1967 -Tribute to the Time and to Larry Hillman

The 1960s were a time for almost every purpose under heaven,  and a special year in that decade, was Nineteen Sixty-Seven. It was Canada’s hundredth birthday of those who gathered at Charlottetown, it's when they cast their votes and they rolled the dice,… and our great country, Canada, was born.

One hundred years later, Toronto and Montreal was all the news you needed to know and needed to share.  Montreal with a world class Fair called Expo Sixty-Seven. It was a privilege and an honour if you were able to get there. Toronto, hog Town, toasted their magnificent Leaf’s - their proud and winning team - Fans stood in line for hours then as they do now and they lived that lifetime hockey dream.

And the Gardens were never really gardens, no, and they were never really green The Gardens were hockey’s hallowed throne when the Leaf’s brought good old Stanley Home once again. Some of us were married and others born that Centennial year that fifty-seven years ago - seems but a moment now – now that we see the leaf’s are still trying to rebuild and who knows what building they will be doing next.

I had the opportunity to speak with Larry Hillman in the spring of twenty seventeen, he said he  might remove his hex, if you are not familiar with his hex you can get it on line . It’s true, I spoke with Larry and he said you know Tom, it’s been fifty years, I just might remove my hex but it will have to be some time after June the twenty-third, that's the day the Leaf’s last won the Cup in sixty-seven. Fans continue to fill the stands but the great cup continues to allude them and the team. Larry passed on to the great hockey league in the sky on May thirty-first, twenty twenty-two. Prior to his death Larry insisted he had lifted the hex. But that hex may have been more powerful than even he knew. The cup continues to stay beyond the reach and the abilities and the leadership of the buds.