Hall of Famer Duff unaware of connection to popular film

Dick Duff, a six-time Stanley Cup champion with the Montreal Canadiens and Toronto Maple Leafs, is a vital subplot in a gentle, under-the-radar hockey movie that he's never seen.

"Winter Stories" ("Histoires d'Hiver" in its original 1999 French release) was spawned by a 1987 semi-autobiographical French novel of roughly that name by Marc Robitaille, a writer as well for film and television.

In "Winter Stories," its French and dubbed English versions available on Amazon Prime and streaming online, Martin Roy remembers his 1966-67 school year, his final year of junior high. At 13, growing up outside of Montreal, Martin is consumed by the Canadiens generally and sparkplug forward Henri Richard specifically.

He passes off a head cold as a much more serious illness in a letter to the Canadiens, in which he expresses his desire to one day work for the team in any capacity, but, more immediately, to meet Richard with tickets that he hopes the team might send him.

Veronique, played by Maude Gionet, displays her prized Dick Duff hockey card to the shock of classmate Martin Roy, played by Joel Dalpe-Drapeau, in the 1999 film Histoires d'Hiver (Winter Stories). Aska Film Productions

A key subplot in the film is the hockey card obsession of Martin and his classmates, the 1966-67 cards they snap up at their town's general store eagerly pulled from wax packs with a stick of bubblegum.

Enter Duff, his Topps card - No. 71 in a set of 132 - proving to be frustratingly elusive.
It is a character named Veronique who finally gets the card that every boy in her class covets. She tells Martin, on whom she's sweet, that he can have it in exchange for four kisses, to be delivered at the time and place of her choosing.

"Winter Stories" is a tale of the pleasure and pain of adolescence, of family and friends during a time in a world both simple and complicated, all of it bound by a love of the Canadiens, by relationships and by a priceless Dick Duff card.

Dick Duff's "elusive" 1966-67 Montreal Canadiens card with a miniature Stanley Cup and action figures of Canadiens goalie Jacques Plante and Johnny Bower of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

"I haven't seen the movie, no, and I don't remember anyone telling me about it," Duff said last Friday, on the eve of his 87th birthday. "I don't think I have a copy of that card myself, though plenty of things still come to me from Canada, the U.S. and Europe for my autograph.

"I guess," he said with a laugh, "that they send stuff to me because I'm still breathing."
Duff might even see the symbolism in the fact it's his 1966-67 card that's elusive to the Quebec students -- as elusive as the 1967 Stanley Cup would be to his Canadiens, who were stunningly upset by the Toronto Maple Leafs.

"We gave the Leafs the Cup that season," he said, laughing again, "because Montreal that summer had Expo 67, the world's fair, in Canada's Centennial year. After that was done, we won the next two."

The back of Dick Duff's 1966-67 hockey card, listing his 1965-66 statistics and that his idol was his hometown friend, Ted Lindsay. Topps Hockey

Playing left wing, Duff won the Stanley Cup with Toronto in 1962 and '63, then with the Canadiens in 1965, '66, '68 and '69. The native of Kirkland Lake, Ontario played 1,030 NHL games from 1955-71, scoring 572 points (283 goals, 289 assists) for the Maple Leafs, New York Rangers, Canadiens, Los Angeles Kings and finally the Buffalo Sabres on his way to his Hockey Hall of Fame induction in 2006.

Duff is one of five living members of the Maple Leafs' 1962 Stanley Cup champion, the oldest of the group; he is six weeks older than Bob Pulford, seven months older than Bobby Baun, and the senior of Frank Mahovlich, 85, and Dave Keon, 82.

He can't quite believe that an internet database catalogs 210 Duff cards and premiums, from his 1955 Bee Hive Golden Corn Syrup promotional photo and Parkhurst rookie card through his 2021-22 Upper Deck Honoured Members of the Hall of Fame card.

It is a delightful coincidence that Duff today lives just down the street from where the St. Lawrence Starch Company plant operated for decades, 15 miles southwest of old Maple Leaf Gardens. From 1934-68, the company produced Bee Hive hockey photos, to this day highly coveted collectibles that became Canada's most successful consumer promotion ever. Duff appeared in two Bee Hives, in the 1955-56 and 1964-65 series.

Dick Duff in his 1955-56 Bee Hive Golden Corn Syrup promotional hockey photo, and at his 2006 Hockey Hall of Fame induction. Courtesy Aubrey Ferguson; Bruce Bennett, Getty Images

Duff scored the Cup-clinching goal for the 1962 championship team, 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.

He regularly gets a kick out of walking down to the iconic coffee and doughnut store near his home and trying his luck.

"I tell the girl at the counter that I scored the 1962 Cup-winning goal and ask, 'Do you know who got an assist?' and of course she doesn't know it was Tim Horton," Duff said of the late defenseman and founder of the restaurant chain that bears his name.

"I've tried a couple of times to get a free coffee for it, but it's never worked. I guess they figure that because I played in the NHL, I was so well paid that I can afford one."

The clerk might be surprised to learn that Duff was paid $100 for each of his first three NHL games, March 10, 13 and 20, 1955 as a call-up from the junior Toronto St. Michael's Majors powerhouse that would produce Hall of Famers Mahovlich, Keon, Horton, Ted Lindsay, Red Kelly and more.

Rookie Dick Duff holds his first goal puck, one of two he scored on Oct. 26, 1955 in a 2-1 Toronto win against the visiting Montreal Canadiens, standing between Maple Leafs coach King Clancy (left) and GM Hap Day. Imperial Oil-Turofsky/Hockey Hall of Fame

He vividly recalls his first NHL game - a 0-0 tie at the Montreal Forum on March 10, 1955, Harry Lumley and Jacques Plante earning shutouts for the Maple Leafs and Canadiens, respectively.
Turning pro the following season, Duff signed with Toronto for $7,000 in 1955-56 and $7,000 or $8,000 in 1957-58, GM Hap Day saying the higher sum was at Clancy's discretion.

Duff had arrived with Toronto from Kirkland Lake, a mining town and hockey factory 375 miles north of Toronto, an NHL assembly line despite a tiny population that today is about 7,800.

It has produced, among others, the legendary 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, Barclay, Bill and Bob Plager, Mickey and Dick Redmond, Daren Puppa and Mike Walton.

Dick Duff, with the Montreal Canadiens, fires a shot past Detroit Red Wings defenseman Bill Gadsby during a 1960s game at the Montreal Forum, Norm Ullman (left) and Doug Barkley in the background. Frank Prazak/Hockey Hall of Fame

"On Sundays, my dad would put the radio on and we'd get the game from New York," Duff said.

"And Saturday was 'Hockey Night in Canada' on the radio.

"Ted Lindsay was my favorite because he was from Kirkland Lake. In the summertime, I'd jump in his

Cadillac and he'd take me to skate up at the arena in Timmins. Ted was always in shape, I learned the importance of that from him."

It's unlikely that Duff will see "Winter Stories" any time soon. He doesn't own a DVD player, should a copy find its way to him, and you won't find him streaming online content. He's a delightful throwback to the old school, as are many of his contemporaries.

"I don't have email, that's a never-ending game," he joked.

But Duff was eager to hear about the film, proud that kids would clamor for his 1966 card.

The 1966-67 Saint-Louis de France Parish peewees of Sainte-Foy, Quebec, future writer Marc Robitaille, age 9, in the front row, far right, his coach and father, Charles, at left; Robitaille on Ottawa's Rideau Canal with Montreal Canadiens great Jean Beliveau, circa 1983. Courtesy Marc Robitaille

Robitaille's book was a sharp departure from his writing of the late 1980s, then studying for his Master's degree in education. He is 9 or 10 in his richly illustrated novel, "a bit clumsy," as he recalls, "a 10-year-old expressing himself."

The author came to the writing honestly. Robitaille's father, Charles, had practiced briefly with the junior Quebec Aces in the 1940s during his nearly half-century with the Anglo-Canadian Pulp and Paper Company.

For a time he sat across from fellow employee Punch Imlach, who would coach the senior Aces before moving up to Springfield of the American league on his way to the NHL's Maple Leafs in 1958.

At the prompting of his wife, Sylvie Lemieux, Robitaille mailed his critically acclaimed book to Quebec film producer Claude Gagnon, whom he'd heard had interest in making a feature film based on hockey.

The novel struck a chord and with director Francois Bouvier, the author adapted it, with generous liberties, into a screenplay.

Montreal Canadiens' Henri Richard, an unseen central character in the film, tees up a rolling puck during a game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Frank Prazak/Hockey Hall of Fame

If Robitaile's boyhood hero was Canadiens goalie Gump Worsley, he loved Henri Richard for the fact the diminutive center was a quiet superstar with bottomless courage.

"Gump was my goalie hero," he said. "I thought he was spectacular. I tried to imitate him more than I tried to stop pucks. None of us could be (Canadiens captain) Jean Beliveau but Henri was the accessible hero.

"We collected cards in our youth and there were elusive ones that we just couldn't get. For that card in my book, I tried to find a name that was cool. Dick Duff is a perfect name, a wonderful name."
The movie was shot from late October 1997 through late January 1998 on the south shore of Montreal. Its attention to detail is superb -- clothes, furniture, hockey equipment and even the smallest props are exact to the mid-1960s, right down to a scene on a black-and-white Admiral TV set, an Expo 67 logo at center ice of the Montreal Forum during a Canadiens-Detroit Red Wings game.

Young Martin Roy goes for a nighttime skate; at right, a 1966-67 Canadiens-Detroit Red Wings game plays on his family's black-and-white television, one of many painstakingly chosen props for the film. Aska Film Productions

Still, Robitaille was crushed by the first disjointed rushes he saw, "so distraught that I thought I'd have to leave town and disappear forever." But then star Quebec composer and singer Michel Rivard was brought in to write a score and post-production sprinkled more than a little stardust.

"That gave it all a melancholy that wasn't at first apparent," Robitaille said.

The film premiered at the end of February 1999 riding the wave of the recent French-language hockey film, "Les Boys," which was a huge hit.

"Histoires d'Hiver" did well at the box office and to this day it appears on television in French and English, finding a new appreciation going on a quarter-century after its release. Inevitably, it renews interest in card No. 71 in the 1966-67 Topps set.

Dick Duff, a movie star without even knowing it, will take your word for all of it.

Top photo: Dick Duff's 1966-67 hockey card makes its dramatic appearance in the hand of schoolgirl Veronique in the 1999 film Histoires d'Hiver (Winter Stories). Aska Film Productions