MONTREAL — Like his celebrated series-clinching goal, the bidding for Paul Henderson’s legendary hockey jersey was a nail biter with one offer taking it past the US$1 million mark.
Bids soared by hundreds of thousands of dollars with the 42nd coming in at US$1,067,538.
Marc Juteau, president of Classic Auctions, said late Tuesday that he expected the auction to continue until the early hours of Wednesday.
That is expected to make the famous 1972 Team Canada jersey the most expensive piece of hockey memorabilia item ever auctioned off.
Potential buyers had until 9 p.m. ET Tuesday to place bids for the jersey, worn by Henderson when he scored Canada’s winning goal in the Summit Series against the Soviet Union.
However, Classic Auctions said the auction would continue until the bids stop coming in or the phone stopped ringing for 10 minutes.
The sale price of the game-worn jersey, which has created a stunning buzz since bidding began last month, stood at $411,00 just before the deadline.
The jersey passed from the hands of Henderson, to Canada’s trainer Joe Sgro as a gift, and then to an unidentified private American collector.
“(The buzz) is more than we expected, but as far as price we had an idea of what it could fetch,” Marc Juteau, president of Classic Auctions, the Montreal-area company, said earlier.
“The attention that was given to the jersey has exceeded by far what we thought it would do.”
The Team Canada sweater went up on the Montreal area-based Classic Auctions website last month with an opening bid of $10,000.
Since then, other Canadian-based companies, including Molson, The Forzani Group Ltd. and B.C. billionaire Jim Pattison have waded into the auction.
Canadian Tire initially bid $200,000 with plans to use it as a store-to-store attraction for customers, but has since dropped out.
The sweater’s owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a cancer survivor who plans to donate some of the proceeds of the eventual sale to charity, Juteau said. Henderson himself was diagnosed with cancer, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, last fall.
The jersey has already set a record for the highest price ever paid for a hockey item via auction, eclipsing a Bobby Orr rookie jersey that sold for $191,200.
It’s also gotten more than a few Wayne Gretzky jerseys sold privately for about $250,000, believed to be the most expensive pieces in the history of hockey memorabilia.
Juteau said the Henderson item has generated about as much interest as the personal souvenir collections of Jean Beliveau and Maurice Richard, when those went on sale.
“But for one given piece,” he said, “(this is) the most attention we’ve ever gotten.”
Henderson, 67, who donated another Team Canada jersey and a stick to the Hockey Hall of Fame, has said he’d like to see this one go to Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame.
Henderson was inducted into that hall in 1995.