Canucks Under Boudreau
Former Vancouver Canucks forward turned ALS patient and advocate Mark Kirton died from the disease on Sunday at the age of 67.
The scrappy Regina native played 119 games for the Canucks between 1983 and 1985, potting 23 goals and adding 19 assists.
During a memorable weekend in April of 2022, four years following his diagnosis and with his physical abilities already wearing away, Kirton made a special trip to Vancouver to visit his longtime hockey pals Bruce Boudreau, Jim Rutherford, and visiting Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill.
Kirton came at the invitation of Boudreau, then the Canucks head coach. The two knew each other dating back to their time as teammates in the minor leagues for the Toronto Maple Leafs starting in the late 1970’s.
Nill knew Kirton from their time with the Detroit Red Wings, a team that acquired Kirton from the Leafs in December of 1980 for none-other-than Rutherford. Despite being traded for another, the two became fast friends the following off-season.
In January of 1983 Kirton was traded again, this time to the Canucks, with whom he played parts of three seasons.
Kirton’s ALS diagnosis struck in 2018.
He’d live seven more years, two longer than the average for the fatal disease, officially known as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.
Kirton never stopped being optimistic about treatments and potential cures despite a lot of red tape.
“There’s some cutting edge ones that are very exciting, but these things take time,” He told Vancouver Hockey Insider at the time. “To go through three trials, it could be a two year process. And once they do hit on something, it’s a long process to go through the red tape. Approval through Health Canada, approval through the provinces and get it to the patients, right?
“There’s 189 trials going on around the world,” Kirton pointed out, “and right now there are only three treatments, two that are approved.”
Kirton did his best to rally his hockey friends for support.
“He’s now on to a real big thing,” Boudreau told us then. “Promotes ALS and finding the cure, and he’s a driving force of it. And his word goes a long way, because people remember him in Vancouver, in Detroit, in Toronto, what kind of player he was. He was the hardest working guy on the ice and he’s the hardest working guy doing this, and he was the hardest working guy in real estate, which made a great career for him. More power to him.”
“It’s getting more and more out there,” Kirton told VHI, “and last year when Major League Baseball came up with June 2nd as Lou Gehrig Day, that was huge.”
Still the disease’s most famous patient, the one the malady was so often referred to, Gehrig passed away on June 2nd, 1941. Eighty years later MLB decided to make calling attention to his life and death an annual event.
We all know a few too many. Scott Matzka who played at the University of Michigan and won a Kelly Cup with the Atlantic City Boardwalk Bullies, John Martin, the larger-than-life Bruins/NESN photographer, both gone. Calgary Flames Assistant GM Chris Snow battled it and passed away in 2023, as did his father Bob in 2018.
Remember the ‘ice bucket challenge’ in 2014. That was a big deal, trendy, and that was for ALS. It came and went.
Kirton did whatever he could within the hockey community to crank it back up again.
“I went on a mission last April,” Kirton told us three years ago, “and I got about 33 former Hall of Famers, sportscasters, NHL players, to do a sixty to ninety-second ALS promo video. I put out two-a-day for the month of June.”
Attention seems to have waned again. It’s not for a lack of effort by Kirton, who barked for as long as he could while mustering the strength.
It’s why Boudreau also made that effort three years ago, with the help of Kirton’s friends back home, to get him to Vancouver for a meal together and a Canucks game.
“They were all for coming and helping him and he was able to get out here,” Rutherford pointed out,” which I think was really good for him.”
“Mark said ‘you treat me the same way you treated me all the time, don’t pity me’,” Boudreau said. “Just coming in here and wanting to see his friends, whether it be Jim Rutherford, Jim Nill, those he played with, it was great to see him.”
“I really admire Kirt’,” Nill told VHI then. “It would be easy for him to sit back and deal with it maybe personally and be quiet about it, but he’s not doing that, he’s showing people that you can live with it. He’ll deal with it, whatever comes upon him, and let’s try to find a cure for this anyway we can.”
Mark Kirton was born February 3rd, 1958. He played his junior hockey for the Peterborough Petes of the OHL. He eventually played 266 NHL games.
Earlier Canucks:
— Canucks Semi-Summer Recap: Simmer’s 9
