{"id":78526,"date":"2025-08-18T11:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T11:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78526\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T11:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T11:05:07","slug":"maple-leafs-mourn-the-loss-of-former-forward-after-courageous-battle-with-als","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/78526\/","title":{"rendered":"Maple Leafs Mourn the Loss of Former Forward After Courageous Battle With ALS"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/588339.webp.webp\" style=\"width:100%;\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mark Kirton in action.\" title=\"Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mark Kirton in action.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Photo credit: Toronto Maple Leafs on X<\/p>\n<p>The Maple Leafs are mourning the loss of former forward Mark Kirton earlier this evening after his courageous battle with ALS.<\/p>\n<p>After a lengthy battle with ALS that lasted for 7+ years, Mark Kirton, a former member of the Toronto Maple Leafs, tragically passed away.<\/p>\n<p>Drafted by the Leafs back in the third round during the 1978 NHL Amateur Draft, Kirton spent 6 years in the NHL split between Toronto, Detroit, and Vancouver before retiring after the 1984-85 season.<\/p>\n<p>The Regina native made his NHL debut during the 1979-80 season and wound up playing in 13 games with the Leafs before being moved to Detroit during the 1980-81 season.<\/p>\n<p>Upon his arrival in Detroit, Kirton finished the season with 18 goals and 31 points in just 50 games, before potting a career-high 42 points the following year. He would finish his NHL career in Vancouver, where he accumulated a grand total of 57 goals and 113 points in 266 games.<\/p>\n<p>He continued playing hockey beyond the NHL and spent 4 more seasons in the AHL with the Fredericton Express and Newmarket Saints, where he found more success, including a 27-goal and 64-point season in 1986-87 with the Express.<\/p>\n<p>Kirton was diagnosed with ALS in 2018 and then founded ALS Action Canada with Patients with ALS (PALS) in 2020 in an effort to find a cure. For his courageous efforts, the Maple Leafs rewarded him with the Carl Brewer Memorial award, which recognizes individuals for their community service.<\/p>\n<p>As part of their post on social media, the Maple Leafs attached a link to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alsactioncanada.org\/\" class=\"lien_marqueur\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">alsactioncanada.org<\/a>, which is a patient-led charitable organization that puts all their efforts in trying to raise awareness and funds to help finding a cure.<\/p>\n<p>Previously on MapleLeafsDaily<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo credit: Toronto Maple Leafs on X The Maple Leafs are mourning the loss of former forward Mark&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78527,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[3179,49,48,5239,5240,47534,448,82,746],"class_list":["post-78526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-als","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-hockey","tag-leafs-news-and-rumours","tag-mark-kirton","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-toronto-maple-leafs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78526","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=78526"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78526\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78526"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78526"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78526"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}