Keon’s latest honour is spot in Canadian sports shrine

Dave Keon is at a good place in his life.

Happily retired and living much of the year in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., where he rides his bike and golfs most days, Keon has long reconciled with the Toronto Maple Leafs, the club he captained to four Stanley Cups, including the club’s last one in 1967.

The native of Noranda, Que., has been honoured numerous times over the years, including by the Hockey Hall of Fame and being named the greatest Leaf of all-time.

Now, Keon is being welcomed into Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame along with seven others: six-time world wheelchair racing champion Jeff Adams; four-time Grey Cup champion Damon Allen; Mary Baker, the first Canadian to sign with the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League as a catcher and the first female sport broadcaster in Canada; Olympic cross-country ski champion Chandra Crawford; Alexandre Despatie, the first athlete crowned FINA world champion in all three categories of diving and a two-time Olympic silver medallist; former Olympic rower Sandra Kirby; and Wilton Littlechild, a pioneering role model, organizer and advocate for Indigenous sport in Canada.

“They’re all special,” Keon said of the previous honours bestowed upon him. “(But) this is a little bit different. This is a Canadian thing and it’s certainly very important to me.”

His one regret is he never got to play internationally for Canada. Perhaps Keon’s biggest disappointment was missing out playing in the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviet Union.

“I would have liked to have been part of that,” Keon said. “But it didn’t present itself, so there’s nothing you can do about it.”