Doug Gilmour’s son, Tyson, had just spilled chocolate milk all over the table, drenching his NHL legend father and his cellphone.
Mere seconds later, Gilmour’s phone rang. The call display read "HHOF."
"I hope this phone works," Gilmour thought to himself, a wide, dimpled grin spreading across his face as he retells the tale of how he learned that he would be part of the 2011 Hockey Hall of Fame class. "I was kind of in shock. You don’t have any control over it. When you get passed over, that’s part of it."
Gilmour, now 48, knows what it’s like to be passed over, as a size bias played a factor in the 5’9" forward not being drafted in his first year of eligibility. And yet he went on to play for seven teams over an illustrious two-decades-long career in which he won a Stanley Cup with the Calgary Flames in 1989 and led the Toronto Maple Leafs on a remarkable playoff run in 1993.
"I knew I was a bit smaller than some of the other players, but when I jumped on the ice I didn’t feel I was small," he explains, going on to discuss the collarbone injury he suffered as a third-line centre in junior in Cornwall, Ont. "One of the most special moments of my career is my first game, just having the opportunity to put the uniform on and play."
The Kingston, Ont., native holds dear his memories of the 1987 Canada Cup, during which he joined Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux on inarguably one of the most dynamic teams of all time, and the "overwhelming" and "priceless" moment of sharing the Stanley Cup victory with his father in the dressing room.
Gilmour goes on to share the close bond he and rest of the 1992-93 Leafs shared with their coach, the late Pat Burns, and what life was like in Toronto during that era.
"Believe it or not, Felix Potvin and I lived right beside the Gardens, like 20 feet away. We could walk to work," Gilmour says. "It was such a great ride, and there was so much excitement around here with the Toronto Blue Jays. Me being a big baseball fan, I was following that."
And if Dougie could turn back the clock and play one game again, it would be that Game 7 in the ’93 conference finals against Wayne Gretzky’s Los Angeles Kings — a game the Leafs lost.
"Unfortunately some No. 99 guy woke up that night and beat us," Gilmour says, "but that’s one game I’d love to play over."