Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Kevin Shea: Toronto Mike'd #216

Episode Date: February 8, 2017

Mike chats with Kevin Shea about his years working with "Weird Al" Yankovic and Motley Crue, selling Smells Like Teen Spirit to radio and the legend of Bill Barilko in glorious blue and white detail.

Welcome to episode 216 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. And Chef's Plate, delivering delicious and locally sourced farm fresh ingredients in refrigerated kits directly to your door. fresh ingredients in refrigerated kits directly to your door. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me this week is hockey historian Kevin Shea. What a privilege it is to talk to the most connected guy in Toronto. How are you doing, Mike? Is that right?

Am I? That's great to hear. Oh, absolutely. Is that title accurate? Can I just call you hockey historian? Call me anything you want. I guess that would be, yeah, I call myself a Hockey Historian, so that works. Thank you for the coffee.

Just last week, I said I need to make more rules. Like, you're going to be presented with some gifts very shortly. Oh, my goodness. Had I known that, jeez, I would have brought you two or a Timbit. But I'm trying to make it more reciprocal. Like, when a guest comes in, if they brought me a coffee like you did, that would be tremendous. Well, it's just I knew that I probably would want one, so I thought I better bring one to my host as well. So all is good, Mike.

And it's chilly out there, so it's good to have some warm beverage. It is indeed. As we go. Right off the bat here, we're going to get to know you in a second, but right off the bat. There's breaking news, Kevin. Breaking Toronto sports radio news. So word today is that Dean Blundell is out as the Fan 590 morning show host. What?

And Greg Brady is back. Wow. Which happened today. You are the most connected guy. Jeez. By the time people download this, they'll have heard that news already, but that's today's news. That's amazing. Well, not amazing. It's sad for Dean, but

great for Greg, but big, big news in the radio world for sure. Yeah, especially since people who are listening to this episode are probably Toronto sports radio enthusiasts and that's a big move and a big time slot for a big Toronto sports station. You know, it's funny. The whole media world for sports here in Toronto is pretty wild and you think about what TSN 1050, they have their struggles at times and it looked like the fan certainly was

the dominant of the radio side of things. And Dean, who many questioned coming into the situation, into the morning show after his time at the Edge, wondered about whether he could pull it off. I thought he sounded very, very good, and he's a good guy too. But, you know, change is imminent, and here we go. We'll see Greg Brady in the chair now. Yeah, and that was Greg's chair when Dean showed up. And then Walker's going to stay at...

They flirted with the idea of reuniting Brady and Walker, but they're going to keep Walker at the one-to-four shift. And flanking, if you will, Greg Brady will be Elliot Price and Hugh Burrell, who was part of Roger's media cuts just last year. Yeah. And he's back, too. Some interesting changes there. So, by the way, you were a radio guy.

Going way, way back. Absolutely, Mike. I mean, way back. I was a special K to start your day in North Bay back in 1977 and then went to Windsor and then off to Montreal, then on to Ottawa and then moved into the record industry. So, yeah, it was my background. Wanting to Ottawa, and then moved into the record industry.

So yeah, it was my background. Wanting to be, funny enough, a play-by-play guy originally, but thought I'd cut my chops on the music side and fell into that and loved it every second of it. And by the way, I promoted this episode as Weird Al Yankovic meets Bill Barilko. That's how I promoted it on Twitter. But we'll get to the Weird Al thing. For sure. okay that's how i promoted it on twitter but we'll get to the weird al thing but first because

people uh yeah that's the most least likely uh pairing i think that you could come up with but i came to know you yeah so we're only meeting now for the first time right yeah but i mean i i looked at my archives and i noticed that so just back in let's say 2005. I'm sure we corresponded before then, but 12 years ago, you published a book, Barilco Without a Trace. And forever, I've been mildly infatuated with the legend of Bill, Bash and Bill Barilco.

And I interviewed you for my blog, and I found it on, you know, it's in the archives of torontomike.com. And in many ways, that was like the first episode of this podcast. Was it really? Kind of. Like there's no audio.

It's all text. I didn't realize it was that long ago. But of course, that's when the book was published. And I guess I'd known about you and I'm not even sure exactly how, but it was wonderful that somebody wanted to talk about the book and I was more than happy to do so. And here we are all these years later. But boy, oh boy, have you done well for yourself, that's for sure. No, thank you. That's great. I want more details.

How have I done well for myself? No, I kid, I kid. No, well, I'll tell you, because if I want news about things like the media, I know that Toronto Mike is going to have it, and whether it's the actual terrestrial radio side of things or the personalities involved or whatever, you're definitely on the cutting edge, so I always appreciate that no thank you that's great to hear and you're here because uh 216 episodes but i've actually never done an episode that focused on my beloved maple leaves never right i have i was looking like okay mike what have you done any

like sports centric episodes i've had mike wilner over here just to talk jays when they were heading to the postseason. In passing, I've discussed the Leafs with people like Damian Cox or Elliot Friedman or Ron McLean or James Duthie or Jeff Merrick or Dave Hodge. But we've never done sort of a... I think this will be a fun...

On the 100th anniversary of the Maple Leafs, this will be a fun dive into the blue and white, I believe. Yeah, absolutely. Look forward to it. I always like to talk about the Leafs. This will be a fun dive into the blue and white, I believe. Yeah, absolutely. Look forward to it. I always like to talk about the Leafs. And that book, you've written 14. Is that the number still? Yes, 14 books. Hockey books. Crazy.

And the most recent one, which I'll mention off the top, is the Toronto Maple Leafs Hockey Club, the official centennial publication. So that's the real deal. Like, Brendan Shanahan, who, by the way, his St. Louis Blues card is inside the Andre the Giant mug right there, because he went to my high school.

What? Now, he's a little older than me, but we both went to Michael Power. Oh, jeez. So the Shanahans were everywhere. You know, he's a Mimico guy. You're close. You could throw a rock from here and hit Mimico. Absolutely. Well, I knew he was from this area. I didn't know exactly where. He used to play road hockey with a gentleman I worked with at the Princess Margaret Cancer Center,

a guy named Dr. Finelli, who's a prostate cancer surgeon. So I've heard the stories about growing up in Mimico from different angles. Now I'm hearing it from you as well, Mike. There you go. I didn't grow up in Mimico, but not too far away. Yeah, close enough. So that's great that you have the official publication. So you're the go-to Maple Leaf historian,

in my humble opinion. Well, there's a lot of people who know a great deal about the Leafs, but I've written about them so extensively and done so much research and been very fortunate and blessed to have been chosen to write this particular book. So I guess I'd be right up there, but I'm certainly not the penultimate or ultimate choice as well. There's lots of... You're my ultimate choice.

Thank you, Mike. And before all the Leaf haters drop off this episode, I want to talk about some non-hockey stuff because I know I mentioned this is Weird Al Yankovic meets Bill Barocco, but can you tell me a little bit, for a while you were, I don't know how you'll tell me, but you were escorting rock stars around the city. Sure. Tell me about this part of,

you're trying to keep this secret? Is this something? No, no, not at all. No, I've had the craziest trajectory of careers, I'll tell you. And so, as we mentioned earlier, I worked on the radio side of things. The radio station I was with in the last, I guess, 1983, the last job I had there was about to go Music of Your Life

from Pop Adult or Light Rock. And so I thought, well, that's not the place for me. I mean, I appreciate Sinatra and Dean Martin, but it's just not my thing. And RCA Records came along and offered me a job as a regional promotion representative. So I accepted that job and started that way. So I went from RCA to Warners,

where I became the national promotions guy, and then to MCA, did national promotions there, and then I worked for a record company called Attic Records, the last of the record side of things. So that's where I met Weird Al Yankovic. But yeah, that was my role, was to try and get songs played on the radio. Exactly.

My Bologna. I'm telling you, I looked at our email correspondence throughout the years, and there's one where you had read something I wrote about Dr. Demento. Because I grew up listening to Dr. Demento on, I believe, Chum FM. I think it was airing it like Sunday nights or something.

And I loved it. Like, I stepped in a pile of shaving cream. Benny Bell. Paul Wynn. There we go. And the don't sit on the plexiglass toilet. Well, and that's how I got to know Weird Al Yankovic as well. It was starting way, way back then.

But the story is pretty crazy. I mean, I always enjoyed Dr. Demento. I was a freak. I actually had a show that was comparable to it down in Windsor. Oh, wow. And although, Mike, I'm going off on a tangent here. No, do it. If it's a Weird Al tangent, just go.

It leads to a weird Al tangent. Go. But I loved Dr. Demento, and they had a throwaway time slot, 11 until midnight on Sunday night. And I guess I was a pretty funny guy in the hallways. I was the music director and in charge of their commercials.

So they said, Listen, Kevin, why don't you do a comedy show? I said, A comedy show? Well, great, yeah. Play comedy records, but don't you do a comedy show? I said, a comedy show? Well, great, yeah. Play comedy records, but don't go on the radio, okay? So I just came up with this character named Harveson Northgate. It was named after two malls in the Detroit area, the Harveson Mall and the Northgate Mall.

And I always had to have another announcer introduce me, but there was always an excuse why Harveson couldn't come on. The tie got caught in the teletype machine, or I got locked in the washroom, or whatever it was. So I played comedy records like Dr. Demento would and had this show. So Weird Al Yankovic was a big part of the Dr. Demento show, as you know too, Mike, and so there we go. Years and years as a fan go by, and I'm at MCA Records,

and I'm the director of national promotions. And one of my little claims to fame was that I was one of the guys who helped break Nirvana in, I guess, in North America. We couldn't get Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit played for anything. So I thought, well, wait a minute. There's a radio station in Montreal called Shome, and they're pretty adventurous with their music. And I thought, if anybody's going to play this record, it's going to be Shome. So I thought, okay, what could I do here?

And it was an era of stunts. People wouldn't dare do it any longer, but I thought, okay, there's a baby on the front cover of the album. I'm going to dress up like a baby, sit in front of the radio station for six hours and play Smells Like Teen Spirit nonstop. That way, everybody in the station, everybody who works in the station, will have to have walked past me, way, everybody in the station, everybody who works in the station, will have to have walked past me, have to have heard the song, and hopefully I'll prove my point. Well, things fell together like a dream, Mike. It was crazy. So actually, so I wore, I wasn't like the baby on the Nirvana cover, which was naked in a swimming pool, but I had a bib and a large adult diaper. Not an adult diaper like people in Continent would use,

but just a prop diaper and a soother and a number of things. I had a baby blanket stretched out in front of the radio station, and I played this song nonstop. It's amazing you had to hustle so hard to get this song airplayed. But you have to remember the era. Because it was a hair band, right? That's exactly what it was. It was Cherry Pie by Warrant and all that sort of thing.

And you had Poison and Motley Crue, which I'm going to ask you about in a minute. There we go. But yeah, that's a great story because that's the song that changed everything from hair band to grunge. So I was fortunate enough, they added the record, or the song, I guess I should say, and off we went. So the radio station rewarded me with an album, as the album sold like crazy, a triple platinum album for helping break Nirvana, Smells Like Teen Spirit. Wow.

I choose to go to Attic Records at that point. The very first act I worked there is Weird Al and Smells Like Nirvana. So the worlds kind of collided and went from there. So that was the Weird Al start and promoted his various songs and albums and videos and worked on all kinds of features and had so much fun working with him through the years as well and still dear friends to this day. And I get the vibe that he's a down-to-earth cool guy. First of all, shy, vegan. What else can I tell you that just belies his image? He's the nicest, nicest guy and the hardest

working guy you would ever imagine. So we would set up interviews all day. We would start at 6 in the morning with radio and morning TV and whatever, go all day long. And he would nap as we 6 in the morning with radio and morning TV and whatever, go all day long. And he would nap as we were in the car driving on the Don Valley or whatever. And then as soon as the day of interviews was over, he would go to Much Music with me. I could barely keep my eyes open. But then he would edit the next Weird Al Much Music special over there. Al TV.

Al TV, exactly. Classic. Yeah. So just a lovely man and a hardworking guy. And it paid off for him big time for sure. That's awesome. And so you mentioned, you know, breaking smells like teen spirit, which kind of kills the hair bands or whatnot.

But you have a story, and I hope I have the right guy, but you have a story about Motley Crue. Yikes. How did you know that? I have some top secret sources. I can't tell all of it, but... This is real talk. We need to hear it all. Well, we'll just tell a little bit of it, Mike. But anyway, I was

taking Motley Crue around for various interviews, so I was in charge of promotion and publicity at the time at MCA and, no, I guess it would have been at Warner's at that time, because they were in Elektra. And so I split them up. So I had Tommy and Vince do TV and I took Mick and Nikki Sixx and we did radio interviews and newspaper interviews from their hotel room.

So we did that all day and I'll leave that where it stands right now because there are some stories there. But anyway, that night was going to be the debut of Joey Vendetta on The Power Factory. Right. And so he was so excited to have his favorite band. I don't know if they were his favorite band, but certainly one of his favorite bands, and to kick off the show with a band of that ilk. So we were supposed to go for dinner.

Tommy said, oh, you're effin' awesome, dude. And he didn't say effin'. You're effin' awesome, dude. Leather Heather says we should eat in Yorkville. Oh, Heather Locklear. So we made the reservation. We were going to go to Yorkville for dinner. I went to pick them up at

the hotel after these interviews, and there they were. Gone. I couldn't find them anywhere. Time goes on. I'm freaking out, and I can't find them. I have no idea where they are, and I've got to get these guys on the air for 12 midnight that night. It's live and it's with Joey and he's hyped it like crazy. It's his first night on the air as I recall too. Anyway, I am with a limousine. We pull up in front of the Hudson Bay Center at Yonge and Bloor and I see a ton of kids and they start crawling

on the limo at the time and I figured, okay, I'm in the right spot. I thought, okay, they're probably down at Rock and Roll Heaven, a defunct club that we all frequented at one point or another, or not all of us, but some of us did. And I went downstairs. The guy said, wait a minute, where are you going? I said, I'm here with the band. Oh, and here I am wearing a suit and a tie with a briefcase. They take me into the VIP area, and there are Tommy and Nikki,

and they are wasted. Yeah, I can imagine. Wasted. Dude, you're effin' awesome and they're falling over. They can't even sit up. And I've got to take them upstairs for a live radio interview and anyway, we poured them into the elevator with the surf Nazis.

They're bodyguards and we went up and did the show and what was supposed to be 20 minutes became four hours of something that degenerated into the worst kind of stuff. I'm surprised any of us had a job after that. But anyway, that was my Motley Crue story. That's your Motley Crue.

It's a little different than the Weird Al stories, I guess. Yes, it was. Definitely was. This is a whole side of you. For anyone out there who knows you as the Hockey Hall of Fame guy, the hockey book guy, the historian, we're going to talk about Bill Berilko in a minute. This is a whole side people probably don't, might not realize. This whole record company, babysitting the rock stars and getting them from A to B.

That's quite, you've got quite the story to tell there. That's for sure. Most people have one or two careers. I have radio and then music and then hockey and then cancer research and then back to hockey and hey, just following my passions, Mike, as you do too. If you cure cancer, then we'll have to have the debate.

What was your biggest thing? Was it breaking smells like teeth? Or curing cancer? That'll be the debate we have. Alright, on that note, so that's, there you go. That's the intro. I want to urge people listening to go to patreon.com slash Toronto Mike and throw a few quarters into my digital hat, so to speak.

And if it's too hard to spell that all out, patreon.com, go to torontomike.com and click the big orange button I have in the sidebar. It'll take you right there. Some people give a dollar a month. Some people give five dollars a month just to help crowdfund this so I can keep this top notch production with these microphones that are impressing you right now

I can tell. Absolutely. You thought it was going to be some USB thing on a table. I assumed Mike. You know what happens when you assume. Never assume it makes an ass out of you and me. That beer in front of you, Great Lakes Brewery Beer, that's going home with you today. Oh, my goodness.

Thank you. I feel like Monty Hall every time I do this. And I didn't even dress up. Let's make a deal. Fantastic. Thank you very much. That's great. Great Lakes Brewery.

Love that. Just remember, there's a beer in there called Lake Effect. And I remember today I was biking on the waterfront, and there was cameras and those big lights they use when they film things, and a bunch of people swimming in Lake Ontario today. Yeah, I took a picture. I just remembered, I saw this crowd and the camera truck, so I bike over to see what's going on.

It's a big polar bear dip thing, and there's a bar with a whole production. I took a picture, which I'll tweet later. I totally forgot I took that photo. Yeah, they were swimming today in Lake Ontario, right by Sunnyside there. That's something I would be doing, but I appreciate those who do it, especially those who

do it to help raise money for various causes. But my fear is my heart won't like it. I'm afraid. I can't swim. That's what I'm afraid of. Jeez. I'm afraid my heart will stop and then they'll say, what did you think would happen when you jumped in the lake

in minus 20 degrees or whatever. So the Lake Effect beer, which is this new IPA that's great, that's in your six-pack there. So take that home and enjoy. Thank you very, very much to you and to Great Lakes Brewery as well. Yep, all thanks to Great Lakes Brewery, great sponsors.

Also, speaking of sponsors, I'm going to feed you. What? Yep, two meals, two meals. Had I any idea, wow, I wouldn't have had those 10 bits on the way over. I'm going to clarify. Chef's Plate is going to feed you.

I'm just going to be the middleman here. Chef's Plate, as I mentioned off the top, it's hard for me to say all these words, but they deliver pre-portioned, locally sourced, farm-fresh ingredients and easy-to-follow recipes in refrigerated kits. I think when I say refrigerated kits off the top,

I skip one of the syllables, I'm pretty sure. But this gets delivered directly to your home. So I'll send you a link, Kevin, and their menu changes like every week. So I'll send you a link. You pick your two favorite meals and Chef's Plate will deliver them

to the address you provide me. Fantastic. Well, I'm well aware of them and sure appreciate their generosity to you and to me as well. Thank you. And if anyone listening wants a couple of free plates

from Chef's Plate, visit chefsplate.com and use the promo code Toronto Mike. And you get two free plates. And you mentioned that your career was music and hockey.

And they will be champions again. The legend will be back. King Clancy. So this. Oh, yeah. You love this, eh? I sure do.

The gentleman who put this together is Tim Thompson. You know him well? Yeah, he's been here. Played hockey with my cousin at Guelph University. Isn't that crazy? Small world stuff. Yeah, fantastic. And I love Ronnie Hawkins as well

who's the recording artist here. Terrific. Who's been here? Oh, jeez. Yes. No, not everyone. Just those two guys. I don't know. It sounds like I'm well after the pack. Just those two guys. But I'm playing it because it gives me chills.

It's the perfect encapsulation of Maple Leaf Forever. And I use this version because this is the Tim Thompson version. So you hear the King Clancy and everything over top instead of the equally wonderful studio version by Ron Hawkins. I'll let this simmer and then I'm going to dive in with you here. I could listen to the whole thing and I'm sure people will be bored by that, so I'll tune it out. But I must ask you, I'm going to use this as an opportunity to ask you,

how do you go from music to hockey? Just tell me how that transition in your life happened. Everything has been so crazy in my life, but so wonderful. So when I was at Attic Records, the boss came along, a gentleman named Alexander Mayer, and he challenged all of us on the team to come up with some ideas that would help with revenue. The company was fine, but just to add to the revenue stream. So we all threw our various ideas in, and one that I put in

was songs that you would hear at a hockey arena. And everybody seemed to like that one, so I won the little competition, and I think it was a $500 bonus or whatever, but then I was challenged to put it together. So it was great. You know, think of the songs. Oh, there's Big League by Tom Cochran, and there's 50 Mission Cap by the Tragically Hip,

and then I veered off a little bit. Not just songs about hockey, but songs that you would hear at the rink. The Final Countdown by Europe and that sort of thing. We then had to license them so that was in somebody else's court, but while they were doing that, I came up with the idea of calling it Contact, so I had to find a cover version, a cover shot rather, not a cover version. So I went to the Hockey Hall of Fame and I knew the boys a little bit over there and asked for some good body check photos that we could use on the front cover of the CD. So while we were there, I was looking at some photos that were on the desk of

Phil Pritchard, who's the vice president and curator of the Hockey Hall of Fame. And I, oh, that's Sweeney Schreiner. Oh, Mel Sudden Death Hill. And he said, wait a minute, how do you know these guys? I'm totally into it. You know, just stuff that I had researched and studied through the years. He said, well, that's amazing. Do you want to come in and volunteer the odd time? I said, well, we have summer hours. Every Friday I'm off at 1. I'll come over for a few hours after that.

I'd love it. So I was filing and identifying photos and things of that sort. Attic Records was ultimately sold to another company called the Song Corporation, which went bankrupt. I'm looking for a job, and the Hockey Hall of Fame said, well, listen, we got a contract here. Would you be interested? Led to a full-time job, and there we went. So it started on this weird little story, but it took off on us. Working at the Hockey Hall of Fame, like for any hockey enthusiast, that sounds like a Catholic

working at the Vatican. Can I borrow that from Brian Burke? So true, though. It really is. I mean, every day, I'm so superstitious and maybe OCD, I'm not sure, but every day I would touch the Stanley Cup and then head off to my office and go to work from there. I mean, that was my little ritual every day. I couldn't believe that I was in the same environment as the wonderful Stanley Cup.

There's two, right? In theory, there's three. There's the original one that the Lord Stanley donated in 1893, and then there's the Presentation Cup. That's the one that they give out on the ice. That's the one that the teams are able to have for a day each. And then there's one called the Second Version, which is an exact duplicate of the Presentation Cup. When the Presentation Cup is out of the building on the road probably 200 days a year, the presentation cup is out of the building, on the road, probably 200 days a year,

the second version is in the Hockey Hall of Fame so that nobody has to see a sign saying sorry. This one's in Russia with Evgeny Malkin right now. Okay, so that's amazing because very few people in Toronto

get to see the Stanley Cup. It hasn't been here in a while. Yeah, that's sadly true, but hopefully in a couple of years down the road, we'll see it again. Oh, we'll close this episode of A Little Hope because when I see five different rookies scoring, I get to thinking, you know, I start to dream. The future looks bright.

So, you mentioned this as a classic arena song. By the way, my boy plays House League at George Bell Arena and they have started, only recently started playing music

between the plays or whatever and this is on the list and I've been, so I track what they play. I'm curious. You know this Sandstorm Danube,

am I saying that right? I don't know it. If I played it for you, it's like a, it's a fairly, I want to say it's like 10 years old maybe but this electronic, I should have queued it up,

but this thing gets played a lot at George Bell Arena, and you do hear it in arenas. I won't even do it. If you heard it, you'd know it. You'd know it for sure. Here, Canada Centre plays a lot of music, and most I know, some I don't, but it certainly energizes the crowd. Is Alan Cross still putting that together?

He's not. His contract wasn't renewed after last year, unfortunately. So they've got another gentleman. I'm not sure of his name, but he's a DJ who works, and certainly Jimmy Holmstrom on the organ as well. It sounds like MLSE decided to discard themselves some chorus personalities. Am I right? Because Andy Frost is out.

Yeah, that was disappointing. I mean, I'm a longtime friend and... Excuse me one second. Oh, no, you need some water? No, there we are. I got it right here. All good. Sorry about that.

You can always crack open a beer. Yeah, well, there we are. I can get you more. That would be a hell of an episode. Andy, a longtime friend and a guy I used to call on when I was in the music industry as well. And I thought he was outstanding as the announcer. Not to take away from Mike Ross, who does it now, but I thought Andy was great. He really had

those great deep pipes of his, and just really identifiable and dramatic in his reads, and I thought he was outstanding. And why he wasn't renewed, I don't know, but that was disappointing. I thought a lot of people, in fact, I know a lot of people, really, really felt badly that he was gone.

Well, let me connect some dots here. So Andy Frost, gone after almost two decades, I think, if I'm remembering correct. But he's a chorus guy, okay? Alan Cross, thank you for your efforts. You're gone a chorus guy. Who owns MLSC? This is a Rogers Bell enterprise, okay?

Get these chorus guys out of here. I always dream that, well, I shouldn't say dream. I always hope that politics won't come into it, but you have to know that it does. It's just disappointing. You just want the best possible product. And not to say that Mike Ross isn't as good as Andy Frost. It's just entirely different.

No, I mean, I don't think you're criticizing Mike at all. I think this is all about, you know, we had many good years with Andy. And I think it comes down to new era. It just needed, I want to call it change for change's sake. Brendan Shanahan wants a clean slate in these regards because this is the new logo, right? All these rookies and the future is, you know, the old man out there now. Or Bozak, I guess got you know what i mean geez that's hard to believe 30 years old and he's the old guy geez my kid and

i always joke if a jvr scores we go oh there's the old man with his cane you got one too it's just it's just crazy how young they are but okay i digress so uh i didn't even know by the way about alan cross being out that's interesting i just saw I just saw the press when he got the gig and started doing that music stuff. And I never heard anything about him not doing it. So I'm just personally interested in that. Well, he and Dave Charles, who was a radio consultant here in Toronto, were working together and they had their company. And they did it for a year, maybe two seasons.

I'm not sure. I think it was two seasons. So in writing the book, I wanted to find the history of music at Maple Leaf Gardens, first of all, and then at the Air Canada Centre, and they were part of the story, the latter part of the story. So I did the interviews with the two of them, had a nice little piece, and then they contacted me and said, look, you might have to rewrite the ending. We're not with the franchise any longer. That's too bad. Alan's been here, actually.

Great guy. He's a good guy. And boy, does he know his stuff. He's got that voice, too, that authoritarian voice. You hear it and you think you're learning about music. Oh, and you are. Exactly. I'm playing this for a reason, 50 Mission Cap.

This is the song that started it all for me. So I'm in my Ford Escort listening to this song on cassette. 50 Mission Cap was one of my favorites. And it tells a story. It's a very simple composition about the story of Bill Barilko that he learned from a hockey card, which I have. I bought that online many years ago. I bought it on eBay or something.

The same copy, the card that inspired the song. I've got to dig that up somewhere. But that's when I sort of discovered the story of Bill Borilko, and I started doing more reading and research. And in the late 90s, I hosted a website. Before it was a blog, I had a Bill Borilko tribute page with video and pictures and his stats and different things about Bill Borilko.

So I'll tell you a little bit. I'm going to set this up by me sharing a little bit about my history of Bill, and then we're going to get the good facts from you. I don't know about good facts. Different facts. There we are. Not alternate facts. I don't want to hear about alternate facts.

So Marlene Pierce is a woman who was Googling Bill Borilko, and she found that page I mentioned, the page I host. I still host it on Bill Borilko. So she Googles it. She comes to my page, and then she gets my email address, and she sends me this note. This is Marlene Pierce, who tells me, I am the daughter of Ron Boyd, who was the helicopter pilot

who found the crash site of Bill Borilko and Dr. Hudson's Fairchild 24. If you'd like more information and articles, government letters, etc., from my dad's scrapbook, I would be happy to share this with you. The story of the discovery of the site is quite interesting. So I get this note. I copied and pasted that. As you can imagine, Kevin, I was very interested in everything Marlene could share with me about the discovery of Borilco's crash site. And I wanted to do what I always do, which is I share it with people who read my, my site, torontomic.com. So, um, in fact, that's in essence, that's why I blog so I can like archive this stuff and, and share it with people. So she sent me four images. I shared them all. Uh, maybe if you search my site for the name Marlene, I think it'll come up. Uh, four images

that she, uh, let me see what she had here. She sent me a newspaper article explaining the entire situation around the discovery of the plane and the crash site, which she thought I would find interesting. Her father's name was Ron Boyd and he was with his engineer, Mr. Phil Weston. She sent me a photo from the newspaper, a photo of the wreckage, along with original photos that her father took with his camera of the wreckage and the crash site as he and Mr. Phil Weston flew over it. She sent me a letter from the Department of Lands and Forests giving a commendation to her father and to those involved in the discovery, and she sent me a letter from F.A. McDougall, Deputy Minister of the Department of Lands and Forests, regarding her father's work

in this case. So I'm just starting with that story because throughout the years, people when they, and I'll share later after we hear from you, I'm going to share some correspondence I've had with Anne's son lately, and we'll talk about how Anne picked up the torch there until her passing. But let's hear you. I don't even know where to begin with this, but maybe we begin with, why don't you tell me the story of Bill Barocco and the recent news we have on recovering Bill's body and the crash site visits and everything. Share with me everything. Sure.

And I'll be quiet for a little while. No, no worries. So as a hockey historian, his name had come up on several occasions and certainly was aware of him and kind of knew his story and had done some research to find out. He had a store that he owned with his brother on the Danforth and so had gone down there. Ironically, it's where my lawyer's office is, so that was fascinating to me. And so little bits of information about Bill Berolko had really resonated with me.

So I'm at the Hockey Hall of Fame working and trying to think of another book. I had already done one about Ron Ellis, and I had done one about the Smythe family, and looking for the next book to write. And then it was almost like a light bulb went over my head. Wait a minute, hang on here. You know, the most requested photo at the Hockey Hall of Fame at the time was that famous Tarofsky photo of Bill flying through the air and putting the puck over Jerry McNeil's shoulder.

So, well aware of the photo, one of the volunteers at the Hockey Hall of Fame, Ann Klisenich, Bill's sister, and her husband and her son, Barry, were also volunteers at the Hockey Hall of Fame, Anne Klisenich, Bill's sister, and her husband and her son, Barry, were also volunteers at the Hockey Hall of Fame. And then because I'd worked at MCA Universal in the music industry, I had worked very closely with the Tragically Hip for several albums, the Road Apples album

and the Fully Completely album with 50 Mission Cap on it, so I knew the boys quite well and had spoken to Gord Downie quite extensively over dinner about Barocco and all things hockey. And so I thought, wait a minute, I'm the guy to write this book. It just seems to all be converging on me. So I was fortunate enough to have Ann Klesenich's scrapbooks, and I had known other people who had little areas of Bill's life and thought, I have to write the story about the man, not just about the legend of the goal and the

subsequent finding of the crash site, but about what Bill Barocco's all about. So it's quite a story, and I'll try and praise it the best I can and certainly not bore you and your listeners as well. Nothing you could say on this topic would bore me. I just want you to know. And you know what? I'm not that worried about these listeners. This is for me.

I'm not even recording this, Kevin. Oh, we'll start at that pretty soon, I hope. There we go. No, so Bill's a guy, you know, his parents are immigrants, and they move into Timmins, where they think that the roads are paved with gold. Well, in fact, there's a gold mine there, but they're paved with coal more than gold, I think. And so Bill is the second of three children. There's Alex, who's the older brother, Bill,

and then Ann, who I referenced as well. And they grew up in Timmins, and Alex is a heck of an athlete. He's really, really good at baseball, at hockey, at track and field. I mean, he's just a multi-sport athlete at that point. Bill is okay, but he's hampered by the fact his vision is terrible. He wears glasses, and they're really, really thick. And so he doesn't see really well. And when he plays in the school hockey team, on the school hockey team, he's a goalie because he doesn't have skates.

He uses his galoshes. There's a term that I haven't used in a long time. His boots. And he wears these glasses, but he's a pretty good goalie, but he's complaining to his brother all the time. My feet are freezing. And then Alex gives him the back of his hand. Come on, Bill. If you learn how to skate, you won't have to stand in one spot all that long. So he starts to try to skate and he's not great at it, but he's also not great at school. And so he skipped school a lot and he works on his skating. And it never was great. He was never a great skater, but he was an adequate skater, but he really worked at it.

But his game was body checking. Now, he also had a dream. I've jumped too far ahead, but he also had a dream. His brother played with the Holman Pluggers, which was a juvenile hockey team in Timmins. And the team boasted a lot of guys who went on to the NHL. Pete Babando, who scored the Stanley Cup winning goal in 1950 for the Detroit Red Wings. Alan Stanley. Alex Brilko's on the team. He didn't play in the NHL, but he was an elite athlete as well. There's a guy named Leo Couric, who's Bill's best friend, who plays on the team as well. He played in the American Hockey League. So Bill comes out.

He's basically the—they call him the stick boy. But you have to remember, at the time, hockey teams only had one goalie. And so because Bill had played school hockey and whatever, they had him play goal or target when they had their practices. And Bill would play goal, and he was really excited, and he liked to hang around with his brother and all of his brother's friends. I don't know if I mentioned, but Alan Stanley was on the team too. I think I may have. Okay, fair enough.

Another guy is Doc Prentice, who played with the Leafs very briefly. Eric Prentice. So anyway, so Bill dreams of being able to play on the Holman Pluggers someday. That's his dream. So he works on his skating, and all goes well. He plays for a team called, he didn't play with the Holman Pluggers, but he played with the Timmons Canadians, which was kind of a level down. And he did pretty well at that point. So you have to remember at the time

that there were scouts everywhere. Now, all teams had one or two scouts, really, but they had what they called bird dogs. Guys who lived in communities and then would refer the best players to these head scouts. And if they got signed, these bird dogs would make a hundred bucks or 200 bucks or whatever, depending whether they signed an A form, a B form, or the notorious C form, which is what most of the players did. So the scouts in Northern Ontario were all over the place because there was so much talent coming out of the players did. So the scouts in northern Ontario were all over the place because there was so much talent coming out of the area at that time. And you think of Todd Sloan and Les Costello

and different guys like that through the years who were all coming from that area. So they really were watching it. Bill is playing a good brand of hockey. Alex is really quite good. And they've got a guy who's there watching them who's from the Pittsburgh Hornets of the American Hockey League. Now, the Pittsburgh Hornets were the American Hockey League affiliate of the Toronto Maple Leafs. But this is a

guy from the Hornets who comes and sees them. Bill and Alex write letters to everybody as well saying, listen, can we come to training camp? And they did get invited to come down to Pittsburgh's training camp. They didn't make the team, but they got sent down to Hollywood Wolves. Now, Alex wasn't, but Bill was taken to the Hollywood Wolves. You have to remember, there's the Toronto Maple Leafs in the National Hockey League. Next tier down are the Pittsburgh Hornets of the American Hockey League. Next tier down, the Tulsa Oilers of the Central Hockey League. Fourth level down are the Hollywood Wolves of the Pacific Coast Hockey League. Semi-pro, the money's not great, but Bill's got a chance to play pretty good hockey. And the men are coming back from the war at that point, and

they're trying to find jobs. So the level was quite good at that time, and there were quite a few National Hockey League veterans who were in the league at the time. So Bill's down there in Hollywood. Alex finds a spot in the same league, but with a team called the Oakland Oaks. So they're playing against each other, but because they're all in California and the leagues are playing, or the teams are playing against each other within the league, Bill and Alex get a chance to visit quite a bit. So Bill's down there in Hollywood and he's doing good things. He's being groomed. The coach of the team is Bob Gracie, who played with the Leafs in 1932, Stanley Cup. But there's a guy named Tommy Anderson, and he's the key to all of this. Tommy Anderson had played with the New York Americans and was

the most valuable player in the National Hockey League in 1941-42. The Brooklyn Americans, by that time, they'd been renamed. And Tommy, the New York Americans, I guess Brooklyn Americans technically, are defunct. In 1942 they cease operations and the players are scattering to different teams and the Toronto Maple Leafs pick up Tommy Anderson. Well having been the most valuable player in the league, you'd think he would find an immediate spot in the Leafs. Never plays with the Leafs. They send him down as a defenseman with the Hollywood Wolves, where he can mentor guys like Bill Borilko. Really worked on his skating, but really worked on his body checking. But Bill had something else going for him too, Mike.

He was a good-looking boy. So always, you know, I'm a publicist by trade, so I know how to spin a story pretty well, and I'm certainly not doing it tonight, that's for sure. But anyway, what would happen is that because Hollywood had all kinds of starlets at that time who were trying to get their names and their faces in the newspapers, it made sense to have these very attractive, aspiring actresses squired around Hollywood to various parties and events with this good-looking hockey player on the very popular Hollywood Wolves at that time.

Conversely the Hollywood Wolves are very very happy to have their young defensemen get his name and face in the in the society pages on the arms of these young ladies and Bill being a good-looking boy certainly didn't turn his turn and turn his way his head away from these young ladies as well. So Bill's a very popular guy on and off the ice. They call him Hollywood Bill Barocco, and all is good. Skipping ahead a little bit. Oh, God, sorry, I'm going on and on.

No, I actually appreciate this detail. People who don't want long-form interviews don't listen to Toronto Night. I hope that we're not boring people. I hope they'll find a little bit of entertainment here. So anyway, so the Leafs, 1947 now, are looking for the 1946-47 season, go through a spate of injuries. They need a defenseman to come in.

Right at that point, they've got Bud Poyle, who's a forward, stepping back and playing defense, but they've got to find a defenseman just for a few weeks. They call down to the Pittsburgh Hornets. Hey, we can't afford anybody right now. We're short two. Called down to Tulsa.

Hey, sorry, we sent our best guys to Pittsburgh. We can't afford anybody at this point. So they called down to the fourth level, which just never happens. They called down and they talked to Bob Gracie and Tommy Anderson, who I referenced, and they say, listen, have you got somebody? We need somebody for three or four games just to kind of step in, be our fifth defenseman. Won't play a whole lot,

but they'll get a chance to play a little bit. And so Tommy Anderson says, look, we got a guy here. He's as green as the hills, but I'll tell you if you just need somebody for a few games, he's the guy and his name is Bill Barocco. They said, well, send him up here and here we go. So Bill calls his sister, Ann calls his mom, and says, hey, hey, you're not going to believe it,

but I'm going to be playing with the Toronto Maple Leafs. And his mother, his dear mother, and I can't do accents, says, oh, Bill, I'm so sorry. And Bill, what do you mean? She says, oh, I'm so sorry. She thought that playing in Hollywood was the pinnacle. Right.

Hollywood, are you kidding me? So they make the movies. And Anne as well said the same thing. It wasn't until she went to school the next day and all the kids in the class in her grade were saying, your brother's going to be on Hockey Night in Canada and Foster Hewitt's going to say his name, that it really resonated with her that her brother was going to the big time.

Oh, that's great. That's great. He gets called up and he goes straight to practice at Varsity Arena. It's actually quite a trip to get there. He has to go to Pittsburgh. They send him to Buffalo. He takes a taxi from Buffalo to Toronto in a snowstorm. He shows up, and he starts body-checking the guys on the Toronto Maple Leafs, his teammates.

So the coach has to take him aside. It's half-day at that time, and half-day he takes him aside. Look at Bill. We appreciate the enthusiasm, but you can't be checking our own guys so vehemently. And Bill said, okay, okay. And he came up with a plan. If he was going to body check one of his players, he came up with the roadrunners, meep, meep. And that would be the sign that you're about to be body checked.

You know, gird your loins. So anyway, so Bill's there. They put him into play against Montreal on the road in Montreal for the first game and they lose. I forget what the score was, but something like seven to two. And, but Bill gets his name in the paper because he knocks Elmer Locke on his ass and Maurice Richard and Butch Bouchard, all these guys who go onto the hockey hall of fame. And, and so Bill is, is one of the stars of the game. They come back to Toronto, and wouldn't you know, he scores, and he body checks, and he becomes instantly pretty popular.

What was going to be three or four games ended up being five years, and they win the Stanley Cup on four of those occasions in those five years, and Bill's a big part of the team. Moving forward, he never does go back to Hollywood. He's an integral part of the team on the blue line never does go back to Hollywood. He's an integral part of the team on the blue line with Garth Bush to begin with. And there's Jimmy Thompson and Gus Mortson who were terrific defensemen as well.

And they form a really formidable quartet of defensemen. And a fifth defenseman would be someone like a Wally Stanowski or someone like that who also was a great defenseman. So Bill did very, very well. And we know the end of the story pretty well as well. You know that say it ain't so moment with Shoeless Joe? So I was listening to Damien Cox,

who had many conversations with Milt Dunnell on the Toronto Star, who Milt watched Bill Barocco play. And Damien wanted to get a sense from Milt on what kind of player was Bill Barocco.. And Damien wanted to get a sense from Milt on what kind of player was Bill Barocco, you know, because you're five years. How many cups in that five years? Four. Four, yeah. I'm pointing to my... I have a flag of all the

Stanley Cups over there. I have to reference it. I know it hasn't been updated since 1967. Never mind. So I've got to buy a new flag, I think. Okay, so Milt... So Damien said, can you compare... This is milt's milt comparing bill barilco to a another may believe that damien had seen play he compared bill barilco to john cordick i know so i hear this i know first i had to make sure i heard it right

absolutely confirmed yeah that's according to Damien. Milt Donnell from the Toronto Star compared Bill Borilko to John Cordick. So I, and of course, all I know, only clip I've ever seen of Bill Borilko is him scoring the Stanley Cup winning goal in 51 against the Montreal Canadiens.

And I've seen that. I host, there's YouTube clips I hosted on my website. But, so I have no sense of what kind of player he is. I know his stats. But what do you think of that? Astonished. I've only seen game film. I've seen a fair bit of it, but there's not a lot.

But all of the Leafs home games were filmed at that time. And there's a gentleman named Paul Patskow who's here in town. And Paul's got these videos. And so you can watch the plays happening. It was something that Con Smythe wanted so he could review, just kind of like Roger Nielsen with videotape. Anyway, so

I've seen Bill play. He's a terrific defensive defenseman. Block shots, slides in front of them to block them. He was not a real offensive blue liner. Is he like a Brad Marsh? Can I compare him to Brad Marsh? He skated marginally better than Brad, but he was like that, and he had the same kind

of appeal as Brad. Who would you compare him to as a Maple Leaf I've seen? Jeez, I'm just trying to think. As you spoke, I tried to think of somebody, and Brad Marsh... Chris Kostopoulos? We're better than that, right? Better than Chris, but the same kind of a player. He's a fairly big body, a terrific blue liner, could dump the puck out, wasn't going to rush the puck up. That was much more the other guys.

Well, Garth Bush for one, but Gus Mortzen was much more of a rushing defenseman than Bill was. Bill didn't score that many goals, but luckily his most famous one is the one that we remember. But no, he would drop the gloves from time to time. That may be the only parallel to John Kordek, but they had other guys who did that.

But Bill wasn't afraid to fight by any means, nor was anybody on the team at that time. But geez, John Kordek seems to be a terrible stretch. Geez. I had to confirm I heard it right. But, jeez, John Kordek seems to be a terrible stretch. Jeez. I had to confirm I heard it right. Because, you know, these things, I always call them our Buddy Holly. Like, there's sort of like a, there's a legend here, and it becomes like a myth, and it becomes larger than life.

And then you're like, okay, now I've lost sight of, I don't know anymore. Like, what is he? Like, I haven't seen these films. I haven't seen Burrill go play. I know he scored as big a goal. I want to call it like it's like Joe Carter's home run or whatever. But back when the Leafs were on a string of Stanley Cups.

So in 1951, he scores the Stanley Cup winning goal. And then he, as we know from the song, I'm sure there's somebody listening who might not know. I better fill him in here. But he goes on a fishing trip, right? So tell us this part of the story. Sure. So, you know, the summertime comes.

Bill and his brother Alex own this store, Burlco Brothers on the Danforth. So they go there. They're not businessmen by any means. They had a manager who was overseeing it, but they made their appearances. And Bill actually lived down the street in the Eaton Hotel on the Danforth as well.

And so Bill spends a little bit of time there, then his annual foray back to Timmins. All of his buddies are there, this Leo Couric that I mentioned earlier on, and his sisters there. All of his pals are there, and they love to drink and catch up on things, throw the baseball around and, you know, squire ladies around and things of that sort. So it's getting into August 1951,

and his dentist, Dr. Henry Hudson, and he was a sportsman. His brother Lou had played for the Canadian Olympic team back in 28, and Henry wasn't really an athlete per se, but he knew all the athletes. He hung out with the athletes. He took them on fishing trips quite often too. He had this Fairchild 24 that you mentioned earlier. And so he mentions to Bill, listen,

I was planning on doing one more fishing trip before the end of the summer, and I wanted to see if you wanted to join me. Well, it turns out that Bill was about the fourth in the pecking order. He'd asked Alan Stanley. He'd asked Alex Berilko. He'd asked his brother Lou. And for one reason or another, all of these people couldn't go. In fact, I think Lou was going to go, and the plane was a little bit too heavy. So he said, no, you and Bill go. I'll catch up another time. But they decided to have this one last foray up to the river in North Quebec where they can fish for Arctic char.

The irony is that Bill hated the taste of fish, but he loved the sport of fishing. And so he wanted to go and he had to hurry back because he had a going away party just before he took off for training camp in St. Catharines that fall. He also wanted to stop in and see his girlfriend and his girlfriend's family before he went there. So it was late August and they decided to head up to Seal River, and they fly up, and apparently they catch a ton of fish. On the way back, they refuel partway back to Timmins, and that's the last they were seen. Now, several things, lots of mystery here. Henry, Dr. Hudson, was known to be a bit of a reckless flyer. He would take chances,

Dr. Hudson was known to be a bit of a reckless flyer. He would take chances, and he had a bit of a string of incidents through the years as well, but that was part of it. The weather was fairly bad. It was quite windy, and so they probably shouldn't have gone. Plus, the plane was quite heavy with their catch of Arctic char. All those things combined probably, I don't know that we know definitively, but all of those things combined attribute to the fact that the plane crashed. Just north of Cochrane, Ontario, the plane went almost vertical into the ground.

But the forests in that area are so thick, plus the muskeg and swamp and everything else that's up that way, nobody could find the plane. Not that the muskeg oramp had anything to do with it, but it's the density of the forest at that time. And they can't find these guys. And the rumors were rampant, Mike. Everybody tried to figure out where they were. And so it got crazy. So Dr. Hudson's a dentist.

Oh, I bet you they found gold while they're up there. They're taking it, and they're going to take it down to New York where it'll be refined, and these guys have made a fortune for themselves. No, wrong. The other one was, oh, Bill's parents came from an area that's now part of the Soviet Union, and Bill's probably teaching young Russian boys how to play hockey right now, and that's why he's being secretive. Well, of course, none of that was true. It was the fact that the plane had crashed, and in fact, they lost their lives instantly at that particular time. His mother never forgave herself. She had tried to convince Bill not to go. Bill's father, her husband, had died on a Friday, so she had this thing about

Fridays. She didn't like anybody traveling on a Friday. Well, it was a Friday that they took off, and he, I wouldn't say disobeyed his mom, he was 24 years old, but still he, oh, mom, it's nothing, don't worry about it, and they took off. Now, at first they didn't know because the fishing was so good, it was not unknown that Dr. Hudson would cancel, well, not cancel because he wouldn't have a phone, but he wouldn't come back and his patients in his dental clinic would know to come back another day. They'd make another appointment because the fishing was just too darn good. And, you know, the same thing is if the fishing was great, nobody would really excuse Bill.

Nobody would not excuse Bill for not coming back at that time. Or if the weather was bad, maybe they stopped somewhere just until things got better. So there was no real fear right away, even though the goodbye party was missing its guest of honor at that particular time. But after a day, and he wasn't coming back, a couple days now, they do an aerial search. It turns out to be the largest aerial search in Canadian history. They circle everywhere from the Seal River down to Timmins and can't find this plane anywhere. And a reward is put up. Con Smythe puts up $10,000 of his own money for anybody who can lead him towards finding Berilco and Hudson,

and no luck with that as well. And it just went on and on. The weather got too cold. The snow got too dense as well, so they had to call off the search. But it would continue year after year. And, of course, as time goes on, the chances of them being alive are less and less but his mom bill's mom never ever gave up hope and she got his his clothes ready every spring

and uh his winter clothes ready every every winter hoping that he was going to walk through that door but of course it wasn't to be now the the legend if you will. So he disappears in summer of 51 and isn't discovered until 1962. And if I look over at my pennant over there. Can you look over here? Oh yeah, there's a gap in Stanley Cups between 51 and 62. Yeah, 11 years. Now you mentioned you're a little, you touch the Stanley Cup every day, you're a little superstitious and stuff.

Do you believe these two facts are related, that we don't win a cup until we discover the wreckage? I guess I do, but, so you have to remember there were a number of things. First of all, losing Barocco was a big deterrent to the team's victories. He was a very popular guy as part of the team. He was a terrific defenseman as well. They tried to fill that hole. At first, they put a guy named Hugh Bolton in, a great tall, tall, rangy guy, and he was injury-prone and didn't seem to fill that hole very well. It took a little bit, and ultimately Tim Horton took his place. But they were a little light on the defense side of things.

Other guys were retiring. Sillaps had retired a couple of years before. Other guys move on, Bill Ezenicki, et cetera, et cetera. So it was the changing of the guard at that time, but Bill Berocco's disappearance from the lineup certainly was part of it as well. But it came back. You know, Punch Imlach becomes part of the team and a lot are part of the 50s. They hadn't been very good for the previous several years,

but Punch Imlach comes in and swears that they're going to make it to the Stanley Cup playoffs in 59, and sure enough, they do it beyond all odds. And as the tide turns, a young crop of players comes in from the St. Mike's Majors and from the Toronto Marlboros, these junior players like Mahavlich and Keon and Brewer and Billy Harris and Bob Pulford and Bobby Bond, and we could go on and on. So this great young talent is infused into the team, along with veterans like Bauer and Tim Horton and so many others as well. And so all of a sudden the team becomes a contender again. And then in 1962, they win the Stanley Cup. And it's 11 years. The curse of Borilco has now been broken.

And Ron Boyd, so that letter I wrote that I received from Marlene Pierce about her father, Ron Boyd, he's the helicopter pilot who finds the crash site in 1962. Is that right? Yep. Yep wow like this the whole story is just so mythical and fantastic and i asked you this back in uh 2005 i asked you because because you you uh the rights to your book were sold at the time this is 2004 a vancouver based producer named george uh Mendeluk. Yep. Can you update me?

I need an update very badly because it's been 13 years. And you told me that these things move at a snail's pace. And I'm wondering if this Bill Borilko story has ever come into a cineplex. Well, I mean, I hope it still will. So George Mendeluk held the option for, I don't know, five or six years. He tried to get the financing for it. Wasn't able to do so.

And he wrote several different treatments for the script and it didn't seem to hold. So he got some money, but not the money he needed to make it. He wanted to turn it into a silver screen film. I thought it would be a great TV film, TV movie, but he wanted to go bigger. And his background was such he'd done a few things like that. So he tried for a while. That didn't work out. Somebody else came along.

A company from Buffalo came along and optioned the book, and Rob Ray was involved, former Buffalo Sabre. He was involved as well, and then that fell on deaf ears as well, and that option lapsed and wasn't renewed. And so now there's new interest. There's a gentleman here in Ontario who's come forward, and he's now optioned the book.

The book's been out of print for several years, but they've optioned the book. It's such a compelling story. It's about the real code. Even this whole wolves to leafs thing, and I never heard it illustrated the way you did with the four levels, like four deep. It wouldn't happen today.

But, I mean, you know. Well, it wouldn't happen today. But I mean, you know. Yeah, it's really, it's impossible to believe. No. A guy who really wasn't a great skater who comes up and finds his place and fits into the whole role. Let me just go back to the very beginning of our conversation. You talked about Bill Berolko. You talked about Weird Al Yankovic.

Funny enough, they both have Hollywood roots. That's where Weird Al lives, and that's where Bill Berolko spent a couple of years as well. Are you thinking what I'm thinking? The movie needs to be about both of them. The Bill Berolko story starring Weird Al Yankovic. That would be tremendous. What was that Funny or Die about the the weird al story have you ever seen

i think it was i believe it was played by the chap from um uh oh my goodness breaking bad the jesse the guy who plays jesse pinkman on breaking bad i think he was playing weird al it was just the best the weird al story i'm thinking now a movie like somehow we can incorporate weird it isn't weird al and bill barilko and this thing is just gonna be printing money i want a cut of that if that happens so i mentioned i i was recently so i've recently i've been caught you mentioned ann and i always butcher this name uh kill it kill clissonage clissonage yes and she's a bill barilko's uh she was bill barilko's sister who was like his advocate, sharing the story and keeping the story alive and telling people about her brother.

And she passed away a few years ago. Yeah. And you work closely with her. And I've been receiving emails lately from her son, Frank. Frank. Right, yeah. He's the oldest of the two boys. And he seems very eager.

He, of course, was Googling and came across my site and saw the things I had there. And he seems very eager in sort, of course, was Googling and came across my site and saw the things I had there. And he seems very eager in sort of carrying, taking the torch from his mom and keeping that going. So Frank was alive when Bill was alive. So he's the true connection to, he was an infant, obviously, but he was alive. And so he's the keeper of the memorabilia.

He's got the artifacts and he's got scrapbooks and things of that sort. He lives in Minnesota. Terrific guy, a businessman there, now retired, but a terrific, terrific guy. The other sibling is Barry Klisnich, who lives in Oakville. Barry's a terrific guy as well. Barry was not alive when his Uncle Bill was alive, but certainly has the bloodline and is the spitting image of his uncle as well, which is the eerie but wonderful thing as well. So the two of them, now that, you know, I mentioned siblings.

Alex died many, many years ago. Anne died a couple of years ago. So there are none of the Berilko siblings still alive. The bloodline continues with Frank and Barry Klicinich and then their children as well. But it goes that way. And they really have been terrific dealing with MLSE and being involved with banners and retired numbers

and things of that sort. And Frank is, I guess, probably the historian of the two. They both are very much a part of it, but Frank is very much the historian of the two. Yeah, he seems very active in preserving Bill's story, so to speak. That's great. Now, that story. So the Bill Barocco story, it's hard to believe it's a true story.

It's such a fantastic story. Okay, I'm going to let this play a little bit here, and then I've got a question for you beyond Bill Barocco here. You'll remember this one. Oh, I do. Better than all the rest do better than all the rest better than all the rest it's taking me back

from the east coast to the west the Leaves are the best so we have a hundred years oh jeez this this so okay so someone my age who missed all Stanley Cup

final appearances all of them, really I look back, and I mean, I was watching last night. I love my Maple Leafs, and I love them when they're bad, although I had trouble at the end of, until the rookie showed up at the end of last year. I actually, for the first time in my life, I had, it wasn't fun. It just wasn't fun. Trying to finish last is not fun,

because when you score, your instinct is to go, yeah, and then you have the instant moment where you realize oh that's bad because we want austin matthews i'm not a tank guy but i totally understand it and i'm totally happy to have austin matthews here as well i didn't think i was a tank guy till last season and i realized i am a tank guy let's go for it understand completely that's what they need to rebuild the team so uh when i look back, I really have to elevate people like Wendell Clark, for example. I have to put them on these pedestals. I recently met Wendell for the first time.

I love Wendell. But Wendell is a great, serviceable guy. But when he's your, you know, I got him, I got Dougie, and I got Matt. Like, this is not a championship caliber roster that I'm quoting here. So I'm going to parallel it to the Montreal Canadiens. And you can think of all the greats of the game. And, you know, you start with, well, you can start even earlier, but the Rocket Richards and Jean Beliveaux and Guy Lafleur.

And, you know, it goes on and on. And they had all these superstars on their team. And they certainly won some Stanley Cup championships too. You're right, the Toronto Maple Leafs haven't had those same superstars that most teams have had through the years. Wendell Clark, terrific guy. He was my guy for years and years. Yeah, me too. Those Moribund teams in the 1980s, he was the only bright spotter, one of the very few anyway. Absolutely.

Doug coming along when the Cliff Fletcher deal was made, and all of a sudden he's the hero, and we all embrace him. And to this day, when he's introduced at Leaf Games, the place goes crazy. Same with Wendell, of course, too. And Matt's a true superstar in many ways. Not quite in the same realm as the Gila Fleurs or whatever, but a terrific, terrific hockey player. But the rest have been just really good players, good serviceable players, good in-the-trenches soldiers.

So now all of a sudden we've got some guys. We talked about Austin Matthews, and we see Mitch Marner, and this young defense... Sorry, the young... Zaitsev? Absolutely, the young rookies is what I meant to say, but yeah, Zaitsev as well. Just really give us hope that there's a future here and a future that could include a hockey championship with the Stanley Cup being hoisted above Bay Street. Wouldn't that be amazing?

Don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but the future for the first time is feeling really, really good. I know it's going well when Nylander, who's having a tremendous rookie campaign, is a distant third when it comes to talking. So, oh, yeah, it's like, wow, like there's two guys we've got way above Nylander. Like that's just to me is like unprecedented

as a Leaf fan for whatever, 40 years now. It's just, there's hope and very exciting. But just since I was born, we talked about the, you know, you elevate guys like wendell clark and uh i always hear these lists of greatest leafs and then they'll say okay for example the greatest leaf of all time they'll tell me is dave keon i have to be very honest with you i have zero under i have very cannot appreciate what dave keon was missed his entire career he seems very

popular with guys like 15 years older than me, but is that because he was sort of like your Wendell Clark, the best we had at the time? Because he doesn't sound like one of the, should be in the same conversation as the elites in NHL history. So let me take you back to my childhood. So when you're playing road hockey back then and you're a Leaf fan, you are Dave

Keon or Frank Mahavlich. It's those two guys. Nobody wanted to be Ron Ellis as much as I love the guys. Nobody wanted to be Ron Ellis as much as I love the man. Nobody wanted to be, name X number of different people, Red Kelly, for example, Hall of Famer, terrific hockey player, but it was Mahavlich and Keon. Keon could skate like you cannot imagine. He was a dipsy doodler. He was a stick handler. He was a terrific scorer with that straight stick. But the reason he didn't score 30, 40 goals was because he was also a checking center. They put him out against all

the superstars on the other team, the top centers on the other teams. So he was a great shutdown guy too. He would rag that puck, he'd get it, and he'd skate for two minutes with the puck on his stick. And so he was that kind of player. He was magnificent to watch. He was finesse. It was skill. He was terrific. He probably, if they just gave him an offensive role, which is what he had in junior until the St. Mike's majors,

gave him the responsibility of being defensive as well, he would have been one of the superstars. He is. So I was on the committee, one of the 31 who chose the top 100. It's fairly easy to choose the top five or six, the same names, maybe in different order. Yours from mine and from different people as well. But Keon would have to be right up there too.

And you think of the Ted Kennedys in a previous generation. Again, never saw him play, but I had to hear about him from my, on the shoulders of my dad and others as well. And the synapses even before that. But, you know, Sundin's got to be up there. And Tim Horton, there's so many different names that come up.

Johnny Bauer. But yeah, Keon was a superb hockey player. Two ways. Wonderful to watch. Conn Smythe Trophy winner in 67. A great guy in the community as well. So he had it all. He was the guy at the time.

And I can't even suggest to you that's the wrong pick. There's nobody I can tell you, oh, this guy is better than Dave Keon. I don't have a name. And I think that illustrates how poor this team has been for 40 years that Dave Keon is the best player

in franchise history. And I hope this doesn't sound disrespectful to Dave Keon, who, as in franchise history and I hope this doesn't sound uh disrespectful to Dave Keon who as you explained there is a tremendous hockey player but if he's your franchise's all-time best player you've had a rough go uh the last 40 years this is this is my thought I in the in the entire NHL if you were to and I'm sure this is being done ranking the top 100 guys in NHL where does Dave Keon rank approximately in a top 100? Like, I don't think he makes the top 50, and I haven't gone and done the work.

But so the best player in Maple Leafs history is not one of the best 50 players in NHL histories. And so if I strip away my bias and the fact that I love my Leafs, and I love my Leafs because I was born in Toronto, and I grew up loving my Rick Five and my Leafs, and that's my team. But man,

I hope the future for my kids is better than what I had to endure, where I got four final four appearances of conference finals. I got four conference finals. I have no taste of the finals. Man, I hope it's better for my kids. Well, and I hope so too,

and for their kids as well as we move forward. Part of it too, and I'm going to spin it slightly differently, is how much of a team game it was. And I'm being a bit of an apologist here, so please bear with me here. But you know what, the Punch-Em-Lack team, he didn't like superstars. He really gave guys like Frank Mahavlich a hard time because Frank was much offense, little defense. He came close to scoring 50 goals and Imlach still ground him into the ground and had

him practicing with everybody else in the morning before a game. But he and Mahavlich didn't click and that was part of it. He wanted a team concept. He wanted everybody kind of on the same page and he wanted to treat everybody the same way. And you have to treat superstars a little bit differently at times. You think of the Ovechkins and others out there that you can't swipe with the same brush.

So I think that was part of it, is the Punch-Em-Lax system and then leading into others as well. Because it's been a long time since Punch-Em-Lax system has been in place. Am I right? Oh, absolutely. They tried to bring it back to reinitiate the system in the 70s, and it failed so miserably. I forgot. We should mention Daryl Sittler in there.

He certainly should be in the upper echelon too, one of the superstars too. But it's just that you're right. There hasn't been the superstars that other teams have had. Maybe it is a team concept, but the fact is the cream rises to the top for most cases. To me, we've had two first overall picks, Wendell Clark and Austin Matthews. So we'll see what Austin is. So far, so good. 25 goals.

I couldn't have hoped for more. We know what Wendell was, and he was a great guy. We love Wendell Clark, but he's not a Hall of Famer or anything like that. But I think we were never terrible enough to do what Chicago did and what Pittsburgh did. For example, very close to each other, you have a first overall pick being Mario Lemieux, and I can't remember how many years later,

but Wendell Clark is the first overall. What were the year differences in those first overall picks? I can't remember offhand. It's close, right? Yeah. So it's just almost a little bit of bad luck that finally you were terrible enough to get the first overall. What were the year differences in those first overall picks? I can't remember offhand. It's close, right? Yeah. So it's just almost a little bit of bad luck that finally you were terrible enough

to get the first overall pick. And it's not Mario waiting there. It's Wendell. And even then, so Wendell was a defenseman at the time. Right. And Craig Simpson was the one

that everybody thought should go first overall, but he didn't want to come to Toronto. They'd had bad teams. And there was some of that push and pull and he ended up going elsewhere. And they chose Wendell at the time, which was, in retrospect, a wise choice. But it certainly wasn't the popular choice at that time.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm going to close. You mentioned Johnny Bauer a couple of times. Very recently, for this 100th anniversary of Maple Leafs, they came to Sam Smith Park, which is not too far from where I live here. And Johnny Bauer was going to be there. And I went there. And I got there. beliefs they came to sam smith park which is like uh not too far from where i live here and johnny bauer was going to be there and and and i went there and they i got there it was like johnny

bauer's gonna be there from like i don't two to four signing autographs and i like an idiot i get there like 10 to 2 i don't know what i was thinking and they told me they had cut the line it was such a long line of people so like i'm an idiot i get there too late he's i work it's freezing and they got him nice and toasty and warm inside, thankfully. But I never did get my meet and greet with him. Johnny is the greatest. And you have to think, Johnny, I'll use a terrible, terrible axiom here, but Johnny would be at the opening of a refrigerator door.

He's 93 years old. He's everywhere. You have to think that everybody in Toronto has his autograph eight times, and yet any time I've had a book signing or been involved in a signing or an appearance that involves Johnny Bauer, the lineup is two miles long,

and Johnny takes the time, and if he's supposed to be there for two hours and there's still 400 people there, he still stays there, and he signs so meticulously and has a story with everybody. It's just wonderful. That's what they said. So I said, I just, I tried

to get into the end of the line and they nicely told me, sorry, we've cut it. And I'm like, and I sort of did a little like, you know, negotiation a little bit and I was told that Johnny's slow. That's what they told me. So he's so slow that this long line is actually going to,

he's already going to be here over time. And you respect the guy's not, as much as he's out doing everything, he's 93 years old, you said? Yeah, yeah. And so I just did the exhibits and I never did meet Johnny Bauer. But I want to play something for you

since we have played a little bit of Maple Leaf music here today. Oh my goodness. So we're going to close with this. Honk! Honky honky the Christmas goose got so fat that he was no use till he learned how to blow his nose. Honk the way a goose nose blows. So this is Johnny Bauer and the Rinky Dinks,

who are the kids he's singing with here. Honky the Christmas Goose. I play this like every Christmas just for fun in the podcast. It's great. So, and I understand it charted on 1050 Chum. Oh, absolutely. It was a big, big song. That was a crazy era.

First of all, the Leafs were above reproach. They were so popular. Johnny Bauer had this song. There was a song about Eddie Shaq that came out. And it was also charted. Yeah, clear the track. Here comes Shaq. And it charted as well on 1050 Chum.

And you have to realize Top 40 Radio as well was also huge. So to get your song played on 1050 Chum. And you have to realize Top 40 Radio as well was also huge. So to get your song played on 1050 Chum was miraculous and was instant sales. And Johnny went out there as the PR guy he is, and he shook hands and sold singles. And it was a picture of him on the front of this 45 single, and Johnny there with his son and the kids in the neighborhood. And it was a big single through the course of December 1965. Wow, such a phenomenon. Like, did he try follow-up singles? They wanted him to record an album. So it was this and then on the other side of it was

Banjo Mule. And so they did those two songs. So the producer said, well, listen, why don't we do an album of kids songs with animal themes? And Johnny said, look, listen, why don't we do an album of kids' songs with animal themes? And Johnny said, look, you got the wrong guy. I've done this. That was fun, but not for me. Thanks very much anyway. And this Chip Young, who was the producer, went off and he tried to find others to do it, but never did come to pass. It's quite a time. I often look back at the early 90s, late 80s, where sort of Blue Jay novelty for Variety Village, we had all these Blue Jay songs. And we would play these, just like you'd play your,

I don't know, you'd play your Billy Idol. You'd play your Blue Jays things. And today, it's just so strange looking back. This was a hit on the radio in 1965. The Maple Leafs goaltender put out a song called Honky the Christmas Goose. Crazy. You can't imagine Austin Matthews or Mitch Marner recording a song.

Having said that, there are other songs through the years. Oh, my goodness. I'm trying to think. Ken Baumgartner had a song called The Bomber. Never did much, but some metal stations played it back in the day, and it was a charity single as well. I think he recorded it when he was in Los Angeles. It was before he came to Toronto.

But there have been a few people who've been involved, but those were the two big hit singles from the Toronto Maple Leafs through the years. Well, I played that Leafs Are the Best. I had a DVD that had that on it, like the full-length thing where they're skating. And the video? Yeah, the video. Somewhere on YouTube, it's there. You've got to check it out. That was a Glenn Anderson special.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you've got Dougie's got that, it's not really a mullet, but it's got the flow kind of a mullet, I suppose. Party in the back and business in the front. Exactly. Kevin, I got to say,

I could spend hours talking about, first of all, Bill Borilko, who just loved the legend of Bill Borilko. What a story. No one can tell the story like you can. I don't know about that, but it's a wonderful story, compelling story.

And I hope you enjoyed yourself and you'll enjoy that beer and I hope you'll come back again. Maybe when we're like heading into the Stanley Cup final and the Leafs are there, you'll come back and set the table for us.

You remember me. Keep my number handy, Mike. I would love to do that. Of course I'll remember you in June 2017. Are you kidding me? Come on. I've enjoyed this so much.

Thank you and to your sponsors and to your listeners as well. This has been so delightful for me. And thank you and seriously, the Weird Al build the real, there's

something there. We just have to explore this. There's something there. And that brings us to the end of our 216th show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at Toronto Mike and Kevin is at Kevin Shea Hockey. Kevin Shea Hockey. And our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer and Chef's Plate is at Chef's Plate CA. See you all next week when my guest will be Maureen Holloway. Drink some goodness from a tin Cause my UI check has just come in

Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold but the snow, snow Warms me today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine And it won't be the day And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and green