Don Marshall, The Odd Man Out.

During the 1971/72 NHL season the Toronto Maple Leafs played 78 games and finished with 80 points. Even going back fifty years ago the Leafs were still being knocked out of the playoffs by the Boston Bruins. The Leafs were eliminated after five games in the quarter-finals by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Bruins. That year the Leafs had a pretty good roster which included five future Hockey Hall of Fame inductees including Captain Dave Keon.

John McLellan was in his third year as head coach after winning NHL coach of the year honours the previous season. He had been hired by the Leafs to succeed the 1967 Stanley Cup winning coach Punch Imlach who was fired back in the summer of 1969.

Game number sixty-four on February 26th 1972 would be one of those life moments I will never forget. I was eleven years old and I attended my first Leaf game at Maple Leaf Gardens. The Leafs won their 26th game on that Saturday night with a 7-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks. Paul Henderson scored three goals with one assist and was the first star. Norm Ullman with a pair of goals was the second star and defenceman Jim McKenny was the third star. Forty-three year old Jacques Plante backstopped the Leafs for the win.

Anyways this memory is not about my first game at the Gardens. If you have read some of my other memories you most likely have already read all about that first game. Instead this is about a vintage piece of memorabilia I would just so happen to stumble upon over forty years later. A vintage piece of memorabilia that I was finally able to proudly display on my wall six years after I first held it in my hand.

It was an early Saturday afternoon back in late July 2004. Janine and I had just been to a couple house showings in the town of Bracebridge. We both decided it would be our final trip house hunting in Muskoka that summer. I did not want to move my daughter Stephanie during the school year and with the start of school just six weeks away we knew we had run out of time. We agreed we would resume looking for our new house the following summer.

Somehow we got lost in a subdivision and found ourselves going around in circles. We were at a stop sign when we noticed a beautiful house on the corner with a for sale sign on the lawn. Both Janine and I were puzzled as to why we had not been shown this house by our agent who we had just left. After parking in the driveway, I went up to the front door to inquire as to what their asking price was while Janine waited in the car.

A tall attractive woman answered the door and after introducing myself I explained we had come up from the city looking at houses. We were now lost after trying to find our way back out to the highway and just so happened to see her house with the for sale sign on the lawn. I told her I was curious as to what she was selling for and even more importantly, I was hoping to get directions back out to the highway. Marla then invited both Janine and I into her house. She explained that her house was not actually for sale. Her husband Ron had built the house and he was now building the same identical house on another lot in town. After showing us around her house, she then invited Janine and me to stay for a bar-b-que before we headed back to the city.

It seemed very odd this spontaneous heaping portion of Muskoka hospitality, but we assumed it was just one of those small town things and both of us agreed to stay for lunch. It had been just an hour earlier when I knocked on these complete strangers door and now we were all eating burgers and hanging out like we had known each other all our lives. It was something I had never experienced before living in a big city all my life.

I was watching television while sitting in the living room on the couch. Marla and Ron had two identical twin boys Dylan and David who were twelve years old. I remember there were a lot of toys scattered all over the floor of their house. Almost immediately an old wooden hockey stick lying on the hardwood floor caught my eye. I was definitely intrigued because neither of the twins had ever played hockey. Besides, even had they played they wouldn't have been using an old wooden stick like the one I was now looking at. Sure enough my curiosity would get the best of me; I got off the couch and walked over to check out the stick. Right away I could tell the old vintage CCM Custom Pro hockey relic had never been used as I picked it up off the floor. Once I turned the stick over in my hand, I was amazed to discover signatures along the complete length of the shaft. I took the stick back over to the couch to examine it more thoroughly.

It did not take me long to discover that the vintage stick in my hand was also a valuable piece of hockey memorabilia. For the most part the signatures were still very legible and I quickly deciphered from the names that it was a Toronto Maple Leafs team signed stick from the early 70’s. Hockey Hall of Fame inductees David Keon, Bernie Parent, Norm Ullman, Jacques Plante and Darryl Sittler literally screamed out from the old discolored wooden shaft. The Summit Series ’72 hero Paul Henderson had also signed the stick.

Right away I told both Marla and Ron that the stick was not a toy and needed to be put away in a safe dark place. I explained that exposing the stick to any light would fade the signatures thus decreasing its value. Marla was surprised that the stick had any value at all. She told me that the stick had been left behind years ago by the previous owners of a house they had bought when they lived in Barrie. It had now become just another toy for the twins to play with.

I must admit my reaction to discovering the stick must have seemed a bit bazaar to our new found friends. Here I was a total stranger inside their house forbidding their boys from ever playing with one of their toys again.

Who does that?

How I had wished on that afternoon Marla and Ron had just given me that stick. Looking back I think I may have sounded a bit too eager in emphasizing the sticks monetary value so long as it remained in its current state. I made it quite clear the stick was a piece of Maple Leaf history that a collector would be willing to pay top dollar for. Although I wasn’t leaving with the stick on that afternoon, I made sure the stick was secured in a safe dark place. I was assured by Marla that the twins would never be playing with the stick again. Before I left that afternoon, I wrote down all the names of the players who had signed the stick because I wanted to establish the exact season it was from once I got back home.

Once I got back home I began to research the names on the stick. The only thing I knew for sure was that it was from the early 70's. There were exactly twenty signatures on the #4 Mike Pelyk game issued stick. Although, I found it strange that Mike himself did not sign it. For the most part both the 1970/71 & 1971/72 Leaf teams were identical. Coach John McLellan and eighteen of the players who had signed the stick were on both of those teams. The one player who did not play both seasons was Don Marshall.

So Don Marshall was the odd man out.

Don Marshall’s 19th and final season in the NHL was with Toronto during the 1971/72 season. The five time Stanley Cup champion Marshall was acquired back in June of 1971 from Buffalo after having played with the Sabres during their inaugural season. After finally establishing the stick's exact season, I now wished more than ever that it was my stick. The stick was definitely from the same season that I attended my first Leafs game. Every player who had signed the stick was also in lineup back on that snowy February night while I was sitting in my green seat at Maple Leaf Gardens.

As fate would have it within a few months Janine, Stephanie and myself were now living in Bracebridge. Janine and Marla had also become good friends. Within a year Marla and Ron split up and were eventually divorced and Marla continued to live in the house with the twins. Within five years Janine and me too were also on the outs and were now preparing to split up and sell our house.

Ironically, Marla too was also preparing to sell her house and move out of Bracebridge. Marla now needed her house to sell quickly as she was already committed to another house just outside of Orillia. She approached Janine and asked her if we would delay putting our house on the market. Marla assumed that any of her potential buyers would for the most part have to drive right past our house on the way to hers. With any potential buyer passing our house for sale, they no doubt would be stopping to inquire about our house. Marla did not want any distractions whatsoever and she thought that our house would be a big distraction to any of her potential buyers. Marla told Janine that if I agreed not to put our house up for sale until after she sold hers, she would give me the stick. Naturally, once Janine told me of Marla’s proposal I agreed wholeheartedly.

Within a few months Marla sold her house. By this time Janine and I were now attempting to once again mend our sporadic relationship and we put off splitting up and selling our house altogether. Sure enough once Marla began packing up her stuff she came across the stick and true to her word she hand delivered it to me.

The stick was still in the exact same condition since I first held it in my hand five years earlier. It was as beautiful as ever. On further examination I noticed a very faint signature opposite the Leafs signatures written in ball point pen. I could barely make out what was written, but to the naked eye it sure as hell looked like Gordie Howe’s trademark autograph. I immediately got out my magnifying glass for a closer look “Hello Russell

Best Wishes

Gordie Howe” was now clearly legible. I contacted Marla to ask her who Russell was. Marla told me that the couple whose house they had bought in Barrie had a young son named Russell.

Wow, having Mr. Hockey’s autograph on the stick was the icing on the cake.

Within a year after receiving the stick Janine and I could not prevent the inevitable. We too split up and sold our house privately in just over a week at almost full asking price. Maybe Marla was right afterall, maybe our house would have been a big distraction. Janine too also moved out of Bracebridge, but I decided to stay and I bought a small condo. One of the first items on my agenda for my new home was to purchase a proper display case for my newly gifted treasure. The stick along with my first Leafs game program will always be displayed in any home I live in for the rest of my life. It is one of those items I could never part with no matter what the price.

If you would have told me back on that February night in 1972 that I would someday own a stick signed by the Leaf team I was watching, I would never have believed you. I still find it rather amusing how simply getting lost in a little subdivision 200 km from Maple Leaf Gardens would see me rekindle my cherished memories from that night.

Anytime you can add a piece of memorabilia to a cherished memory from a half century ago, it just makes that memory all the more special.

For me it is a cherished memory even more special than I could ever have imagined.

*Update - Sadly on October 8th 2024 Don Marshall passed away from complications of COVID-19 at the age of 92. He was the last surviving member of 1955-60 Montreal Canadiens Stanley Cup dynasty team.