Sometimes, when you ask people to share their knowledge of local history, you learn something that gives you goose bumps.
The Timmins Public Library has a local history afternoon coming up this Saturday. Last year… Kevin Vincent shared his story about being involved in the 20-11 recovery of the plane in which local Toronto Maple Leaf Bill Barilko died. It disappeared in 1951, shortly after defenceman Barilko scored the Stanley Cup winning goal. The wreckage was found in 1962.
Vincent says while on its way to storage in Timmins, the 20-11 expedition members wanted to dip part of the plane into Porcupine Lake, where the flight originated. That wasn’t possible, so used two Tim Hortons coffee cups… which they dipped into the lake and put the water on the plane.
“Half an hour later, when we were putting the wreckage into storage,” Vincent recounts, “one of the guys that was on the expedition came running up and said ‘Guys, do you know what we did? Tim Horton replaced Bill Barilko on the Leafs blueline that summer.’”
…”That summer” being the beginning of the 1951-52 NHL season.
“There were two cups,” he says, “one of which we kept and one of which we gave to the Toronto Maple Leafs organization when we were discussing with them what we might be able to do with this wreckage, as a way to tell Bill’s story.”