Canucks: Hockey world mourns death of Mark Kirton after ALS battle

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Darcy Rota’s scouting report on his former Vancouver Canucks teammate Mark Kirton includes “very special person,” along with “very special team guy.”

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Kirton played six seasons in the NHL, including parts of three seasons with the Canucks. He had 17 goals for Vancouver in 1984-85. He was diagnosed with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) — otherwise known as Lou Gehrig’s disease — in 2018, and became a champion to raise money for research to help find a cure. He was a board member of ALS Action Canada.

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Kirton has died. He was 67. The NHL website recalled how Wayne Gretzky had called Kirton “a hero to me.”

“He was really solid defensively. He could chip in offensively. More than anything, he was a great teammate,” said Rota, 72, whose five-year run with the Canucks ended with the 1983-84 season. “He was very much one-for-all, all-for one.

“I’ve got a chance to do a few things for ALS out here and I’m especially happy for that because of the connection with him. Great personality, great teammate. He was always fun to be around. Such a dry sense of humour.”

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Postmedia’s Ben Kuzma did a feature piece on Kirton in June 2022 where Kirton talked about his trip to Vancouver the preceding April to see a pair of games. He had strong ties to the organization. President Jim Rutherford and Kirton were traded for one another in a Dec. 4, 1980 swap between the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs, and were teammates for a time when Rutherford found his way back to Detroit in 1982-83.

Bruce Boudreau was Vancouver’s coach at the time, and he and Kirton had been teammates in the Toronto organization.

Boudreau told Kuzma then: “He’s still the strongest and bravest man I’ve ever met. He’ll phone me when I’m down. And I’ll just sit there and go: ‘Kirts, you’ve got this problem and you’re phoning me to lift me up?’ He wanted to come here and support us, and even though he has ALS and has lost a lot of his movements, he’s so upbeat and positive. You can’t help but get excited when you see him. He was the hardest-working guy on the ice and hardest working doing this (ALS advocacy).”

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Kirton came to the Canucks as they were looking to rebuild the team after its 1982 Stanley Cup Finals run. He was acquired from the Red Wings on Jan. 17, 1983, in exchange for centre Ivan Boldirev.

“Getting traded there for Boldirev? I told somebody the other day that I don’t know if I would make that trade,” Kirton told Kuzma in regard to get swapped for a 33-goal scorer from the season before.

“My time (in Vancouver) was good there at the beginning (but) the team started to struggle and guess what happens to third and fourth-liners?”

Former Maple Leafs defenceman Borje Salming died on Nov. 24, 2022 from ALS. Kirton wrote in an email to Postmedia just before that “it breaks my heart that anyone and their family should have to go through this.

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“Make noise every time you hear the words ALS. Be loud and try to make a difference. Sooner or later, the more people know about this, then help will come all at once, like a cavalry, and our government will have to take notice,” he continued.

“We still need a better system to qualify for trials and promising drugs, faster pathways for drug approvals and more government-covered hours for home care. More than anything, after 100 years, we need to focus on finding a cure.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, ALS is a nervous system disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord and causes loss of muscle control. The disease gets worse over time.

@Seveves

SEwen@Postmedia.com

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