In 75 years, no one had brought the Bill Barilko story to the big screen. Ronnie Shuker shares how he's helping prove that wrong about the player who authored the great goal in Toronto Maple Leafs history.
The moment was caught on camera.
Fifteen minutes into a 22-minute interview on TVO's long-running current affairs show The Agenda, I was just finishing talking about the greatest goal scored in the history of the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the lack of recognition it has gotten, when host Steve Paikin looked at me, smiled widely, and, while still taping, said: "Ronnie, I got an idea. You and I are gonna have a chat after we finish this interview. I have an idea. You're gonna like it. I got an idea. Standby."
I didn't think anything of it until after we'd wrapped up the interview and the producers had removed our mics. Steve got up from his desk, walked over to me and, still smiling, said, "Ronnie, let's do it."
I had no idea what he was talking about. We'd never met until that day. But we were both journalists, and we shared a love for the game. Whatever it was going to be, I was all for it.
"Alright, let's do it," I replied. "What are we doing?"
Busher Jackson, Charlie Conacher, Syl Apps, Tim Horton, Dave Keon, Johnny Bower, Darryl Sittler, Borje Salming, Wendel Clark, Doug Gilmour, Mats Sundin, Auston Matthews.
These are the legends of Leafs history, among the finest players the franchise has ever iced.
But none of them ever authored a moment as big and beautiful as Bill Barilko did at 11:07 p.m. on April 21, 1951, when he scored the Stanley Cup-winning goal at 2:53 of overtime in Game 5 of the 1951 final against the Montreal Canadiens. Seventy-five years after it happened, there still hasn't been another one like it. Yet, in all that time, Barilko's remarkable story had never been told in full on film.
Steve's light bulb moment set off a full year-plus of meetings, fundraising, and a whole lot of hurry-up-and-waiting as we searched for investors and a filmmaker who believed in our vision.
In 75 years, no one had ever brought the Barilko story to the big screen. We wanted to right that wrong.
The script practically writes itself. The Barilko story reads like a Hollywood movie. That Hollywood actually played a part in it is only fitting: a blue-collar boy born into a blue-collar Ukrainian immigrant family in a blue-collar mining town in Northern Ontario who worked and willed his way from the frozen ponds and frigid arenas of Timmins all the way up to the secular shrine of Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, via the beaches and beauty of Hollywood, and scored the greatest goal in Leafs lore, only to perish in a plane crash while on a fishing trip four months later, not to be found for 11 years.
The moment Steve and I brought the story to Barry Avrich from Melbar Entertainment Group, he was all-in, too.
After months of pre-production, filming for Frozen in Time: The Bill Barilko Story officially began in March. The documentary will cover the life, the legend and the legacy of Barilko, from his humble beginnings in Timmins, Ont., to his iconic moment in Toronto and his mysterious disappearance in the forbidding forest in Northern Ontario, which launched in what remains the largest aviation search and rescue mission in Canadian history.
By now, everyone who knew Barilko, who was only 24 years old when he died, is long gone. Family, friends, fiancee, teammate, opponents, there is no one left.
But the Barilko story didn't die with the man and those who knew him.
All these years later, his story is still being written: through the authors who've written books and the bands who've arranged songs about him; through the people who brought the wreckage home from the dense forest where fate pulled it from the sky; through the diehard Leafs fan who has the wreckage, and some 400 artifacts, carefully displayed in his basement; through those who erected a privately funded billboard to keep his story alive in his hometown; through the northern adventurers who feel compelled to visit the site of the plane crash by any means necessary; and through all the fans who make pilgrimages to Barilko's gravesite, wear Barilko jerseys, drive cars with Barilko license plates, and have him tattooed on their arms.
The Barilko story is now their story, and we will interview them all.
Ronnie Shuker flew to Barilko's crash site in November 2022 as part of his book, The Country and the Game: 30,000 Miles of Hockey Stories. Check out his feature on that journey that was published in The Hockey News' 2023 Rookie Issue by clicking on the photo. (Photo courtesy of Ronnie Shuker)This project is personal for me. For 30 years, I'd sung his name, but I'd never gotten beyond the 33 words about Barilko in The Tragically Hip's "Fifty Mission Cap."
It wasn't until I ventured to crash site in November 2022 as part of my book, The Country and the Game: 30,000 Miles of Hockey Stories, that I truly began to understand the significance of his story.
Standing on that spot, in silence so quiet it was loud, I understood that this is not just a Leafs story, not just an NHL story, not just a hockey story, not even just a Canadian story. It is a story of the human condition, of a life lived to its fullest, even though not its longest.
We all experience triumph and tragedy in our lives, every one of us. Bill Barilko experienced them at their highest peak.
Seventy-five years later, his story is going to finally be told on film. All it took was two journalists talking hockey.