My Last Game At Maple Leaf Gardens.

It is hard to believe as I write this story that it has been over two decades since I last walked within hockey’s greatest shrine, Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. It was back on February 13th 1999 when the Toronto Maple Leafs played their final game in what had been their home since 1931.

I had attended Maple Leaf Gardens literally hundreds of times over the previous four decades. I had seen everything from the Maple Leafs, the Marlies and Toronto Toros home games to Bjorn Borg tennis matches. I went to a few Barnum & Bailey three ring circuses, dozens of rock concerts and a couple religious assemblies. I have seen the Harlem Globetrotters along with the Ice Capades and Ice Follies. My first date was a New Year's Eve Rush concert inside the Vatican of the hockey world. Now sadly the Gardens would be closing the doors for good after one final game against the Chicago Blackhawks.

After fifteen years I was no longer sharing season tickets so I now had to find another way to be at the historic final game. It was sure to be the hottest ticket in town that year with all the planned festivities leading up to the big game. It would also be attracting the attention of millions of people who had visited the building during it's almost seventy years of existence. Just over sixteen thousand fans would witness that final game live and in person and there was never a shadow of doubt in my mind that I would be one of them.

The Gardens is, was and always will be the Mecca of the hockey world. Sure there will be arguments from La Belle Province as to the supremacy of the Gardens over the old Montreal Forum. The Gardens was the venue where Foster Hewitt broadcast Saturday night games from an era when radio was the only link to professional hockey and Canada’s team. Canada’s team was always the Toronto Maple Leafs and Canada’s team home arena was Maple Leaf Gardens.

My mission would be to find a person willing to part with their tickets very early. I would be making them an offer that they could not refuse and it was early September when I put the word out that I was looking to buy four tickets.

Within a couple weeks I got a call.

Dennis the garage owner who did all the maintenance on my ice cream truck told me he had a friend who had four reds less than a dozen rows from the ice. He said that he would be willing to part with them if the price was right. Without any hesitation I immediately offered him $3000 cash for his four tickets which was almost ten times the $320 face value. I told him that would be my only offer and he could take it or leave it.

He took it.

We agreed we would meet the following week at the garage, our deal went down just as we planned. I happily left with four prime red seats for the final game at Maple Leaf Gardens still four months away. My plan was to put the four tickets in a safe place and then within a month or so before the big game I would advertise one pair for sale in the Toronto Star. I would be asking $3000 for the pair and once they sold then my two tickets would end up costing me nothing other than my advertising cost.

Time quickly passed and before I knew it I was getting calls from many fans looking to be part of history. I got too many lowball offers and my best offer was $2800 from a lady up in North Bay wanting to surprise her husband on his birthday. I declined her offer holding out for my three g-note asking price instead. I should have taken her great offer, but once again my stupidity would end up costing me big time.

The historic day finally arrived and the city was all abuzz with everything going on that day from Carlton Street. The street was blocked off from traffic and huge party tents were erected right on Church Street. It was a beautiful sunny day although I remember it was very cold when I left my Mississauga house at 9 am. I headed out that early so I could pick up a case of programs. I needed to get as many as I possibly could because I knew they would be the supreme collector's item. I would also be attempting to sell the extra pair of tickets I still had not sold on the street. I was also looking forward to just spending one last day with the Grand Ole Lady on Carlton Street.

After parking my car I arrived at the Gardens main foyer at about 10 am. There were literally hundreds of people already hanging out on the street and programs were the main focus of my attention. I had well over three hundred dollars cash to purchase programs for the many friends who had also requested this once in a lifetime souvenir.

“Sorry, only one program per person.” I was told when I asked for one sealed case of thirty programs.

What to do now? 

I went out on to Carlton Street and summoned the help of a Chinese family who just happened to be walking by. They could barely understand English, but I was able to convince the group of five to each come back into the Gardens foyer with me. They agreed to each buy me a program after I told them I would give them twenty bucks for their trouble. Within a couple hours all the programs were completely sold out and there weren't any programs left for the fans who would be attending the game in about eight hours. It took me a bit of effort, but I was able to get ten of the individually numbered mementos for myself. I then quickly ran back to my car and hid them in my trunk before running back over to Carlton Street.

It was now close to noon and the sun was shining bright, but it was still very cold. I perched myself on the sunny north side of the street about a hundred feet from the subway exit. The crowd on the street was now slowly starting to build and there were the usual familiar scalpers also on the street selling tickets. From what I could gather my two reds, ten rows from the ice were by far the best seats on the street for sale.

“Who needs a pair?” I began barking out loudly as passing fans started to arrive early for that evening's momentous event. Many fans stopped and asked where my seats were, but once I requested my now reduced price of $2000 they just kept on walking. Finally, I got a break from a guy who had told me earlier that my tickets were too expensive. He now held out his hand which contained a big wad of cash. He was looking to make a deal so we headed across the street over to the Coffee Time. While walking across the streetcar tracks I asked him if he was a cop and he told me he was not. I then asked him for his wallet. He handed me his wallet, I looked inside and there was no badge.

We grabbed a table in the coffee shop and I asked him how he wanted his coffee. I returned with our two coffees and also laid the pair of tickets on the table. He then stood up and pulled out another wallet with his police badge inside and told me that he was charging me with ticket speculation or ‘scalping’.

Busted! 

I asked him how he could charge me after I had just bought him a coffee. He then tossed a loonie on the table. 

“You didn’t buy me a coffee,” he said.

Actually, that cop gave me a huge break by not taking the tickets off the table and confiscating the pair he knew I was using for myself that night. However, he told me that if he saw me on the street again before game time he would take all my tickets and arrest my sorry ass. He also warned me that there were a half dozen undercover cops on the street strolling around the Gardens that day. He wrote me a ticket and said I would have to go to court where I would probably be fined.

Whatever.

I ran out of the coffee shop and over to Wood Street, the street directly behind the Gardens. I was walking briskly on Wood Street when I was approached by another guy who actually looked like he was a cop. He asked me if I still had my pair of reds for sale. I told him to get lost and that I had just been busted by one of his buddies and I was not talking to any more cops.

And yes, I still had those tickets that I now more than ever desperately needed to sell ASAP.

After failing to convince me he was not a cop, I told him that we can both walk over to Yonge Street where he will spread eagle against the Shoppers Drug Mart wall. I will then frisk him for a badge, a ticket book or even a gun, anything to prove he was a cop. He agreed, but he also told me that he had only a $1000 and that was all he was willing to spend. It was now close to four in the afternoon and his one thousand bucks was looking pretty good right about then. 

I knew I could not risk being caught by another undercover cop again and getting arrested. I still was not convinced as I ran my hands up and down his body looking for any clue as to the true identity of this total stranger. Much to the amazement of many shoppers just walking by on Yonge Street that afternoon. I am sure to many of them I appeared to be an undercover cop apprehending a shoplifter.

Still not convinced I told we would walk over to the Pizzaville across the street and he could order me a veggie slice. I told him to leave his thousand bucks under the slice at the end of the counter. I would order him a pepperoni slice and leave the tickets under his slice at the other end of the counter, still refusing any physical transaction. And that was how I finally sold my extra pair of reds albeit at a third of my original asking price.

The final score of the game was 6-2 in favour of the Blackhawks. The festivities were so memorable as the Leafs tried to equal the final game celebrations from the Montreal Forum. I think every living player that had ever played for the Leafs was paraded out onto the ice that night with one big exception, Dave Keon. My favourite all-time Leaf Borje Salming even made the trip from Sweden. It was great to see all the old players who at one time they had all worn the blue and white. So many great memories were relived for everyone in attendance on that night. 

Former Leaf Captain Doug Gilmour who now played for Chicago even participated in all the hoopla. The game was secondary for me that night; I never really even cared about the actual game. For me what was most important was being in the building that housed so much nostalgia and memories. It was so important for me to be there at the final farewell; to say I was in attendance the night Maple Leaf Gardens closed its doors for good. 

I had taken a homemade sign to the game that night, only the second time I could ever remember doing that. It simply read “HOCKEY IS MY RELIGION AND I'M IN CHURCH” I appeared the following day in a coloured crowd shot proudly holding my sign in the National Post. The Reuters news agency had also photographed me. After asking my permission for the picture's release, the photo was picked up by papers from all around the world the next day.

I'm guessing that would be my fifteen minutes of fame.

After the game I made one final gesture, my final farewell to the Vatican of the hockey world. I had been sitting in the west reds; I walked up and over to section seventy in the west greens. The crowds had now dispersed and no one remained, not even the ushers. I walked down the staircase to the first row where I turned around and walked back up. Once at the top I turned, I took one last photographic memory etched in my mind for the rest of my life. The lights were not as bright and I had a tear in my eye, I was the final fan to leave Maple Leaf Gardens on that final game night.

That will forever be my story and I am forever sticking to it.

I saluted my last goodbye as I reached up to touch the railing of the greys section ninety. The railing was within an arm’s length from where I now stood at the back row of section seventy. It had been the railing that I had leaned on for fifteen years when I shared season tickets. The railing I had slammed in disgust after so many Leaf losses. The railing I pretended was my organ while trying to keep up with hundreds of intermission interludes.

I had now gone full circle since my first game 9850 days earlier on February 26th 1972 when I sat in that same green section seventy. I walked back out onto the concourse, down the narrow escalator and past the Ford car on display. I walked out the front doors of Maple Leaf Gardens and onto Carlton Street for the final time. 

I never went back inside and I never will.

The following week the festivities switched over to the Leafs new home, The Air Canada Centre where I have attended many games and other events over the last couple decades. I have never left the ACC with the same hard to describe feeling that I always felt when I left Maple Leaf Gardens. It is hard to put my finger on the exact reason as to why I have such fondness for that old building on Carlton Street. But even after so much time has and will continue to pass, I still have such vivid memories of my first game, my final game and so many other games in between. There were just so many games that had me leaving the Gardens with either a smile or a frown on my face.

Being a diehard Leaf fan all my life, I am pretty sure that the frowns outnumbered the smiles by at least three to one.

It would be a pretty safe bet that I frowned a lot more than I smiled when I went to my church.