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Toronto Maple Leafs top pick Mitch Marner was a terror in minor hockey (VIDEO)

Marner lost the OHL scoring title by one point (Alan Diaz, AP)
Marner lost the OHL scoring title by one point (Alan Diaz, AP)

Toronto Maple Leafs top pick Mitchell Marner wore Doug Gilmour's digits while lighting up the OHL offensively. As it turns out, as a young minor hockey player, the London Knights star's game owed more to another blue-and-white icon. Take your pick between a young Wendel Clark or,Tim Horton.

Last weekend, footage of the 18-year-old centre as a minor hockey player surfaced on YouTube, mixed with Marner's highlights from throughout minor hockey and right up to his two years with the Knights. Body checking is now forbidden in most younger age groups in minor hockey, but when Marner was at that level, it was allowed, and it turns out he regularly knocked over much bigger children.

Actually, maybe this footage made the argument for no checking. Just kidding.

There is not much more to add without falling into the typical Toronto hockey media trap of overanalyzing everything about a player, other than to say Marner's giftedness was evident from a very early age. It's hard not to romanticize this and put it within the realm of Canadian hockey myth-making, but one should keep in mind that Marner also put in a lot of work on his game in order to become a No. 4 overall choice that was justifiable on an analytics basis and an intangibles basis.

Time will tell whether Marner inspires a Canadian rock classic like Clark did as a rookie 30 years ago, though.

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @naitSAYger.