“They were the only thing I would ever want,” she said.

As happens with a lot of people, Marcel only found the skates when he stopped looking for them. He had essentially accepted they were gone for good and had moved on.

The brown leather pair were in a box of old hockey books and magazines, which he happened to be going through in preparation for the Sportcard and Memorabilia Expo taking place May 3-5 in Mississauga.

First, Marcel saw the photo, a black-and-white taken of him as a two-and-a-half-year-old boy wearing the skates and a Montreal Canadiens sweater.

“I froze,” he said.

He picked up the photo. And underneath a French-language history of Peewee hockey, the skates were tucked between the edge of the box and a book on Wayne Gretzky.

“They were wedged against Wayne Gretzky,” he said. “My buddy Wayne.”

How they got there is a bit of a mystery. Marcel said he certainly didn’t put them there. The room is a dining area and conference room, and is filled with photos, posters and jerseys behind glass on the wall, along with shelves of merchandise. People are encouraged to pick things up, and Marcel figures someone might have innocently picked up the skates to look at them, walked around the room a bit and casually dropped them in the box.

Marcel said he’s happy he found the skates and is prepared for any flack he may receive for saying he thought they were stolen. He, too, was overwhelmed by the response and concern — a friend of his who runs a restaurant in Buffalo put up a $10,000 reward.

“I didn’t lose my dog,” he said, adding the support was touching.

Though she’s going to have to tell the thousands of people who expressed their concern through the diner’s Facebook page the skates were never stolen, Lisa said the ordeal was worth it.

“It was a wave of love,” she said. “I wouldn’t change anything.”