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.
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