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Bill Barilko's Fifty Mission Cap
Bill Barilko disappeared that summer, (in 1950)
he was on a fishing trip.(in a plane)
The last goal he ever scored (in overtime)
won the Leafs the cup
They didn't win another until 1962,
the year he was discovered.
I stole this from a hockey card,
I keep tucked up under
my fifty mission cap, I worked it in
to look like that
Most Tragically Hip songs are confusing, obtuse, and ultimately have more of a story behind them than you at first percieve. In the case of the above song, I always wondered about "the rest of the story" as they say... and these days information of that sort is a couple of clicks away, so I finally did a little web research.
The song tells the basic story... Bill Barilko was a young Russian hockey player who scored a goal in overtime that won a Stanley Cup for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1950. It's apparently one of the most famous goals in the team's entire history.
Just over four months later, Barilko disappered while in a Fairchild 24 single-engine plane piloted by a friend, Henry Hudson. They were flying back from a fishing trip on James Bay and vanished between Rupert House and Timmons (their destination). Despite massive searches, they could not be found. The team was distraught and kept his locker as was until the begining of the 1951 season. Some said that Barilko may have defected back to Russia and was possibly training hockey players there, but in 1962 the wreckage of the Fairchild 24 was discovered along with the remains of the two occupants. That year, the Toronto Maple Leafs again won the Stanley Cup for the first time since Barilko had disappeared (cue Twilight Zone music).
All of this is just a longer version of the story the song tells, of course. The more interesting bit to me (because I hadn't realized it) is that a "Fifty Mission Cap" was the cap of a WWII fighter pilot who had flown fifty missions. At that point they were allowed to beat up their cap in any way they wanted (unlike before when they had to keep their cap and their entire uniform in good shape)... and of course they did, so that others would know that they were in the fifty-mission club. So the line "I worked it in to look like that" which I always thought was some sort of reference to how he worked in the lines about Bill Barilko into the song (which didn't really make sense to me but that's the only sense I could make of it) really means that he's worked in his cap so that it's beat up and you can tell it's a fifty mission cap now.
And of course, Gord Downie really did get all this from a hockey card (which was printed in 1991/1992 and contained the story of Bill Barilko's disappearance and how it tied in to the Maple Leaf's fate). The fifty mission cap part came to him because some of the people who searched for Barilko and the downed plane would have been members of the fifty mission club.
So there, the song makes more sense than I realized. ^_^
he was on a fishing trip.(in a plane)
The last goal he ever scored (in overtime)
won the Leafs the cup
They didn't win another until 1962,
the year he was discovered.
I stole this from a hockey card,
I keep tucked up under
my fifty mission cap, I worked it in
to look like that
Most Tragically Hip songs are confusing, obtuse, and ultimately have more of a story behind them than you at first percieve. In the case of the above song, I always wondered about "the rest of the story" as they say... and these days information of that sort is a couple of clicks away, so I finally did a little web research.
The song tells the basic story... Bill Barilko was a young Russian hockey player who scored a goal in overtime that won a Stanley Cup for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1950. It's apparently one of the most famous goals in the team's entire history.
Just over four months later, Barilko disappered while in a Fairchild 24 single-engine plane piloted by a friend, Henry Hudson. They were flying back from a fishing trip on James Bay and vanished between Rupert House and Timmons (their destination). Despite massive searches, they could not be found. The team was distraught and kept his locker as was until the begining of the 1951 season. Some said that Barilko may have defected back to Russia and was possibly training hockey players there, but in 1962 the wreckage of the Fairchild 24 was discovered along with the remains of the two occupants. That year, the Toronto Maple Leafs again won the Stanley Cup for the first time since Barilko had disappeared (cue Twilight Zone music).
All of this is just a longer version of the story the song tells, of course. The more interesting bit to me (because I hadn't realized it) is that a "Fifty Mission Cap" was the cap of a WWII fighter pilot who had flown fifty missions. At that point they were allowed to beat up their cap in any way they wanted (unlike before when they had to keep their cap and their entire uniform in good shape)... and of course they did, so that others would know that they were in the fifty-mission club. So the line "I worked it in to look like that" which I always thought was some sort of reference to how he worked in the lines about Bill Barilko into the song (which didn't really make sense to me but that's the only sense I could make of it) really means that he's worked in his cap so that it's beat up and you can tell it's a fifty mission cap now.
And of course, Gord Downie really did get all this from a hockey card (which was printed in 1991/1992 and contained the story of Bill Barilko's disappearance and how it tied in to the Maple Leaf's fate). The fifty mission cap part came to him because some of the people who searched for Barilko and the downed plane would have been members of the fifty mission club.
So there, the song makes more sense than I realized. ^_^