TORONTO - Memories came flooding back to Frank Mahovlich. The Hockey Hall of Famer and member of Canada's Senate had a banner raised in his honour high above the Air Canada Centre ice before the Toronto Maple Leafs season opener Wednesday night.

The Big M received a prolonged ovation from the capacity crowd of more than 19,000 in a ceremony before one of four grandsons gathered around him, Henry Lavallee, dropped the ceremonial first puck.

"If you win six Stanley Cups, you've got some good memories," he said afterwards.

Mahovlich earned four championship rings with Toronto in the Sixties and added two more with the Montreal Canadiens.

The banner, with his image in a Leafs jersey below the numerals 27 to represent the jersey number he wore in Toronto, joins others honouring Syl Apps, Charlie Conacher, King Clancy, Turk Broda, Ace Bailey, Bill Barilko, Johnny Bower, Tim Horton, Ted Kennedy and George Armstrong.

Mahovlich was born in Timmins, Ont. The family moved to nearby Schumacher when he was a boy, and it was there that he'd listen to Foster Hewitt on radio call the play-by-play of Leafs games.

"Foster Hewitt was the one that really got me started," he explained. "I'd listen to the games and I couldn't wait till the next day to get onto the rink and pretend I was those players he talked about."

He was thrilled one day to see Barilko driving a car down the main road from Timmins to Shumacher.

"He was a hero of mine," Mahovlich said, grinning at the irony of now having a banner hanging near one for Barilko.

Mahovlich became a swift left winger with a blazing shot in his NHL prime. He led the Leafs in scoring from 1960 through 1964, and he was named to eight first or second NHL all-star teams.

Leafs president Ken Dryden called him 10 days ago to let him know the team planned something special.

"I was quite thrilled," he said of the ceremony.

Horton, another of the few Leafs to ever have a banner raised, was his first NHL roommate, and Mahovlich sat beside Armstrong in the Leafs' dressing room for his 11 years with the team beginning in 1957.

"It's quite an honour to be with such great stars up there," he said of the banners under the roof.

He'll always remember his first opening night. He and some teammates had the flu and couldn't play.

Getting No. 27 wasn't his idea. Tim Daly, the Leafs trainer in the '50s, assigned it.

"Tim threw a sweater at me and said, 'Here, here's your sweater.' It was 27. Willie Mays had a high number for those days, I think it was 24, and I thought that if he could make that famous I could give it a try, too."

He was happy to see the new Leafs begin anew.

"I'm glad to see the season has started because people can start focusing on hockey again," he said. "If I go into a barber shop, you know, the conversation will be about politics for five minutes then it'll switch to hockey for 20."

One thing he dislikes about hockey as it is played today is the use of helmets, he said. Players have less respect for one another today, he said, leading to more injuries than when he played.

"I wish they'd take their helmets off," he said.

Darryl Sittler, another former Leaf who wore 27, also was to be honoured Wednesday but his wife, Wendy, is seriously ill and it was decided to postpone recognition to a later date.