It’s been an interesting summer at the golf courses in our region.
At the Jeff Preston Tournament at Saugeen Golf Club, I spoke briefly with Bobby Baun, a multiple Stanley Cup winner with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
I asked Bobby Baun about the 50th anniversary of his historic overtime goal in the 1964 Final against Detroit.
As folklore tells us, Baun was struck by a puck in Game 6 while blocking a shot and broke his ankle.
Treated in the dressing room, Baun returned to the ice surface for OT and scored the game winner, keeping the Leafs alive and allowing them to get to Game 7 where they posted another victory over the Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup.
Fifty years later, Bobby Baun admits there’s not a day that goes by that the memory of that goal isn’t relived, primarily by people like me who ask about it.
Similarly, earlier this year at the Crimestoppers Tournament at Chippewa Golf Club, the special guest was Peter Mahovlich.
While Paul Henderson, fittingly, is accorded the most acclaim for scoring the biggest goals for Canada in the 1972 Summit Series with Russia, Mahovlich also had a memorable marker.
His shorthanded goal in Game 2 of that series was both a thing of beauty and a clutch marker for a desperate Canadian team.
Mahovlich, like Bobby Baun, admitted, that goal has been a perpetual companion for 4 decades.
Bobby Baun and Peter Mahovlich both had lengthy, successful hockey careers with Stanley Cup victories, yet they are accompanied daily by their accomplishments in a single moment.
I’m Fred Wallace