Читать книгу Hope and Heartbreak in Toronto - Peter Robinson - Страница 8

May 25, 1993

I can still hear the click of the Ticketmaster machine. And I remember the date: the morning of May 25, 1993. I had just finished an overnight shift working on the cleaning crew at the Honda plant in Alliston, Ontario. Dropped off at home by the contractor who drove us to work each day, I rushed in, grabbed my bike, and made a beeline for the Kozlov Centre, the main ticket outlet in my hometown of Barrie, Ontario.

Back in the days before Internet searching and even before the wristband policy that helped regulate crowds trying to get sports and concert tickets, it was possible to try your luck simply by lining up. It was completely hit and miss, of course, and during that glorious Leafs playoff run that spring there were times when not a single person of the dozens who lined up early each morning was getting a ticket.

For some reason the line was moving on the morning of Game 5 of the Campbell Conference Final. The rhythmic clicking of the machine spitting out tickets continued as I neared the front of the line. Every ticket that was being issued was decidedly low-end: high greys, standing room — the bottom of the barrel, seating-wise. With a limit of two each, my friend in front of me landed a pair. Then it was my turn.

I got the last ticket, a grey in the second-to-last row of the Gardens. I know it was the last one on offer because as the machine tried to punch out a second one it stopped with the ticket still half inside the machine.

“I’m sorry,” said the agent.

I didn’t care. I was going to the Gardens that night. The second ticket that sat stuck in the machine had been earmarked for anyone I could find who was willing to pony up, as I recall, $40 for the seat. I would be sitting alone, but I had a seat and a ride down to Toronto with my friend who had secured the pair in front of me.

That spring in the Toronto area was unlike anything anyone could have imagined even six months earlier. It was the first prolonged playoff run by the Leafs in fifteen years and a by-product of the hiring of Pat Burns as coach and one of the most lopsided trades in the history of the NHL. Doug Gilmour and a collection of other players, including defenceman Jamie Macoun and role player Kent Manderville, had come to Toronto from the Calgary Flames for Gary Leeman and spare parts.

I had an odd perspective on the trade because the Calgary general manager at the time was Doug Risebrough. Risebrough’s late mother and my father were brother and sister, making us first cousins. Though we were separated in age by almost two decades, his playing career with the Montreal Canadiens and later with the Flames provided a happy sidelight to my obsession with hockey, both playing and watching it, while growing up. I don’t profess to know Risebrough — I’ve had no more than ten meaningful conversations with him in my life. The one enduring memory I have of his days with the 1970s Canadiens dynasty is playing checkers with our shared grandmother and great-grandmother in their home in Collingwood, Ontario, because a photo of him with the Stanley Cup always hung nearby in the kitchen. But many people knew of the connection, and it always meant my buddies asked about him when I was a really young kid growing up. After Risebrough had won four Stanley Cups with the Canadiens as a player, my friends and I were a bit older and the family connection with a real-life NHL player basically lost its appeal.

However, not long after Gilmour came to Toronto it was obvious that the old silver fox, Cliff Fletcher, the former Flames GM, had fleeced his protégé, Risebrough, in the trade. Suddenly anyone who had vague memories of us being cousins had an opinion on Risebrough, and often not a flattering one. I defended Risebrough, though I’ve since learned to keep my mouth shut around people from Calgary.

Doug Gilmour’s trade to Toronto in 1992 was the single biggest event to reverse the damage of the Harold Ballard era, which had ended two years earlier.

Courtesy of Graig Abel.

Deep down, of course, I was giddy that Gilmour was lighting it up in Toronto.

Leeman, on the other hand, struggled in Calgary playing under defence-orientated Flames coach Dave King and he was unable to replicate the splendid offensive form he had shown in Toronto.[1]

Gilmour was a catalyst, scoring 127 points during the regular season, a Leafs record that will likely never be broken. Though it’s always difficult to compare accomplishments across different sports and eras, Gilmour’s Hart Trophy nomination and his Selke Trophy win from that season could be the best performance by a Toronto athlete in modern times.

Beyond Gilmour, the guidance of Burns, and an impressive supporting cast led by Wendel Clark and others, most notably fifty-goal man Dave Andreychuk, who had been acquired by Fletcher in his various wheelings and dealings, the Leafs were suddenly a very good team. Deep down the middle, with a solid defence, playing in front of a very capable young goaltender in Felix Potvin, in the space of a year the Leafs had gone from being also-rans trying to shake off the doldrums of the Harold Ballard era to a legitimate Stanley Cup contender.

I’ve never forgotten the sudden transformation, and I even think that the quick 1993 reversal still plays a role in how Leafs fans of today think that a turnaround is possible in the space of a few weeks; because it felt like back then, that the team became Cup contenders almost overnight.

Seven-game wins over Detroit (a massive upset) and St. Louis set up a series with the Wayne Gretzky–led Los Angeles Kings, a matchup that even non-Toronto fans and media have acknowledged as being one of the best played in the post-expansion-era NHL. Say what you want about over-the-top Hogtown hubris, every hockey fan should have the opportunity to experience two weeks like those that took place in late May in Toronto in ’93.

With the teams having split the first four games, the critical fifth contest would go a long way in determining who would win the series. I was in possession of a single ticket that was burning a hole in my hand. A call in to work begging off sick was made, a short nap followed, and then I was on my way to Maple Leaf Gardens.

The 1993 playoff series against the St. Louis Blues was the demarcation line signalling a new era of fan excitement in Toronto. Looking back, it also illustrates the genuine enthusiasm of the crowd that has been lost in the move to the Air Canada Centre.

Courtesy of Graig Abel.

Maple Leaf Gardens is now a grocery store. People rave about how functional a space it is as shoppers buy their groceries amidst telltale indicators of the place’s previous incarnation. I can’t bring myself to visit, because the idea of it being a retail space is just as offensive as the Montreal Forum now being a cinema. I eventually will take a stroll around, and I plan to take my son in much the same way my own father took me for the first time to a Leafs game versus the Chicago Black Hawks on October 10, 1981. The building sits in its original location and is still recognizable for its yellow brick and the white dome that stretches skyward. Flying over Toronto, it’s possible to pick it out fairly easily, a short diagonal line just northeast of the CN Tower. Inside, the gold-red-green-grey seat configuration (with blue replacing green on the ends) is so memorable that I still recognize the colour combination when I spot it in a painting or on someone’s clothing.

Maple Leaf Gardens as it looked not long before it closed; the building is now a grocery store and recreation facility for nearby Ryerson University.

Courtesy of Graig Abel.

Sporting arenas built in the pre–Second World War years have an indelible effect on those who walk through them. It’s tough to pin down why, but it likely has something to do with the fact that people of that era lived much more simply. Even wealthy people rarely had homes that were much bigger than what a typical family has now. When a big, ornate structure was erected, especially a sports venue, people noticed and never forgot it. Churches had that effect, and they, too, inasmuch as they continue to survive, remain notable pieces of architecture. Near the Gardens, St. Michael’s Cathedral stands just south on Church Street, and the Royal York Hotel fits the bill though it lies quite a bit farther to the southwest. All three still grab the attention of passersby, so it’s not hard to imagine Toronto in the pre-war years and how much St. Mike’s, the Royal York, and the Gardens dominated the downtown. The Gardens still dominates my early hockey and childhood memories in much the same way.

The assault on the senses started as you disembarked from the subway and started to climb the stairs at College Station. It wasn’t so much the location as it was the sense of place. The scene around the Gardens was like a pagan Christmas. Street vendors, scalpers, crowds filing here and there — both those going to the game and others just hanging out — and the restaurants. PM Toronto was a nondescript eatery with little in the way of appeal, either for what was on the menu or its décor, but if you made the trip to the Gardens, getting a table at that bar just east of the Gardens was like getting an audience with the Pope.

A small sliver of the Gardens ice was always visible from the street, the goal area that the Leafs attacked twice each game, and a small area immediately in front of the net. If you stood at just the right spot on Carlton Street and peered through the various obstacles — mostly heads bobbing to and fro — you could take in the action from this vantage point.

Once the game was on, that other thing the area around the Gardens was known for started to show its face. The various prostitutes and drug dealers who worked the area to the east between Church and Jarvis would start to show up around the time of the first intermission and only temporarily move away as the hockey hordes made their way out of the building at the end of the game. Toronto’s thriving gay village started in earnest slightly north of the Gardens, though the “gaybourhood” has expanded and the building now essentially serves as its southwest border.

More than anything, the Gardens was like a cathedral of dreams. Going there was like going to a house, not necessarily of God himself, but of His creation. It’s where the Leafs played, where Wendel Clark and Darryl Sittler, all the way back to Ace Bailey, Charlie Conacher, and Busher Jackson suited up. It wasn’t a Hollywood set; it was our very own Hollywood. To go there, sit in the seats, and watch, you could feel the ghosts of those who had been there before you. If you sat and listened, you could almost hear the memories within those walls echoing. The seats, the concessions, the stairs, even the distinct urinal troughs, everything had a personality all its own. Consider these facts: When I glimpse a bag of peanut shells now, I still think of the ones I saw at the Gardens as a kid. When I was on holiday in Mexico a few years ago and room service drinks came with a removable elastic-sealed plastic top, I instantly remarked to my wife that it looked as though they had taken the idea from how the Gardens served drinks in paper cups. The Gardens has provided many such touchstones for me and others.

The Air Canada Centre may be one of North America’s best entertainment facilities, but that’s the point: it’s a facility for entertainment. The Gardens was a shrine, though it was a hockey arena, and from the second you walked through the doors you never forgot it. If someone could bottle the Gardens smell — and boy, did Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment try to take advantage of every commercial opportunity relating to Gardens’ memories when it closed — I would recognize it the second it was released into the air. I’m sure countless others could as well.

Ask any NHL player who grew up in Ontario and even beyond where his favourite place to play was and virtually every single one would give you a simple two-word answer: the Gardens. Even Wayne Gretzky stated so time and time again.

We now know, sadly, of the shocking acts going on down at the intersection of Church and Carlton. Almost a hundred boys were sexually abused there by a small group of Gardens staff members. When the abuse came to light in 1997 shortly before the arena closed its doors, the revelation stained its legacy. Reconciling those horrible crimes with the dreams of my youth was not easy, and the situation certainly did give me pause to reconsider. But over time the disgust faded away and I, like so many others, have rediscovered the feeling of growing up in awe of the place. Even now, when I walk the short distance from the intersection of College and Yonge, where the street straightens out and gives way to Carlton, I get chills as the Gardens comes into view.

Game 5 of the 1993 NHL Campbell Conference final between the Leafs and Los Angeles Kings, played at the Gardens on May 25, was the second-best sporting event I have ever witnessed live. The only game that possibly surpasses it for excitement was the gold medal final at the Vancouver Olympics between Canada and the U.S., February 28, 2010. I think I’m just forcing myself to believe that the Olympic final was more exciting because the stakes in the Canada–U.S. game were much, much higher. As important as any NHL conference final is, neither the Leafs nor Kings were going home series winners after Game 5 back in 1993. Also, two conference finals take place every year. That description may make it sound run-of-the-mill, but I would argue the 1993 example is the most memorable hockey game to take place in Toronto in modern hockey history — because the Leafs won. Four nights later Gretzky came back and quashed the dreams of the fans and the team that he grew up watching. Game 7 was far more important, but it all ended so badly.

With the sixth contest set for Los Angeles two days later, Game 5 was a virtual must-win for the Leafs. The night started with the crowd cheering as they were informed that Mark Osborne had been scratched from the Leafs lineup. Osborne, one-third of the so-called B-O-Z line that also included Bill Berg and the late Peter Zezel, had some issues scoring goals that post-season even though Zezel had set him up with dozens of glorious chances. The guy sitting next to me that night — and if he said it once he said it a million times — thought that had Osborne been able to convert half his scoring chances, the Leafs would have already won the series in a sweep. Osborne was scratched because his wife had given birth; Kent Manderville had taken his place. These days, Osborne is a frequent presence on Leafs TV telecasts, and though I think he was a decent NHL player, every time I see him on the Leafs TV set near the ACC west escalator, I think of that long-ago night when Leafs fans cheered his omission from the lineup.

Just before the puck drop, I ran into no less a figure than Gary Bettman as I was about to ascend the Gardens escalators to my assigned seat. I had just read a fairly positive review in The Hockey News that day about Bettman’s first hundred days on the job as NHL commissioner. Like the review, I believed that Bettman had done a good job, and, giddy in the excitement of the moment, I shook his hand and congratulated him. Bettman sheepishly thanked me but looked as if he thought I was not in complete control of all my mental faculties (I swear, I was). To this day, my friends, a few of whom are conspiracy types who believe Bettman is somehow out to get Canadian hockey fans, won’t let me forget doing it.

The game is both a blur and an event where even marginal details remain burned into my mind. Both men are no longer with us, but I can still see the mullets of Leafs coach Pat Burns and Peter Zezel swaying in the wind as though they are both very much alive. Even less glamorous Leafs such as Mike Krushelnyski are embedded in my brain. That same guy beside me — the Osborne fan — had hung the unofficial nickname of “Casual Cruiser” on Krushelnyski in some sort of backhanded nod to his effortless skating ability. And it was true: Krushelnyski’s cruising up and down his wing is one of the details that a setting such as the Gardens framed so perfectly. I saw Krushelnyski play in an NHL old-timers game in Barrie almost two decades later, and I instantly recognized that fluid stride the moment I saw it — it hadn’t changed a bit since he played at the Gardens that night, even if the man himself was older and greyer.

If the same game took place at Air Canada Centre, or any of the other leading arenas of the present-day NHL, it wouldn’t have matched the atmosphere that night in the Gardens. I was sitting in one of the last rows of the building and it was as if I could reach out and touch Glenn Anderson when he swatted in the winning goal out of mid-air. The dome almost flew off the Gardens. With nowhere for the sound to go but bounce right back at you, the noise was paralyzing and liberating all at the same time. The Leafs had one step to go before a dream Stanley Cup final with the Montreal Canadiens. The air around the Gardens that night was so thick with excitement, you could taste it. But a guy in zebra stripes with bad hair poured hemlock into the Leafs cup of dreams. The bitter aftertaste still stings.