Tragically Hip hit inspired by N.B. hockey writer, historian

There's a place where that most Canadian band, The Tragically Hip, and that most Canadian sport, hockey meet.

The band is responsible for one of the most beloved songs about the game, 1992'sFifty-Mission Cap.

It tells the story of a rare thing indeed, a Toronto Maple Leafs' Stanley Cup victory, an unlikely hero in Bill Barilko, and his untimely end in a plane crash just a few months later.

The song wouldn't have happened without a New Brunswick hockey writer and historian.

Moncton-born James Duplacey was the author, editor or contributor to some five dozen books on hockey, including the annual NHL Guide and Record Book, and the ultimate encyclopedia of stats, Total Hockey.

When he applied for a job at the Hockey Hall of Fame, he was the first and only person to get a perfect score on the history quiz given to applicants, and he rose in that job to eventually become acting curator.

Among the many writing projects he undertook, Duplacey scored another iconic Canadian gig: He wrote the back of hockey cards.

In particular, he had a contract to be the scribe for the 1991-1992 Pro Set series, and that's where the Hip comes in.

Downiereadinghockey cards

As guitar player Rob Baker relayed it, the band was rehearsing, jamming on a lick that became the music for Fifty-Mission Cap.

"While we were doing that, Gord Downie was standing with his snippets of lyrics and workbooks on the music stand,"Baker saidin a 2007interview.

"He was opening some packs of hockey cards and eating the gum and checking out who he'd got. And in one of the packs was the Bill Barilko card, the famous shot of him scoring the goal, and he flipped it over and basically started reading the back of the card, but singing it.

"He enhanced it, and changed it a little bit, but certainly more than the germ of the lyric is right there on the back of the hockey card."

That included Duplacey's nugget about how Barilko's fate was entwined with the Leafs' fortunes: "Won the Leafs the cup. They didn't win another 'til 1962, the year he was discovered."

The obscure Barilko has since become a household name to both hockey and rock fans in Canada, thanks to Downie, the Hip, and James Duplacey, who died in Fredericton in 2015.