Toronto Mike

The Last Goal He Ever Scored

leafs

It's April 21, the day Bill Barilko scored his final goal.  I celebrated the occasion by posting my first FPP at Metafilter, although I've just learnt it was covered four years ago, which got it deleted.

Here's what I wrote:

The legend of Bill Barilko grows each year.  It was April 21st, 1951, game 5 of the Stanley Cup final between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens. At the 2:53 mark of the first overtime period, Bill Barilko scored the last goal of his life winning the Stanley Cup for the Leafs.
The 24 year old defenseman perished in a light plane crash that summer while on a fishing trip to Northern Ontario. Not until his body was recovered 11 years later in the bush near Cochrane, Ontario, did the Leafs win another championship.
How do you salute a Canadian legend of this magnitude?  The Tragically Hip sing his praises, of course.

I stole this from a hockey card...

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