{"id":146761,"date":"2025-09-15T23:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/146761\/"},"modified":"2025-09-15T23:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-15T23:24:08","slug":"darryl-sittler-on-mitch-marner-maple-leaf-cup-chances-and-golf-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/146761\/","title":{"rendered":"Darryl Sittler on Mitch Marner, Maple Leaf Cup chances and golf stories"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Darryl Sittler started with the Maple Leafs in 1970, their Stanley Cup drought was just three years old.<\/p>\n

But the former captain still bleeds blue \u2013 make that Type O positive for optimism, at age 72.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe this is the year, finally, those hockey gods will be with us,\u201d Sittler said Monday, while glad-handling his club ambassador duties for the team charity golf event at RattleSnake Point in Milton. \u201cThen we can win a few rounds and challenge for the Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sittler, like many others, thought the team was on its way this decade, adding top picks Auston Matthews<\/a>, who is the latest in a long line of captains to follow him, plus William Nylander, John Tavares and Mitch Marner.<\/p>\n

It must have been particularly hard for Sittler to witness Marner\u2019s departure this past summer. He\u2019s always talked up his fellow first-round London Knights pick, who had moved to fifth in franchise scoring within 175 points of passing him. Marner leaves for Vegas under a dark cloud of discontent.<\/p>\n

\u201cMitch was such a part of our team, such a great player,\u201d Sittler lamented. \u201cYou talk about his goals, assists and creativity, which were awesome to watch, but he was very good defensively. He was an all-around player. I guess for Mitch, sometimes these things happen and he\u2019s moving on. We\u2019ll miss him here.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my era, the Harold Ballard\u00a0days, and Punch Imlach (in his second coming as GM) they traded a lot of guys, Lanny McDonald and a number of others. It\u2019s not the nicest thing in the game, but you learn to adjust and it\u2019s your job, you blend in with the new guys. The logo on the chest is the most important thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sittler was feeling nostalgic for a couple of other reasons on Monday, the 49th anniversary of his goal to win the first Canada Cup against the former Czechoslovakia at the Montreal Forum, which was his only major title trophy. It was also grandson Luke\u2019s 21st birthday.<\/p>\n

And we couldn\u2019t resist in the middle of a golf course to ask him about the famous early \u201870s commercial for Wheetabix whole grain cereal he shot with fellow Hall of Famer Norm Ullman. After a beautiful Sittler swing from the fairway, Ullman was more concerned whether his young friend had eaten a healthy breakfast.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose ads were fun, but you were never able to do\u00a0them in one take,\u201d Sittler laughed. \u201cI see it all the time on YouTube now, people are always bringing it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The other cereal\u00a0commercial Sittler loves to watch\u00a0was an SCTV network show parody,\u00a0John Candy portraying him versus Joe Flaherty as Montreal\u2019s Guy Lafleur. Wearing the team\u2019s stars familiar No. 27 and 10, they start with an amicable bowl of \u2018Cornabix\u2019 that devolves into a language dispute and hockey-style brawl.<\/p>\n

Lhornby@postmedia.com<\/p>\n

X: @sunhornby<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Darryl Sittler started with the Maple Leafs in 1970, their Stanley Cup drought was just three years…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":146762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[443],"tags":[13156,49,48,78288,622,62510,8436,78289,82,2902,746,8458],"class_list":{"0":"post-146761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golf","8":"tag-auston-matthews","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-darryl-sittler","12":"tag-golf","13":"tag-john-tavares","14":"tag-mitch-marner","15":"tag-norm-ullman","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-stanley-cup","18":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","19":"tag-william-nylander"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=146761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/146761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=146761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=146761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=146761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}