Buffalo restaurant owner puts up $10,000 reward for Marcel Dionne’s skates
Photo, Montreal Canadiens sweater also taken
The owner a popular Italian restaurant in Buffalo, N.Y., has offered a reward for the return of Hockey Hall of Famer Marcel Dionne’s childhood skates.
Lou Billittier, owner of Chef ’s, a multi-generational family restaurant in the city’s downtown, is offering $10,000 for the return of the skates or information that leads to their return.
Billittier said he heard about the theft when he was speaking with Dionne on Saturday and shortly after reading the article posted on Niagara This Week. He reached out to the newspaper in order to get word out about the reward.
Billittier said he was a stick boy for the Buffalo Sabres when he first met Dionne, and the two stayed close.
“We just continued the friendship to this day,” he said, explaining he was sad to learn about Dionne’s skates, which were given to the hockey great as a Christmas present when he was just two-and-a-half years old growing up in Drummondville, Que.
Dionne discovered the skates were missing on Good Friday when he was going to show them to a group from Drummondville who were in town for a hockey tournament. Dionne told Niagara This Week the last time he remembers seeing them is March 16, meaning they could have been taken more than a month ago. A photo of a young Dionne wearing the skates and a Montreal Canadiens sweater were also taken.
For Billittier, the reward is simply the best way he can help, even if it has the potential of benefitting the very person who stole the skates in the first place. A law enforcement officer for 24 years, Billittier said the possibility didn’t escape him.
“I think it’s wrong, but I know that it means a lot to Marcel,” he said. “I’m willing to overlook that for him.”
Anyone with information about the skates can contact Lou at lou@ilovechefs.com or 1-716856-9187.