Ron Duguay, Rangers great and Sudbury Wolves legend, dies at 69
Duguay died Thursday after a stage-four colon cancer battle, three weeks after his hometown Wolves retired his number in person.
Ron Duguay was the kind of player a franchise builds a night around while he's still alive to see it. The Sudbury Wolves did exactly that on October 2, three weeks before cancer took him at 69. That the tribute beat the ending by three weeks is the only mercy in this one.
Duguay died Thursday after a stage-four colon cancer that had spread to his liver, a fight he went public with back in February and spent the rest of the year trying to outrun. He didn't.
He was Sudbury's own before he was anybody's star. Born and raised there, he put up 361 points in 245 games for the hometown Wolves from 1973 to 1977. His 1975-76 season alone was 134 points. That team posted the league's best regular-season record and lost the OMJHL final in six games.
The Wolves retired his No. 10. It's hung in the rafters ever since. When they held Ron Duguay Night this month, they got the ending right: family, friends, fans, and the guy himself in the building to hear it.
The NHL knew him as a Ranger first. He played in New York from 1977 to 1983 and scored 40 goals in 1981-82 alone. That's not a season that franchise forgets. The Rangers called him one of the most popular players in team history, and nobody who watched the Garden in that era would argue.
He kept producing after he left, too. His best pro season actually came in Detroit in 1984-85 — 38 goals, 51 assists. Stops in Pittsburgh and with the Kings closed out a career that ran through 1989.
That's a dozen-plus NHL seasons and a junior résumé good enough to retire a number. All of it traces back to one rink in Sudbury. Towns that size don't usually produce junior numbers like his. The ones who do tend to get remembered there forever. That's exactly what's happening.
He's survived by his daughters, Shay Thomas and Amber Stavros. A celebration of life is planned for later.
Sudbury Wolves Sports and Entertainment president and CEO Dario Zulich said he was "deeply saddened" by the news, calling Duguay "truly one of the all-time greats" and adding that the organization was grateful it got to honor him a few weeks earlier. "Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family during this incredibly difficult time," Zulich said.
Rest easy, Ron. Sudbury got the send-off right, and that matters more than we usually admit.
