Bill Barilko card signed by Tragically Hip raises $6,240 for cancer charity
Signed card 'just seemed that it was the perfect combination'
Blair Babcock holds a small piece of Canadiana in his hand.
It's a Bill Barilko hockey card signed by four members of the Tragically Hip – significant because the band's song Fifty Mission Cap is about Barilko's Stanley Cup winning goal in 1951 when the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Montreal Canadiens in Game 5.
As a child, Babcock was an avid hockey and baseball card collector.
"As I got into high school, I became a big Tragically Hip fan, and they released Fifty Mission Cap and I love the song and in the song, he references, 'I stole this from a hockey card,' and I thought, I'm going to find that card," Babcock told CBC News in an interview at his home in Stratford, Ont.
When he attended Queen's University in Kingston, his roommate's sister was friends with members of the band.
"We knew she knew them, and we thought let's get a whole bunch of stuff together and go get it signed and she obliged," he said.
Getting the hockey card signed was the best of both worlds, Babcock said.
"As a huge hockey fan and as a huge Tragically Hip fan, it just seemed that it was the perfect combination."
Auctioning card
But now, Babcock has auctioned off the card – not to make money for himself, but to raise money for charity.
His father Larry Babcock died 10 years ago of glioblastoma – the same cancer that Hip lead singer Gord Downie died from on Oct. 17. The dates were just two days apart on the October calendar.
The money will go to a Larry Babcock Memorial Fund within the Chatham Kent Community Foundation, the Stratford Perth Community Foundation and also the Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research.
The card was listed on an eBay auction two days after Downie's death for 99 cents. It sold for $6,240 just after noon on Thursday.
"I felt like it was worth around that," Babcock told CBC.
Babcock said he doesn't think he'll miss the card when it's gone.
"It had a really special meaning for me at the time when I got it," he said, adding his musical tastes have evolved and he's not as attached to it now.
"I feel like somebody else will get the same joy that I got from it when I first got it."