Barilko was of Ukrainian descent and had a brother, Alex, and sister, Anne. He was engaged to Louise Hastings.
Professional career
In February 1947, Bill Barilko was called up to the Toronto Maple Leafs from the PCHL's Hollywood Wolves and played for Toronto until his death. He was assigned sweater #21 when he debuted for the Leafs. He changed to #19 for the 1948-49 and 1949-50 seasons. The #5 was worn by Barilko for only one season, 1950-51. During that span of five seasons, Barilko and the Toronto Maple Leafs were Stanley Cup champions on four occasions: 1947, 1948, 1949, 1951. The last goal scored by Barilko was in overtime against the Montreal Canadiens' netminder Gerry McNeil. This goal, in Game 5 of the 1951 Stanley Cup Final won the Leafs the Cup.
Disappearance and death
On August 26, 1951, Barilko joined his dentist, Henry Hudson, on a flight aboard Hudson's Fairchild 24 floatplane to Rupert House in northern Quebec for a weekend fishing trip. On the return trip to Porcupine Lake, the single-engine plane disappeared and its passengers remained missing. Eleven years later, on June 6, 1962, helicopter pilot Ron Boyd discovered the wreckage of the plane about north of Cochrane, Ontario, about 56 kilometres off course. The cause of the crash was deemed to have been a combination of pilot inexperience, poor weather and overloaded cargo. Barilko is buried in Timmins, Ontario, Canada, at the Timmins Memorial Cemetery.
"Fifty Mission Cap"
The 1993 song "Fifty Mission Cap" by The Tragically Hip is about Barilko's death and the Leafs' subsequent Stanley Cup drought. The song has been credited as singlehandedly reviving Barilko's fame after he had lapsed into semi-obscurity; the song remains a staple part of the Leafs' warm-up playlist at every home game, and the Leafs have a framed, handwritten copy of Gord Downie's lyrics to the song in their private players' lounge. Whenever the band played the Air Canada Centre, Barilko's retired-number banner was always left in place during the concert, and when Downie died on October 17, 2017, the team incorporated Barilko's banner into its Downie tribute.
Honours
Barilko played in the 1947, 1948 and 1949 NHL All-Star Game, scoring a goal in the 1949 game. Barilko won four Stanley Cups with the Maple Leafs in 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1951. Until October 15, 2016, Barilko's #5 was one of only two numbers retired by the Maple Leafs. Barilko's story was published in the 1988 book Overtime, Overdue: The Bill Barilko Story, by John Melady, and the 2004 book Barilko — Without A Trace, by Kevin Shea. In 2017, TSN aired the short documentary filmThe Mission, profiling a project to recover the remaining wreckage of Barilko's plane; the film took its title from "Fifty Mission Cap", and it thematically touched on the song's role in Barilko's story. The film received a Canadian Screen Award nomination for Best Sports Feature Segment at the 6th Canadian Screen Awards in 2018.
