Mahovlich, Duff rooting equally for Maple Leafs, Canadiens in playoffs

Frank Mahovlich declares himself "neutral, hoping for both." Dick Duff says, "No matter who wins, I'll be on the winning side."

Mahovlich and Duff are among the countless captivated by the Stanley Cup First Round between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens. The Maple Leafs lead the best-of-7 series 3-1 and will host Game 5 at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday (7 p.m. ET, NBCSN, CBC, SN, TVAS).
Since the 1917 birth of the NHL, 105 skaters and goalies have played for the Canadiens and Maple Leafs. Five have won the Stanley Cup with each team, Hockey Hall of Fame forwards Mahovlich and Duff, each a six-time champion, among them.

From left: Toronto Maple Leafs teammates Dick Duff, Bert Olmstead, Frank Mahovlich and Gerry Ehman.
Mahovlich, the majestic Big M, won with Toronto in 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1967, then twice more with Montreal, in 1971 and 1973.
Duff won as a Maple Leafs teammate of Mahovlich in 1962 and 1963, then with the Canadiens in 1965, 1966, 1968 and 1969.
The other three on the list:
Defenseman Larry Hillman, the same four years as Mahovlich in Toronto, then as Duff's teammate in Montreal in 1968-69, appearing in 25 games for the Canadiens and one in the 1969 playoffs;
Forward Bert Olmstead, with the Canadiens in 1953, 1956, 1957 and 1958, then the Maple Leafs in 1962;
Forward John McCormack, with Toronto in 1951, then Montreal in 1953.

Defenseman Larry Hillman with his family and the 1967 Stanley Cup, and forward Johnny McCormack in 1951.
"I'm just enjoying watching them play and I'm really excited for both teams," Mahovlich said this week from his home in Toronto. "I'm not cheering for either of them. Well, that's not entirely true. Toronto hasn't won the Cup since 1967 and the Canadiens since 1993. I want them both to do well."
Mahovlich played 720 of his 1,181 regular-season NHL games from 1956-74 for the Maple Leafs and 263 for the Canadiens, with 198 games for the Detroit Red Wings between them. The 83-year-old is revered in Toronto, voted in 2016 as No. 9 among the 100 greatest Maple Leafs of all time, his statue standing outside Scotiabank Arena.
But there is plenty of Canadiens blood in Mahovlich, who was born in the tiny northern Ontario community of Schumacher, in the shadow of Timmins. He considers his four seasons with Montreal, from his January 13, 1971 arrival from Detroit by trade through his departure to the World Hockey Association following the 1973-74 season, "as the best part of my career."

Frank Mahovlich in action with the Montreal Canadiens during the early 1970s.
Mahovlich loved his teams in Toronto, but not the constant verbal abuse showered on him publicly by coach and general manager Punch Imlach that finally drove him out of town. A trade to Detroit, an eight-player blockbuster on March 3, 1968, gave him a fresh lease on hockey life, even if it practically caused riots in Toronto.
Then came his final NHL stop, in Montreal.
"My most special championship is 1971, playing with Jean Beliveau during his final season," Mahovlich said of the Canadiens' late, illustrious captain. "As soon as I arrived in Montreal, I'd hear people in the streets talking about the Stanley Cup -- and here the Canadiens hadn't even made the playoffs the year before. It was so exciting and everything went my way."

From left: Hall of Famers Frank Mahovlich, Dave Keon and Yvan Cournoyer in Montreal during the NHL's 2017 NHL Centennial year.
Mahovlich would play a huge role in the Canadiens' 1971 championship, the 10th won by Beliveau. The Big M led the NHL in playoff scoring with 27 points (14 goals, 13 assists) to match his legendary sweater number, realizing a dream by finally playing with Beliveau.
"Here's a secret Frank won't tell you," confided Mahovlich's wife, Marie, on the phone later. "Just before a face-off one game early during his time with Toronto, Jean leaned in to him and quietly said, 'You're with the wrong team, kid.' "
Duff has his own memories of arriving in Montreal, the Canadiens having acquired him by trade from the New York Rangers on Dec. 22, 1964. The native of Kirkland Lake, Ontario had played 582 of his 1,030 NHL games for Toronto from 1954-64, traded to the Rangers for another 43 games spanning two seasons. Duff would play 305 games for Montreal from 1964-70, then his final 100 for the Los Angeles Kings and Buffalo Sabres from 1970-72.

Dick Duff in the 1950s, in a Maple Leaf Gardens portrait and working out on a stationary bike.
"I wasn't in Montreal more than a few weeks, living near the Forum, when (coach) Toe Blake stopped me on the street during a walk," Duff said. "I was playing pretty well, fitting in nicely, on our way to the Stanley Cup that season. Toe asked me how I liked it in Montreal, how I was getting along with my teammates. 'Great, I love it here,' I told him.
"And then he poked me in the chest with his big finger and said, 'Dick, if you don't start playing the way I think you can, you won't be here long.' It was his special way of keeping me focused."
The 85-year-old loves that he bleeds the blue, white and red of the Canadiens as well as the blue and white of the Maple Leafs. He was voted No. 28 on the latter's top 100 list.

Dick Duff in 1960s Montreal Forum action against Detroit Red Wings defenseman Bill Gadsby.
"The battles we had between Montreal and Toronto -- there was no love lost, no babies on either team," Duff said from his home in Port Credit, Ontario, 15 miles west of Toronto. "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."
Duff recalls Bill Barilko's iconic 1951 overtime Stanley Cup-winning goal against the Canadiens, and Barilko being killed in a fishing-trip plane crash four months later. Duff arrived in Toronto from Kirkland Lake that fall for school, to become a product of the St. Michael's major-junior hockey factory. Mahovlich would be a St. Mike's teammate, future Maple Leafs legend Dave Keon on his way to the same program.
The bond of the three is remarkable: Duff is the godfather of Mahovlich's son, Michael, and Keon's son, Tim.

Dick Duff (right) and Dave Keon during a 2013 Maple Leafs ceremony.
On April 22, 1962, Duff scored the Stanley Cup clincher for the Maple Leafs against the Chicago Black Hawks, Toronto's first championship since 1951. Six weeks later, the wreckage of Barilko's plane was discovered.
Duff still gets goosebumps.
"Two northern Ontario boys -- Barilko from Timmins and me from Kirkland Lake (85 miles away) -- scoring back-to-back Cup-winning goals for Toronto 11 years apart," he said.
"To go into the (Forum) house where Rocket [Richard] played, Aurele Joliat, Howie Morenz, to play where Ted Kennedy skated in Toronto, to walk the corridors of the Forum and Maple Leaf Gardens and see the reminders of all the champions that had gone before. To play with both Toronto and Montreal, it was a treat, I'll tell you."
Mahovlich, too, cherishes his teams in each city. The homes of the NHL's oldest rivals are hockey-mad in similar ways, he says, but with an important difference he recalls with a laugh.
"When Marie and I were in Montreal in the early '70s and we took a cab, the driver would never charge us," he said. "In Toronto? Oh yeah, sure. Every single time."
Photos: HHoF Images/Getty Images