The last Montreal Canadiens 1953 Stanley Cup-winning team member has passed away.
Paul Masnick was 92 years old when he died on March 23, 2024.
When I first met Masnick in early 2022, he was all that was left of that 1953 team. He lived quietly alone in Barrie, Ontario, in a tall apartment building overlooking the gorgeous Kempenfelt Bay. He didn’t own a television or a car, as he bussed around to get his groceries and visit his girlfriend.
Masnick was born to Ukrainian parents in Wakaw, Saskatchewan, on April 14, 1931. The youngest of four siblings (one brother and two sisters), he was the family’s only hockey player.
The son of a travelling salesman, Masnick and his family moved frequently as a kid, from Wakaw to Brandon to Carman and eventually to Sanford, where the family settled for a few years during Masnick’s first years playing hockey.
Masnick’s father was not interested in hockey and initially was not keen on having his son play in the Carman and Sanford areas.
“He was always afraid I’d get hurt,” said Masnick, “and wanted me to give it up. Mother didn’t worry so much. The rest of the family liked hockey as much as I did; they just didn’t play.”
When he was five years old, he first ventured out on skates and started playing shinny on outdoor ponds a short time later.
“You did hockey as a child because there wasn’t much else to do there as the winters were long, and in those days, they flooded a piece of land, so you’d skate on there,” said Masnick. “You’d make goalposts from whatever you could find, and you’d stay out there for eight hours a day and play. You’d come home tired and didn’t have new skates as you used whatever you could find for skates. That pretty much sums everyone up for how they got into hockey in those days.”
The Masnick family eventually moved to Regina in his teenage years, and he went on to play for the Regina Pats junior team, which lost the 1950 Memorial Cup final to the Montreal Junior Canadiens in five games.
From there, Masnick became the property of the Montreal Canadiens organization as he embarked on a professional hockey career.
Masnick was a bright-eyed nineteen-year-old rookie on the Canadiens in 1950-51. He sat on the bench while Bill Barilko scored his famous Stanley Cup-winning goal for the Toronto Maple Leafs before perishing in a plane crash later that summer.
Masnick’s career highlight was having a role on the Montreal Canadiens club that won the Stanley Cup in 1953. They never got rings for winning the Stanley Cup back in 1953. Instead, all that Masnick has of his Cup triumph is a little pin that the team gave him for winning, made up of rubies and sapphires.
“I’m so old, I’m not even on the Stanley Cup anymore,” quipped Masnick. “It was a great time being able to play in Montreal with the likes of Rocket Richard and have that honour of winning a Stanley Cup.”
After his time in Montreal, Masnick was loaned to the Chicago Black Hawks for 11 games in 1954-55. His rights were sold to the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1957, and he saw action with them in 41 games in 1957-58. That was the end of his NHL career.
Masnick spent six more seasons in the Western Hockey League and the International League before retiring in 1963. In his NHL career, he played in 232 games and scored 18 goals and 41 assists.
Like his father, Masnick also became a travelling salesman after his career. He moved around a lot across Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Minnesota before eventually settling into southern Ontario in his late sixties.
Masnick’s passing last week means there’s one less hockey legend still with us from a bygone era.
“I’ve had a good life,” said Masnick. “No complaints at all as I get up there in years now and see that I’m one of the last few players left. I’m always just trying to get to tomorrow, which is all you can try to do when you reach my age.”
