Collection revealed 70 years after Leafs legend’s death
TORONTO — Bill Barilko was missing 11 years.
Now, Mark Fera wants to make sure his story is never forgotten.
With Wednesday the 70th anniversary of Barilko’s Stanley Cup overtime winner, prior to his disappearance on a fishing trip, the push is on for a permanent exhibition, tangible proof of the Maple Leaf defenceman’s lore.
With nearly 300 Barilko items among 3,000 Leafs artifacts in his customized suburban Toronto basement, Fera has secured the startling centrepiece for such a display. It’s the partial wreckage of the Fairchild 24 that took Barilko and pilot Dr. Henry Hudson on their fatal flight from Timmins, Ont., Aug. 26, 1951.
Despite a massive air search, the downed plane with the bodies strapped in, lay in the bush until a chance discovery just a few weeks after the Leafs won the 1962 Cup, hauntingly their first since Barilko went missing.
“It’s the Canadian Buddy Holly story,” said Fera. “Hometown hero, goodlooking guy, the tough hockey player everyone loves, then gone at age 24. How many athletes died so suddenly in their prime?
“I know he wasn’t a Hall of Famer — in his last year, he was almost sent down at the start — but he won four Cups in five years and had the biggest goal in team history. As much good as the Leafs do, because they’re a business, I think we really struggle with maintaining the history of this team.
“When they opened the Air Canada Centre (in 1999), they had a room you could walk in and all the memorabilia was there. They took it away, but the reason that I loved it was the story behind every single piece. When I go around to different sports buildings such as Fenway Park or Yankee Stadium, I see how they hold onto their history and how they really value it.”
Fera, a 47-year-old who works for a fire and life safety company in Mississauga, can rattle off the most minute details as he shows his Barilko collection. But of course, a visitor’s eye gravitates to the crumpled and faded yellow fuselage, a pontoon, exhaust and the rusted passenger seat frames. Mindful of the terrible end the two men met, Fera put care and thought into the layout, ceiling to floor, ringing it with a shrine of items essential to the saga. They include the first memorial sign from the crash site, a small-scale highway billboard that Fera helped fundraise that boasts Timmins as Barilko’s hometown, the Tragically Hip’s hand-written lyrics to “Fifty Mission Cap,” aerial photos, Bill’s early hockey equipment and the puck he back-handed past Montreal goalie Gerry Mcneil on April 21, 1951 at the Gardens.
Fast forward to 2020, with Fera pulling into Timmins for his first look at the plane’s remains. He’d become a recognized Leaf antiquarian, who’d hosted many NHL celebs at his home, including Frank Mahovlich, Bob Baun and Ron Ellis, and had spoken to school groups about the team and Barilko.
He’d been directed to local resident/author Kevin Vincent, who’d led the 2011 recovery of the wreckage to a storage facility outside of town.
That same day, a hardy group of 16 had helicoptered in as close as they could to the crash site, 80 km. north of Cochrane, then slogged two hours through dense foliage and muskeg. They included Vincent, Barilko’s cousin Sandra Cattarello, John Shaw, the dentist who took over Hudson’s practice and one of Hudson’s old fishing pals. The bodies were removed in ’62, Barilko buried in a Timmins cemetery where fans often leave pucks and other hockey trinkets.
At the site, a tearful Cattarello led a prayer, Shaw read from A.E. Housman’s poem, “To An Athlete Dying Young” and another chopper hoisted the parts out. Vincent’s fear was imminent development of a nearby mining project would eventually lure souvenir hunters to desecrate the site.
For the symbolic completion of Barilko’s flight, the recovery team wanted to dip one battered pontoon in nearby Porcupine Lake where its journey began 60 years earlier. But the day of its recovery was getting too dark, so they went to the shore and filled some Tim Hortons coffee cups, an unscripted tribute as Horton would replace his fellow Northerner on the Leafs blueline soon after.
Plans for a Barilko museum in Timmins or a joint project with the Hall fell through, while the pieces lay in a standalone storage facility for the next decade.
“It came to a point where people up there felt the story was dying,” Fera said. “The parts were protected from snow and rain, but not the cold and they were corroding. They all talked and Vincent said ‘we’ve decided you’re the guy to carry this forward. We’ll give it to you to decide what’s best’…”
Immersing himself in the project has been cathartic for Fera, a survivor of the Gardens pedophile scandal that was revealed in the 1990s.
“I’m open to questions about it — that’s the only way we can raise awareness,” Fera said. “It took many years of therapy and unfortunately, I grew up a little later than everyone else. John Paul Roby was my abuser (the usher died in prison in 2001). I kept the phone number he wrote me as a reminder of where you’ve been and where you’re trying to get to.
“Some of my worst memories were what took place under the stands, but some of my greatest were in the stands watching the team with my Dad. This has been a great chance for me to celebrate the history of the team on a positive side.”
Fera has had some conversations with the Leafs about a Barilko memorial in or around Scotiabank Arena. But his best idea might be a sponsored travelling exhibit to take the plane (the engine and another pontoon will come south soon) and the treasured smaller items around the province or the country.
“Walking in the Gardens, seeing all those old pictures and old signs come to life
… I’d love to think we can bring the Barilko story out to people. I’d like to use that to raise money, for awareness for abuse, for cancer care as my dad is a survivor, or another good cause.
“Eventually, I’d like to see a Canadian-made movie on this. Kevin Shea’s done an outstanding job (movie rights to Shea’s book ‘Without A Trace’ remain in limbo), but I think this needs to be cemented in our team’s history. Because it’s real.”
COLLECTOR GOT HIP TO BARILKO
Even with no fans allowed at Scotiabank Arena, “Fifty Mission Cap” is still played on a Leaf game night.
The 1991 song by The Tragically Hip raises a torch to Barilko’s legend and whenever the band played it at the Gardens or SBA, his retired No. 5 banner was spotlit in the rafters.
Three days after returning from Timmins with pieces of Barilko’s plane, Fera was at his table at a large Toronto hockey card show when a fellow collector introduced himself.
“He says ‘you’re the Bill Barilko guy, right’? I’d literally had the fuselage about three days and hadn’t really told anybody, but he said, ‘I have something you’ll want to see’…”
It was a framed print of “Fifty Mission Cap” lyrics, handwritten by Hip frontman Gord Downie. One had been given to the Leafs for their dressing room, the other to Bill’s sister, Anne Klisanich, in a 2001 ceremony on the 50th anniversary of his goal. After her passing, a family member sold it.
“This guy had it now and told me he had an offer from a European collector who was going to take it to Germany,” Fera said. “I’m glad he was looking around the card show for me. I managed to keep that in the collection, too.”
“It’s the Canadian Buddy Holly story. Hometown hero, good-looking guy, the tough hockey player everyone loves, then gone at age 24. How many athletes died so suddenly in their prime?” Mark Fera