretto that really didn't stand up in the 1950s after that. It kind of ended there and it was a different team that won four Stanley Cups under Punch Imlach in the 1960s. So, you know,

it's interesting that style of play. But to answer your question, simplistically, a defenseman, not a Bobby or defenseman either. He didn't score a ton of goals. Defenseman didn't jump into the play much there. You better not, you better score because if you screw up and you're not caught back, then all of a sudden, Con Smyth has you not dressing for the next playoff. game. So I like the fact that a little bit, a little bit of the riverboat gambler he did, he took in getting that goal, which I will say is the greatest goal that Maple Leaf history. Ronnie, I think we need a description of how he actually scored the goal. Set the scene. How did he put it in the net? So the Leafs get the puck into the Canadians end. Well, to start overtime,

they are all over the Canadians. A lot of people don't know that the Canadians were leading by goal late in that game. And it was, I think it was 32 seconds left. Todd Sloan tied it. So there was that. And so they took the momentum into the overtime. And they were just coming wave after wave after wave after attack. Jerry McNeil was standing on his head.

He was the Habs goalie. He was the Habs goalie. They get the puck in the Canadian zone. And there are two players who actually could have scored before Barilco. One of them is Howie Meeker. Pass came out across the crease. and had he handled it perfectly, he basically, he could have put it in the net quite easily,

but he just fumbled it just enough that it took him around the net, and then started this sort of mad scramble, where the puck started ping ponging off of players, off of the side of the net. Jeremy McNeill at one point, stopping a wraparound by Howie Meeker, falls on his butt, and you can tell just by watching the short 30-second video on CBC,

that he's trying to figure out whether he should take the time to get up or just stay on his butt. He ends up staying on his butt and the puck just bounces around into the slot and there's a least player, I can remember which one, but he takes a shot

and it bounces off a Canadian's skate. And then it just rolls out, starting to roll out towards the blue line where Bill Barilco was parked. Now, Khan Smyth and coach Joe Primo were after Barilco and all the defensemen, but especially Barilco because he was aggressive. He liked a pinch and they said when Rocket Richard is on the ice,

you do not leave your point on the blue line. And to the point where they said, we will find you. Stan Fishler says a fine of $500. Other reports say $100. Anyways, they would find a player if he would pinch from the point with a rocket on the ice. The rocket is on Barilco's side of the ice. He's playing right wing.

He's in the corner. The puck comes out and Barrelko has a decision to make. Does he leave his post against the wishes of Smyth and Primo? Or does he go for the puck? Gardner, Cal Gardner, forward for the Leafs, goes for the puck at the same time. Borrelko beats him to it. Gardner goes behind him. Barilco dives mad through the air, shovels it backhand.

It wasn't even a forehand. It was a backhand shot. Jeremy McNeil is still on his butt. And in the photo that is taken of it, his eyes are shut and he just kind of throws up his blocker and he misses and the puck goes into not the very top but pretty close and then drops to the ice brookal throws up his arms the crowd ignites and he's fetid you know like a standing cup champion put on the shoulders of two of his players grinded the dressing room ladles some champagne out of the cup and he's immortalized forever beautiful i kind of wish i was

there. Go to why? Gordon, I do need to ask you, again, about those days back in the 80s when you were general manager of the Leafs. And there were pictures of Barilco around Maple Leaf Gardens. If you go to Scotia Bank Arena today, they have a bit of a shrine to Barilco. Pictures of a picture on the wall of the winning goal, a head and a shoulder shot of him. Eddie Rogers, the owner of the Maple Leafs, actually bought a game use stick by

Barilco's. They've got a jersey there. I mean, they are, they get how big a deal. this is. Why do you figure so many of the other players who were there when you were there, or maybe the fans, why didn't they know about this more? So, you know, it's funny because Cal Gardner's a guy, I think you got to know him, Steve as well. Like he was the sales guy in radio. And then he's the father of Paul Gardner, who was the coach of the New Market Saints when I was general manager. So I got to know Cal well. And I feel like going, Gordo, well, why did you ever ask Cal about the play?

You know what I mean? I just found it all later. It's easy. to dump on Harold Ballard about things. In this case, probably rightly so, because it's just funny. His whole take with the alumni was, he had a line. He said, hey, when you retire from Xerox, do they put your picture up there? Kind of like, you know, whatever. But this is the Toronto May police, Mr. Ballard. This isn't Xerox, whatever.

So it was like whatever happened in the past, I think a lot of it was he resented the Kahn-Smith era. He resented Kahn-Smith. wanted to wipe any memory of Con Smythe about things. And so we never treasured the rich history like we could have. And that part of that included educating us as a working there, educating fans, educating players to grow more of an appreciation. And that started actually with Don Giffin way back when that these kinds of things got more appropriately acknowledged. And now, like he deserves a shrine. It's just, you know, it's like Franco Harris's statue in the Pittsburgh

airport about that particular play. I mean, these kind of, these, kind of plays you can't they're organic you know and and and they you know they live in infamy and that's one leaf play that will live in infamy but was kind of parked there kind of parked there like his body unfortunately was with henry hudson the dentist for 11 years uh in that airplane you know so better late than never as far as appreciation goes do you have any idea gourd whether any of the current roster of the tron of maple leaves knows the name bill barilco or what the significance of it is okay so again because of i can speak for 10 15 years ago ken dryden you know really really jumped on it as well and the tragically hip song so i think that got unawareness let's say in the matt

sundeen era whatever i i appreciate the respect morgan riley has for history and things like that i don't know the other 20 something guys i don't i don't know how it how it works with them or not you know i mean uh we have kids the same ages and we just see them on their phone all the time and you kind of wonder, what do they do? They don't even know that there's a war with Iran or whatever. I don't know. You know what I mean? It's kind of like a younger, I'm generalizing, but I just mean, nowadays, I don't know. And I mean, were we the same in our 20s? I'd like to think we weren't, but I don't know who Bill Barilco was in my 20s. Okay. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think we did have a sense about history and things like that.

We didn't have shiny objects and whatever small attention spans. And we lived and breathed and we weren't putting bets on games and things like that. We didn't get all six teams. You only got one team on TV and radio. So that's why, you know, so just of a different time. So I know there's more attention, I guess is my answer paid to acknowledging the past and the history of the Toronto Maple Leafs. How it resonates with the current players, I'm not sure. We'll be back right after this.

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for our documentary Frozen in Time, the Bill Baroque story. Publicists always say, say the name of the book, say the name of the movie, so that's what I'm doing. We went to Brampton to visit the basement of a guy named Mark Farah, who is probably the number one superfan of the leaves in the whole country in as much as his basement has more. leaf memorabilia privately acquired than anybody else I know. And he's got the wreckage, some of it anyway, of Bill Barilco's plane.

Can you tell me how all that happened? Yeah, so you have to go back to 2011. The wreckage has been sitting there for 60 years. The people in Timmons decide it's time to bring it home. There's a logging company that had the area and the rights to start logging it. They thought, you know, at some point maybe parts of the plane start ending up on eBay, and they didn't want something like that to happen. The people in Timmons who are close to this story, it's personal for them.

They wanted to do right by Barilco and by Hudson. So they got the blessing of their families to bring the wreckage home. They did that on October 16th, 2011. And they had it in a secure location in Timmons. They couldn't find anybody to take it from there. They tried everyone and everything from the Hockey Hall of Fame to Timmons Airport, to the Leafs, MLSC, to Canadian, what's the Canadian National Museum in Ottawa? They tried everyone to try and do right by this, you know, this significant artifact of arguably one of the most important stories in Canadian history.

Nobody wanted to take it. So in I think it was 2020 or 2021, Mark Farah stepped up and he said, I'll take it. I'll display it beautifully. And anyone who wants to come by and see it can come by. So he drove all the way to Timmons. I think he had a pickup truck, he said, or he might have rent in something. Shlep the luggage, slept the wreckage onto his truck,

including the engine, which is not light. One of the pontoons, the other pontoon is still in Timmons. Takes all the wreckage back to Timmons, and then beautifully lays it out in his basement amongst his, you know, incredible collection of leaf jerseys. He's got thousands of pieces of leaf memorabilia in that basement.

Thousands. It's incredible. All the way back to the 1940s. It's just incredible what he has there. And he beautifully lays out the wreckage. You know, it's something you could think is morbid, but he does it in such a beautiful way, surrounds it with, I think, three to 400 artifacts related to the story, takes up an entire corner of his basement. And, you know, anybody who wants to come by and see it, if you're a leaf fan, you just

going to give him a shout. He just, he just wants to preserve this part of Leif's history and Canadian history and do so in a way that's, um, tactful and, and proper. And he's, he's lovingly displayed. There's no question about it. He's the only person who stepped up to do it and good on him. He's a true, true Leafs fan. Yeah. Gord, do you know, Mark Farah? And have you been to his place? I know of him. No, I've not been to his place, but you've piqued my curiosity. It's funny. A lot of people, you know, We had a communal snowblower, but nobody had a spot to store it. So the four or five houses, we gave it up. So I couldn't have fit an airplane in.

So I give him credit for stepping up. Try to remember the other guy in Forest Hill, Mike, whatever they had. Wilson. Wilson. And so he had a great setup. And, you know, it's, I give those guys credit for preserving things because it always pissed me off that when they moved from Maple Leaf Gardens to what was then here, Canada Center, some third party got all the files out.

Like, I used to love looking at the files, like Bill Burilko, George Armstrong, Johnny Bauer, like just killing time in the summer. And they were kept impeccably in all the contracts and all that, whatever. And somehow there was a free-for-all, which always bothered me about, you know, third parties who made some money, dishing it out, whatever. So it's nice that there is that people that appreciate it and preserve it. And the other one, just so I'm curious to go see it. That's quite an undertaking.

That's quite impressive. So one of their note was Alan Stanley wanted to be on that flight, his buddy, but they felt there wasn't room. And Alan Stanley actually was the one went looking for him when the plane didn't come back. And he ended up with Damian Cox and I did that book on the 67 team. So Alan Stanley was a pallbearer at Bill Barilco's funeral. And then a pallbearer all those years later for Tim Horton, who, of course, you know, was a guy that it was his partner for four Stanley Cups in the 60s. And what I alluded to earlier, a good chance that on that veteran team, Bill Barilcoe still would have been there. But anyway, I know, Mark, I will make a point of going seeing the plane because I think that's, I think that's something real special.

He's got more than the plane fuselage as well. He's got the Stanley Cup ring, the championship ring that obviously Bill Barilco never got to have presented to him because of his death. Right. He's got the ring. He's got a contract. He's got the last contract Barilco ever signed. And we saw his signature on the paper paying him, Ronnie, what was it? $9,000 a year or something like that?

$9,000. Yeah. Amazing. I mean, he's got other memorabilia jerseys, and it's just, Mark's done a great job preserving all of that history. Ronnie, I want to get your view as well on, you know, to the extent I've talked to people who know this story, and the only reason they know this story is because of a rock and roll group called The Tragically Hip. And they did a song, obviously, back in the 90s called 50 Mission Cap, which starts out with a line simply, Bill Barilco scored the goal to won the Leifes the Cup and then goes on to tell the story of how the plane disappeared and the Leafs didn't win until they found the wreckage

11 years later. What do you think the impact of that hip song has been on the Barilco legend? Well, if it wasn't for the hip, the story would have probably disappeared almost entirely. And it was 30 years after the wreckage was finally found that the song was released, brought the story to a new generation, including myself.

That's how I learned about the story. But even then, I mean, I grew up a lease fan, been in hockey media for almost 20 years now, and I never really dove into the story, even though I knew the basic points in that Gordaunni list in the song. I never dove into it until about almost 30 years after they released the song. And I read the first. the first of two biographies. And then once I took that next step past the song,

I was hooked, instantly hooked. And I think that- You put a chapter about them in your book. I did. I was so consumed by this story after reading the two books on Burilco that I felt compelled to go to the crash site. I feel like to truly understand a story, you need to go to the places where it happened.

And I'm glad I did because, not being from Northern Ontario, I just, I didn't quite understand why it took so long to find the plane. I mean, I know it was the early 1950s, but it's not like they had, you know, we had just invented the wheel. Like, they had, this is the largest aviation search and rescue mission in Canadian history. They had Lancaster bombers. They had Mitchells. They had all kinds of private planes and helicopters searching for him. But I never understood why it took so long.

And finally, flying there in a helicopter to the crash site, I understood why it took so long to find the plane. The trees are so dense that you literally can't see between them unless you're right over the spot. It's just, it really gave me a new perspective. And it all started from the hip. Like if it wasn't for the hip, this story could have disappeared entirely. So we really have them to thank for it.

And we'll be back right after this. Gordon, maybe you could follow up because the hip, Now, I don't remember the date. Ronnie, you might remember the date. But the hip did actually come to, I think it was then called Air Canada Center. And they did a ceremonial face off. And, you know, they had the handwritten on a poster lyrics to 50 Mission Cap, which they presented to MLSE and which are up in the Leaf dressing room, I think.

Anyway, do you remember that night? Yeah, I do. And what I like, Steve, that I know you got to know him, it's funny. Ken Dryden, who was a Toronto guy, but played for the Montreal Canadiens. And I think he felt there was a void in the history in Toronto compared to, you know, what Montreal does. Nobody's done it better than Montreal consistently. And around that presentation, he was kind of the guy that organized it that got it going. And that brought it to light that, you know, the hip being there and the song as you're, as you're alluding to.

And so then you get the curiosity factor about what are they all talking about because it's, you know, kind of a cool song. And then Ken Dryden, you know, gets them there and kind of makes a night out of it. And it's another little peg in, you know, even hearing about, because I was interested about, how can you not find a plane for 11 years? And Ronnie just explained that. You know, there's just so, there were like, again, nothing was really asked about it. It just said, you got a leaf game. There's the two sweaters, Ace Bailey. But number six, we know what happened there. And there's pictures of a charity, All-Star Game for him, whatever. Number five, Bill Burilco, he got a goal and he died in a plane crash. That's it. I'll have a hot dog and a Coke, whatever, you know? And,

And that was the sum of it. So all of a sudden, you had to get a musical group, a Canadian iconic musical group, you know, delving a bit more, Ken making a matter of it, you know, at the air. And projects like yours and others that, you know, again, better late than ever, garnering the kind of appreciation and specialists. Also, I like what you're talking about is, let's find out about the guy, bashing Bill Burilko. Okay, he was known more for the hits than getting the goals and all of stuff.

There's more than about like 24 years old. Like I said, he died in his prime. Like all he knew was winning Stanley Cups, basically. What a hell of a player he would have been, you know, on and on. He wasn't Peter Kleema scoring later. Cam Conner scoring that overtime goal for the Montreal Canadiens, the fourth liner, you know, finally getting in the game because everyone else is exhausted. Well said.

I should tell you as well, Gord, the reason that Ronnie and I are working on this documentary is that Ronnie was a guest on the TVO show that I used to do called The Agenda. Right. And we had him on because he just had this book come out, and we wanted to talk to him about the book. And because of the Borilco chapter in the book, I asked him about Bill, and literally in the middle of his answer, you know, well, I guess not literally, figuratively, a light just went eureka in my head. And I said to him at the time, Ronnie, stick around after this interview's over.

I got to talk to you. I got a great idea for something that we need to work on together because I saw his passion for the Barilco story and I knew my own. and after our interview was over, I just took them aside and I said, Ronnie, next year, it's a 75th anniversary of the goal. We got to make a documentary. And that's how it all started. Right. And Ronnie, I want to ask you about the puck because, of course, there is great controversy over the puck that Barilco put in the net behind Jerry McNeil of the Montreal Canadiens.

Maybe you could start with a story about while the Leafs are celebrating the victory, some guy from the stands runs on. to the ice and picks up the puck. Okay, you pick up the story from there. Yeah, there's a lot of controversy about this. So, you know, back then, ceremonies, Stanley Cup ceremonies, they weren't scripted. So it was, you know,

Clarence Campbell would come on the ice, present the cup. They'd do maybe a couple speeches, but yeah, and then a fan jumped on the ice, fished out the puck from the net. And I think he was 16 years old at the time. Fished it out. He was there with his dad, fished out of the net, went back to his seat, presumably, and nobody ever really gave it much of a thought.

I mean, it's just, you know, souvenirs back then weren't as, you know, in front of mine as they are now. And for years, the Hockey Hall of Fame thought they had to puck because a couple of pucks actually got thrown onto the ice after the goal happened. If you see the video, there's a couple of pucks that got. get thrown on. So the hockey Hall of Fame thought they had the puck for the longest time, but it was this kid in

Brantford who had it and kept it year after year. And I think it was Mark Farah who finally solved the problem that the hockey Hall of Fame didn't have it, but actually this gentleman

in Brantford had it. And I believe the puck that they had at the Hall of Fame had the wrong logo on it. Yes, yes. They had to do some, you know, Zepruder work to figure out that the hockey

old of fame actually didn't have the puck. I believe Mark Farah now has the puck in his possession. But yeah, it was quite the controversy for quite a while. Well, it's funny because you look, Wayne Gretzky made a point. His last Stanley Cup win in Edmonton, he felt, you know,

that it might be time. He wasn't sure he thought. So he actually asked security, look, because they kept winning, they went at home all the time. And he said, can we keep the fans from going on the ice? And then the second part was getting that picture, which now is traditional. But up till then, you look at anything.

Guys, now you get zip tied, zip cuffed and taken away. But you look at people just running on the ice. She used to kid about it. Hank Aaron hits that home run and two guys are greeting them at second base of spectators. And it's considered just, you know, fun stuff, you know, hopping on. So that's another side of that era that actually went through the 1960s and 1970s that you kind of could do stuff like that. Yeah, there was so much confusion after Barilco got the goal on the 21st of April and 51.

Because they didn't, you're quite right, running. They didn't script things out back then, right? You know, Campbell went on the ice. He presented the trophy. They didn't skate around the rink, you know, as teams do nowadays, hoisting the cup, passing it from captain to the next person to the next person to the next, but they just didn't do any of that. The cup sat on a table and then they picked it up off the table,

went to the dressing room, and that was it. So there was a lot of confusion about who picked up the puck and where it ended up. But I think you're right. Mark Ferris got the puck now. And all of that, of course, will be in our documentary. Gordon, I don't know if you ever, I mean, you must know Frank Mahavlich, but I don't know if you ever talk to him about Bill Burilko because, well, we did the other day down at Scotia Bank Arena. He saw Bill Barilco at a practice in Timmons.

Frank, of course, from that area as well. Do you ever talk to him about those days? Well, I've talked, guys like Jerry McNam, who's from there. I heard more about Frank the legend. There were so many guys that were from that area. Schumacher and Sudbury and Timmons and, you know, like I said, Alan Stanley was from

there as well. So I never, like, that's why when you talk, what you're talking about when you had the chat about it and you thought, I got to do the book, that's what I met his sister at the Hockey Hall of Fame a thousand years ago and I couldn't ask her enough questions, right? So it's

funny, the Big M, I'm interested to hear that. I'm interested to hear that focus because I've talked about a lot of things. He's a larger-in-life figure. It's kind of a strange one, one of arguably the greatest leaf of all time, who values his time that he spent in Montreal more that he did in Toronto. But, you know, just all those guys, I loved hearing those stories. And I got to hear more about the guys in the 60s, okay, the guys that won the four Stanley Cups. So that was a little bit more contemporary. I didn't, you know, whether we go back to Joe Primo and you go back to others like that, I didn't, I didn't quite get, and that's why to the point of your documentary, when I went to Rilko's sister, your insatiable appetite comes out and you can't hear enough. You can't learn enough.

Ronnie, let me give you the last word on this. When the documentary, Frozen in Time, gets made and we are shooting it this year, I guess we're going to go up to Timmons to the crash site in a month or two. So that will really be in a month or two. So that will really be in a moment. emotional moment. When it's eventually done, I want to know how you think you will feel having helped immortalize the greatest goal ever scored in Leif's history. Yeah, you know, I thought about this too, the moment that it's going to be released. I don't know why, but this story is just taken hold of me. And I think it's one of the stories that if people, you know, listen further than the 33 words that are in 50 mission cap or look beyond the banner that's hanging in Scotia Bank Arena. They're going to find not just a remarkable Toronto Maple Leaf story, NHL story, hockey story, a remarkable Canadian story. Just one of the greatest stories in the

history of our country. It's about a hockey player who just, he didn't have a lot of talent. He just will and skill and you know i'm a lease fan i'm i'm i played defense as a kid born in ontario grew up listening to tragally hips so maybe all those things came together and i just fell for this story but yeah it's become personal for me i i for whatever reason in canada we just don't seem to tell her own stories as well as we should like there are a lot of analogies American analogies, like the story's been compared to Amelia Earhart and like Gord said, Buddy Holly, and those comparisons are absolutely apt for sure, you know,

disappearance, plane crash, someone at the height of their career. But this story, you know, other stories need to be compared to this story. It's his own remarkable Canadian story. And, you know, there's a quote by, the basis from the tragically hip, Gord St. Clair, he said, you know, if this story had happened in America, if, you know, a player had hit a grand slam in the ninth inning of the

World Series, we all would know about it. There'd be movies about it. Robert Redford would have played him. But we don't. For whatever reason, we just, if it wasn't for the hip, you know, the story would have been lost entirely. So it's taken 75 years to tell this story on film that you know there's a couple of books we got the hip song but that's really it in 75 years we haven't we haven't told this story there's no biopic there's no doc and i canada what are we doing like why aren't we telling this story and i think when it finally gets played it's not just going to be people who know the story who gravitate towards it i think once people get word of you know what exactly happened.

We're going to get the, you know, we need to get the next generation interested in this story. So, you know, stories live on, not just, the story didn't die with Bill Barilco. There are all kinds of people who are associated with it now, who are carrying it on, all the people we've mentioned, but, you know, there's a super fan,

a Barilco super fan in London who has a full-length sleeve tattoo of Barilco. He drives a car with Barilco 05 license plates. You know, if you go to any Leafs game, you're going to see a handful of barical jersey still on the crowd. The people in Timmons who are trying to keep the story alive, you and I are doing the dock. Those are the people who are carrying on this story,

and we need to reach the next generation of Leaf fans and Canadians to get them interested in this story and keep it going. So well said. Thank you for that. I want to thank Gord Stelich, the former general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. You can hear him on the NHL more. Morning Skate on Sirius XM satellite radio on the NHL network.

And Ronnie Schuker. If you liked what you heard today, check out his book. It's called The Country in the Game, 30,000 miles of hockey stories. And of course, keep an eye out down the road. We're not sure when yet. We're shooting for the next many months. But frozen in time, the Bill Barilco story, will be coming to a movie theater near you at some point,

and then on TVO, and then for broader distribution beyond that. Let me just finally say, we hope you will check out our Patreon page. patreon.com forward slash the Paken podcast. All of these shows are archived at my website, stevepaken.com. Peace and love, everybody, and we'll see you next time.