It's a historic hockey jersey, now with a historic price tag.
Paul Henderson's legendary 1972 hockey sweater fetched over $1 million at an auction following a late surge of interest, and its new Canadian owner promised Wednesday to bring it back home from its U.S. location.
The final price makes the jersey Henderson wore when he scored Canada's winning goal in the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviets the most ever paid at auction for a piece of hockey memorabilia.
The winning bid smashes what's thought to be the previous auction record for a hockey item -- $191,200 paid for a Bobby Orr rookie jersey. It is also more than four times the $250,000 that a few of Wayne Gretzky's jerseys had fetched in private sales.
A flurry of bids late Tuesday culminated in a winning offer of US$1,067,538 submitted by Mitchell Goldhar, the owner of SmartCentres, a private real-estate development company based in Vaughan, Ont., north of Toronto.
"I am pleased and proud to bring this important piece of Canadian history home," Goldhar said in a statement.
"As a lifelong hockey fan I know what Paul Henderson's winning goal against the Russians in 1972 means to all Canadians."
Goldhar said the sweater will be sent on a national tour. He plans to make arrangements for it to be displayed at community locations such as museums, including the Hockey Hall of Fame, to ensure as many Canadians as possible can see it.
After the '72 series, Henderson gave the jersey to Team Canada's trainer Joe Sgro as a gift, and Sgro later sold it. It most recently belonged to an unidentified private American collector.
The sweater's previous owner, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a cancer survivor and apparently plans to donate some of the proceeds of the sale to charity. Henderson himself was diagnosed with cancer, chronic lymphocytic leukemia, last fall.
"The good news is a Canadian's bought it and it's going to be back in Canada," Henderson told Toronto radio station AM640.
"And someone has told me he wants to put it on display. And I know there's going to be appeals made to him to eventually get it into the Canada Sports Hall of Fame. So we'll wait and see what happens."
Marc Juteau, president of Montreal area-based Classic Auctions, says Goldhar's bid was the 42nd entered for the 38-year-old red and white jersey.
Once the auction fees were factored in, the final price to be paid by Goldhar is actually $1.275 million.
"The attention that was given to the jersey has exceeded by far what we thought it would do," said Juteau.
Bidding opened at $10,000 and offers were soon coming fast and furious from such Canadian-based companies as Molson, The Forzani Group Ltd. and B.C. billionaire Jim Pattison.
Canadian Tire dropped out after initially bidding $200,000 with plans to use the jersey as a store-to-store attraction for customers.
Juteau said the Henderson item has generated as much interest as the personal souvenir collections of Jean Beliveau and Maurice Richard when those went on sale.
"But for one given piece, (this is) the most attention we've ever gotten," he said.
Henderson, 67, who donated another Team Canada jersey and a stick to the Hockey Hall of Fame, has often said he'd like to see this one go to Canada's Sports Hall of Fame.
Henderson was inducted into that hall in 1995.
