The remarkable ex-Leaf Mark Kirton succumbs to ALS

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Everyone should have a Mark Kirton in their lives

Someone who makes today better than yesterday. Someone who makes tomorrow better than today.

There aren’t many of them in our world — those built-in genuine optimists who you visit and walk away feeling better about the world, about your life, about the sun that is shining because you spent some time with him. Sometimes it may have been just a visit, or a phone call or a text message or just an email.

But always with a smile, maybe a joke, maybe a little laughter, something to feel right about when really there wasn’t all that much to smile or laugh about. The former hockey player, Mark Kirton lost his battle with the dreadful disease ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, on the weekend and I don’t know if I’ve ever known anyone quite like him before, or anyone I admired more.

We first met in 2021 when he went public with his personal fight and from there a relationship was born. ALS is a monster that takes away your life, bite by bite, piece by piece. It’s different for everyone suffering. Some lose their hands first. Some lose their feet. Some are confined to wheelchairs. Some can speak, some can’t. Some can see, some can’t, It’s one part, then another, no timetable for how it goes or how it tears your life apart.

Kirton was still selling real estate in Oakville when we first met, working from home, working from a wheelchair, still talking fast, smiling, pushing the product, forever ready to make the next deal.

But as he was still working, he began to turn his work to his own disease. What he could go for ALS? How he could find a way to raise more money? Why is it there were drugs in America that weren’t available in Canada? Why is it there wasn’t enough known about the disease and not enough research being done.

He had more questions than answers, and no where to turn for money.

So he started ALS Action Canada and began fundraisers for the disease. He wasn’t a big name — he wasn’t his former teammate, Borje Salming — but he was so engaging.

He got the Canadian NHL teams involved in fundraising. He started the ALS Super Fund, which all NHL clubs began events to contribute to. From ALS Action Canada to the ALS Super Fund, he started PALS — an organization for people suffering from ALS.

He wanted to connect people going through the same difficulties. He wanted more communication. Just last week, he had planned to meet with television’s Ron Maclean and former Maple Leaf captain, Darryl Sittler, to get to work on his latest project.

But his health prevented the meeting from happening. He hoped to reschedule for this week.

This week, he ran out of time.

Kirton was on a beach in the Bahamas, in the midst of a family vacation, when he noticed unusual movement in his right bicep. There was twitching in his right arm and his right hand started to get weak.

He tried to grip his golf club and it didn’t happen. “It went from right arm to left arm,” he told me in 2010. “From left leg to right leg.”

Then came the doctor visits — lots of them. Lots of questions, not a lot of answers. Pro athletes know their bodies better than most of us. After playing 11 seasons of pro hockey — 266 of those games in the NHL with Toronto, Vancouver and Detroit — he knew something was wrong. Just not what.

Then came the diagnosis, which he described as a “10-second nightmare,” said Kirton. “The doctor said to us, you’ve got ALS. In 10 seconds, our world crashed big time.”

But Kirton made himself a promise throughout this. He wasn’t going to change. He wasn’t going to let the disease break him down, even as his body was being broken down. Just a week or so ago, I got a text message from him.

He started by asking about my family. Then about the Blue Jays. “Who would have thought this?” He wrote. “I like the young guys more than the older ones.” Then he wrote: “I am working on a couple of new fundraisers…I will keep you posts. Kirts.”

This came just before the email he wrote on August 10, thanking me for the ALS (Major League) wristbands I’d sent him via the Blue Jays.

“Thank you so much for the surprise,” he wrote. “My daughter Sarah wears them proudly in the gym where she works out. That was a very nice gesture.

“I hope you and family are well these days. I am working on a couple more fundraisers — Darryl Sittler and Ron Maclean are coming over next week to do a video round table with me. Should be a blast.

“I have attached our ALS Super Fund impact report.” Stay safe. Kirts.

Still with the simple hockey nickname after all these years. Kirts. He was there for whatever was needed when the Maple Leafs Alumni hooked him up with Salming, who had been diagnosed after him,. He became Salming’s ALS mentor both on the phone and in person. Salming died almost three years ago.

Kirton was told he basically had five years to live and lasted seven. Seven years of making a difference. Seven years of being there for family and friends.

“You can laugh or cry about this,” Kirton told me in 2021. “I decided for myself, I’m not going to change. I’m going to stay the person I’ve always been.”

Mark Kirton, the former Maple Leaf, was 67 years old when he died. Rest well my friend.

ssimmons@postmedia.com

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