‘Playing outdoors was everything’ to Duff growing up

The NHL and conservation non-profit Ducks Unlimited Canada are teaming up to tell stories of current and former NHL players and how access to community ponds and the outdoors helped shape their love for the sport. Today, a visit with Dick Duff, who happily reflects on his youth playing outdoors in frosty Kirkland Lake, Ontario on his way to a Hall of Fame career that would see him win the Stanley Cup six times:

That Dick Duff doesn’t still have frostbite is a minor miracle.

It was on the outdoor rinks of bone-chilling Kirkland Lake in northern Ontario that Duff, now 89, played scholastic hockey and hours-long pick-up games, staples of his youth.

From his home in Mississauga, Ontario, about 15 miles from Toronto, Duff reflects today on frozen fingers and toes and his remarkable journey through a career that in 2006 would enshrine him in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

“We had the perfect climate in Kirkland Lake,” Duff recalled, some of his night games surely played beneath the shimmering curtain of the northern lights. “We were always outside. Every school had its own rink, and the boards seemed like they were 15 feet high. Everybody would put their skates on in the rink shack with a fire going.

Dick Duff (front row, second from left) in a team photo on the steps of St. Jerome School in Kirkland Lake, circa mid-1940s

“The French kids had their own school. We’d play against them, and against the public schools. English against French, school against school, town against town. The odd time at the end of the year we’d have a tournament. But until the championship game at the end of the season, we played outdoors.

“Our competition was against Rouyn-Noranda, Timmins, Kapuskasing… the north country was just being developed mining-wise, and kids would skate on ponds, lakes, rivers and rinks. Sports meant a lot there, as it did right across Canada.”

Roughly 375 miles north of Toronto, Kirkland Lake was established in 1919 as the Township of Teck, two years after the birth of the NHL and about eight years after the discovery of gold in the area. It is tucked in the bounties of nature, nearby Esker Lake Provincial Park featuring a boreal forest that is home to many species of wildlife, a wide variety of birdlife supported by the wetlands of dozens of lakes.

The town, its population 7,750 in Canada’s most recent 2021 survey, has a gilded history. Penniless prospector Harry Oakes amassed an estimated $300-million fortune in gold, eventually earning himself a British peerage; William Wright, who might have been first with a strike, poured some of his money into Toronto’s Globe and Mail newspaper.

Dick Duff (front row, second from right) in a St. Jerome School team photo, circa mid-1940s. Duff’s brother, Les, is beside him, on the end of the row

But gold hasn’t been Kirkland Lake’s only claim to fame. From 1948 through 1973, only six Stanley Cup Final rounds didn’t include a player who’d been born there, iconic broadcaster Foster Hewitt suggesting that Kirkland Lake was “the town that made the NHL famous.”

By official NHL records, 21 skaters and one goalie born in the town have played in the League, from Willie Marshall’s two games for Toronto in 1952-53 through Kurtis McLean’s four games for the 2008-09 New York Islanders.

It has produced, among others, the incomparable Ted Lindsay, Duff’s boyhood idol, as well as the latter’s dear friend and teammate, Ralph Backstrom. Others from Kirkland Lake include Larry and Wayne Hillman, brothers Barclay, Bill and Bob Plager, brothers Mickey and Dick Redmond, Mike Walton and goalie Daren Puppa.

Forty-four portraits hang in the arena of Kirkland Lake’s Joe Mavrinac Community Complex, celebrating those who were born in the town or skated through on their way to the NHL.

Toronto’s Dick Duff watches unseen teammate Tim Horton’s shot sail behind Boston goalie Don Simmons, Bruins defenseman Fern Flaman in the background, during a Nov. 2, 1960 game at Maple Leaf Gardens

In 1967, four players from Kirkland Lake -- Walton and Larry Hillman of the Maple Leafs and Duff and Backstrom of the Canadiens -- battled head-to-head in a six-game Stanley Cup Final won by Toronto.

The ferocious, take-no-prisoners Lindsay was born in Renfrew, Ontario, but at age 4 moved to Kirkland Lake, the place he always called his hometown, when his father, Bert, went north to work in the mines.

Lindsay’s rugged reputation was cemented outdoors at age 10 in Kirkland Lake in 1935. Skating with his hands in his pockets to ward off the minus-30 Fahrenheit temperature, Lindsay caught an edge in a crack in the ice and, off-balance, fell face first, breaking two front teeth.

Not wanting to risk the punishment of being barred from hockey, Lindsay returned home and for three weeks managed to hide the injury from his parents. He succeeded right up to the time his gums grew infected, and a dentist had to remove three more teeth and install a permanent plate.

Toronto’s Dick Duff races for the puck laying at the goal post of prone Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante, Montreal defenseman Tom Johnson in the background, during a Jan. 25, 1961 game at Maple Leaf Gardens

Duff was born about a year later, on Feb. 18, 1936, the sixth of John and Ethel Duff’s 13 children. In his youth he idolized Lindsay, the most famous NHL product from the town and one of hockey’s most important figures as co-founder of the NHL Players’ Association.

“Terrible Ted” made his League debut for the Detroit Red Wings when Duff was 8; at his NHL-listed 5-foot-9 and 166 pounds, Duff was one inch taller and three pounds heavier than Lindsay.

“Ted would come home in the summertime in his Cadillac and say, ‘Come and see me, come see my family,’” Duff said. “He’d show me the scrapbooks and speaking of Kirkland Lake, he’d say, ‘I came from here.’”

The message to the youngster was clear: if Lindsay, 10 years Duff’s senior, could make it to the NHL from this small town off the beaten path of northern Ontario, then others could, too.

Dick Duff holds his first goal puck, one of two he scored at Maple Leaf Gardens on Oct. 26, 1956 against the Montreal Canadiens, between Toronto coach King Clancy (l.) and general manager Hap Day

That sent Duff and his friends onto Kirkland Lake’s outdoor rinks, skating until they couldn’t feel their fingers and toes, then often well beyond that inconvenience.

Duff recalls a favorite rink around the corner from the end of Taylor Avenue, where he grew up. If he didn’t walk, he’d skate there, down a street that was icy or hard packed with snow.

Today you’ll find Duff Park where the family home stood before redevelopment nearly three decades ago, a small salute to an NHL player and a large clan that was important in the community.

“The fact is, we were up north, so we were outside all the time,” Duff said. “There was nothing to do in the house, no TV. What was in the house? Nothing. We’d be outside playing hockey, shoveling the sidewalks, making the nets on the road. We’d go to the school rink and clean off the ice. Our teacher would say, ‘We’ll have a game today if you guys go out and clean the ice.’

Dick Duff (l.) and his brother, Les, skate for a Maple Leaf Gardens action portrait as members of the junior Toronto St. Michael's Majors during the early 1950s

“We’d lace up our skates in the shed by the fire, spending half our time there. But some guys just never went outside. They’d say, ‘It’s too cold, I’m not going out there.’”

With scouts from the NHL’s six teams scouring the country for hidden gems, Duff was recruited by the Maple Leafs, a telegram offering him an education at Toronto’s St. Michael’s College School and a spot, to begin, with their 1952-53 Junior B Buzzers.

John Duff put his son on a train to the big city, shoving $2 in Dick’s pocket for expenses.

Then 15, young Duff had no idea what he was getting into, homesick before the train pulled out. He recalled arriving at Toronto’s Union Station and looking for a streetcar to get him to St. Michael’s, the $1.75 fare leaving him with 25 cents.

Wearing a Montreal Canadiens jersey, Dick Duff waves to the crowd while attending the Feb. 2, 2009 Madison Square Garden ceremony honoring New York Rangers greats Andy Bathgate and Harry Howell; a young Duff in a portrait taken at Maple Leaf Gardens in the mid-1950s

Duff soon was promoted to the major-junior squad, scoring 35 goals in 1953-54 and 33 the following season, his stock rising with the Maple Leafs for his goal-scoring, playmaking and courage against larger opponents.

And then, at age 19 and a long way from the outdoor ice of Kirkland Lake, Duff was summoned to Montreal to make his NHL debut, the first in a three-game callup from junior.

He can scarcely believe it’s been 70 years this month since his first NHL game, a 0-0 tie between Toronto and the Canadiens at the Montreal Forum on March 10, 1955, shutouts recorded by the Maple Leafs’ Harry Lumley and the Canadiens’ Jacques Plante.

“I was quite aware of the significance of the Maple Leafs wanting me to go to Montreal to play my first game,” Duff said, the mighty Canadiens that season to begin their unprecedented run of five consecutive Stanley Cup wins. “The impact of the crowd, (Canadiens superstars) Doug Harvey and Rocket (Richard) and Butch Bouchard, that was the direction I was heading from junior.

Toronto’s Dick Duff watches Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante squeeze his glove on the puck, Montreal defenseman Doug Harvey watching at left, during the Canadiens’ 5-0 Maple Leaf Gardens win on Oct. 29, 1958

“I knew that Lindsay was in the NHL with Detroit, and others (from northern Ontario) had gone to the League, too. The Leafs wanted to give me a look to see if I could play with them.”

Duff didn’t look out of place during his trial as a fill-in for injured forward Eric Nesterenko, registering no points with two penalty minutes.

“Little Dickie Duff, who didn’t look the size of a minute alongside (Canadiens’) Bert Olmstead, played a grand game,” wrote Red Burnett in the Toronto Daily Star following the junior’s debut. “He didn’t take a backward step and in the third period was one of the better Leafs at lugging the puck out of his own end.”

Duff, wrote Baz O’Meara in the Montreal Daily Star, “is small and lively, seems to have plenty of desire and by no means weakened Leafs when he was in action.”

He was paid $100 for each of his first three NHL games, against the Canadiens, Red Wings and New York Rangers, all on the road.

Six-time Stanley Cup champion Dick Duff, elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 2006, featured with the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens in a postcard he had made up to send fans who requested his autograph

Every kid back in Kirkland Lake, and the adults, took notice.

Duff would return to St. Michael’s, the factory that produced Maple Leafs Hall of Famers Frank Mahovlich, Dave Keon, Tim Horton and Red Kelly, but he’d be back with Toronto as a full-time pro for 1955-56, having signed a contract that would pay him a reported $7,000 for the season.

It was a pot of gold for a teenager who a few years earlier had arrived in Toronto with $2 to his name and was flush with the $300 he was paid to play his first three games.

Playing left wing, Duff would win the Stanley Cup with Toronto in 1962 and 1963, then with the Canadiens in 1965, 1966, 1968 and 1969, arriving in Montreal by trade from the Rangers.

He played 1,030 NHL games from 1955-71, scoring 572 points (283 goals, 289 assists) for the Maple Leafs, Rangers, Canadiens, Los Angeles Kings and finally the Buffalo Sabres.

Dick Duff scores the Canadiens’ second goal in his team’s 4-0 Game 7 Stanley Cup Final victory at the Montreal Forum on May 1, 1965. Duff also had two assists in the championship-clinching game

Duff scored the Cup-clinching goal for the 1962 Maple Leafs, the first title in Toronto’s run of three straight, its last dynasty. His Game 6 goal on April 22, 1962, in Chicago against the Black Hawks propelled the Maple Leafs to their 2-1 victory.

A favorite of Toronto fans, he was part of a stunning Feb. 22, 1964, trade that shipped him to New York with defensemen Arnie Brown and Rod Seiling and forwards Bob Nevin and Bill Collins in exchange for forwards Andy Bathgate and Don McKenney. Ten months later to the day, the Rangers traded him to the Canadiens, four championships straight ahead.

Duff was a key member of the Canadiens’ run in the 1960s, Toronto’s 1967 win interrupting another potential five in a row for Montreal.

“We had Expo 67 (world’s fair) to celebrate Canada’s centennial in Montreal that summer. We let Toronto win in case they’d not win it again,” Duff joked.

Dick Duff in his 1966-67 Topps hockey card, between action figures of Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante and Toronto’s Johnny Bower, with a miniature Stanley Cup

The Maple Leafs are still trying, nearly a half-century later.

“Dick was deadly around the net,” Canadiens legend Jean Beliveau wrote of Duff in “My Life in Hockey,” his 1994 autobiography. “He could score or return a pass on a give-and-go that would lead to many wide-open nets. ...

“Duff would come in quickly and low, kick the puck into his skates and through a defenseman’s feet and pick it up again behind the opponent. In effect, he was passing to himself. ... He’d make that move while driving toward the net or crossing the ice out at the blue line, opening up miles of room for Yvan (Cournoyer) and myself.”

Duff had experienced winning in Toronto, and now he did a lot more of it in Montreal.

Canadiens forward Dick Duff fires a puck past the left skate of Detroit Red Wings defenseman Bill Gadsby during a 1960s game at the Montreal Forum, Red Wings’ Norm Ullman (l.) and Doug Barkley in the background

“The battles we had between Montreal and Toronto -- there was no love lost, no babies on either team,” Duff said. “There were high demands on us, which is why both teams got the results we did.

“We had the respect of the public. We were the entertainment for a lot of hard-working people who had fought in wars, built this country, built the railroads. The values of these two teams were passed down to a lot of kids in Canada. I couldn’t have asked for anything better.”

In wistful conversation, Duff is back in Kirkland Lake, 70 years since his first NHL game, eight decades since he fell in love with hockey under the stars.

“Saturday was listening to ‘Hockey Night in Canada’ on the radio,” he said. “On Sundays, my dad would put the radio on and we’d get the game from New York.

“Playing outdoors was everything. It was our exercise, it was our friendships, it’s what we looked forward to doing after school. It was our street against the other guy’s street, saying, ‘Let’s get some guys together and have a game.’”

Top photo: Dick Duff skates behind the net for an action portrait as a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs, likely during the late 1950s, at Maple Leaf Gardens.