My Own Stairway To Heaven.

Long before I shared season tickets I was always trying to figure out a way to get myself into Maple Leaf Gardens to watch the Leafs for free. I remember the one time my friend and I wanted to watch a Saturday night Montreal and Toronto game. We were probably both about thirteen years old and we had no money for tickets. I had heard that the Gardens were always looking for kids to work as vendors and sell snacks before the game and during the intermissions.

We took the subway down early and we were both hired.

After explaining what we had to do and the whole procedure of being a vendor we were each given a big basket with Cokes, popcorn, peanuts and candy bars to sell. Right away my friend and I ditched our baskets under a stairwell and ran up to the very narrow end reds standing room area. We just remained standing there waiting for the game to start thinking we were both so smart. We had just gotten ourselves in to watch a Saturday night Leafs and Habs game for free.

Within a few minutes someone wearing a suit with a Walkie-Talkie who worked at the Gardens asked us what we thought we were doing there. We simply told him that we were there early because we were reserving our standing room spot for the game.

BUSTED!!

The Gardens had not yet even opened the doors to the public and we were both escorted out the back door and onto Wood Street. By the time I got home that night I missed most of the game.

Oh well I guess we weren't as smart as I thought we were.

Wood Street is the backstreet right behind Maple Leaf Gardens. On days during the hockey season when the Leafs are at home, coaches and a few players would always park their cars along the Gardens back wall for morning practice. By early afternoons on game days, large mobile studio trucks took over the entire area for the complete length just outside the Gardens north end wall.

Electrical cables covered with boards were strewn along the sidewalk. On Saturday nights and playoff games it would be the CBC Hockey Night In Canada trucks that took up most of the space. For most weekday game nights it would usually be a contracted company that would provide the video feed for the likes of TSN or a network in the States.

The networks would have their own commentators and play-by-play crews inside the Gardens. The game video, replays and interviews were controlled outside on Wood Street by an army of technicians flipping switches inside the large mobile studios. On warmer nights usually in the fall or spring you could glance inside through an open door and view the mission control like atmosphere.

The majority of times I went to the Gardens I entered through the Wood Street west entrance after my fifteen minute walk from the free Queen's Park press gallery parking lot. For me the Wood Street west doors were by far the easiest, fastest and less crowded way to enter the Gardens.

Once inside the only escalators were narrow, crowded and were only easily accessible for fans entering through the main entrance on Carlton Street. I would have had to walk down the length of the Gardens while weaving my way through the gold section cramped and crowded corridor. The very narrow corridor was always crowded with fans just milling about. Many first time visitors would be staring up at all the old vintage black and white photos on the walls. I would then have to slowly inch my way onto two single step skinny escalators and be slowly transported up to the grey sections. This little jaunt would easily add at least ten minutes before I could expect to be in my seat or close to it. Instead I always ran up the six flights of stairs just inside the Wood Street west doors. I never walked; I always ran taking two and sometimes three steps at a time.

On many occasions I clocked the time from when I entered the Gardens until I was actually at my seat. On a good night it would take me less than a minute. I always thought of my climb up the wide grey concrete staircases to my grey seat at the Gardens as my own little stairway to heaven. My heart would be pounding once I reached my seat and depending on the time when I arrived, I would always try to catch most of the pregame skate.

I loved watching the pregame warmups with the rock music blaring. It always fascinated me watching how effortlessly the players seemed to shoot the puck. I always said that if I was ever granted three wishes from a genie inside a bottle, one of my wishes would be to shoot a puck like the pros. Players shooting pucks at the same time past the hapless goalie standing in the net like a pylon. Many pucks would hit the crossbars and deflect into the seats at either end only to be scooped up by young fans eager for a real game memento. Kids standing around the benches would be leaning over the boards trying to catch a player’s attention hoping to get as many signatures as possible on their replica white home jerseys.

Seriously, on many nights the pregame warmups were far more entertaining than the actual game itself.

Once the horn blew the players gradually exited to their dressing rooms. A crew would come out and pick up the pucks and scrape along the dashers at the bottom of the boards while the Zamboni would flood the ice before the game. At this time I would usually go back out into the corridor to buy a coffee which was at its freshest prior to the game. Long-time fans knew never to buy a Gardens hot dog until well into the first intermission. Rumour had it that any hot dogs that were not sold from a previous game or event were just heated up again and sold early at the next home game.

The northwest stairwells also provided me the opportunity to watch Don Cherry on Coaches Corner during the first intermission on Saturday nights. I would run down the stairs to the main level and watch the little television suspended from the ceiling just inside the Wood Street west doors. By far this area was the least crowded spot to watch Coaches Corner at the Gardens. Other than watching Coaches Corner, I never really made any effort to watch the intermissions even though there were televisions on all the levels. The corridors were just too crowded, noisy and there would be so many fans just trying to get into the washrooms. Guys lucky enough just to walk in take a quick piss then walk out. Women unlucky to be waiting in a line up stretching well into the corridor sometime lasting the complete fifteen minute intermission.

There would be so many fans trying to watch the intermissions with their heads kinked awkwardly upward glaring at the small television sets. Only those who stood right under the televisions were able to hear anything. There would be other fans lining up to use the payphones stationed right under the televisions. All would have the phone in one ear and a finger in the other ear struggling to hear anything on the other end.

Concession line ups were always long with workers using scraps of cardboard to tally up totals. I never saw a cash register or even a calculator to make their jobs a little easier. After decades the Ontario laws were finally changed and the Gardens was now able to sell beer and glasses of wine during the games. Naturally that just added to the congestion as the mobile beer carts were strategically positioned in the already crowded corridors.

For me, intermissions at the Gardens were best spent just sitting in my seat and standing up for an occasional stretch. I would be listening to the Gardens organist Jimmy Holmstrom and talking with whoever was sitting beside me in seat seven that night.

After the games, I always walked down my stairway to heaven and out the same Wood Street west doors that I had entered. I always walked right across the street to avoid being hit by a water balloon. Water balloons would occasionally be thrown by guests from the balconies of the Carlton Inn right beside the Gardens. Although water balloons were not a real threat it happened maybe a handful of times over the years, but I do remember being hit just once and I got soaking wet.

For that reason, I always crossed Wood Street once I walked outside the Gardens and I always ran up my stairway to heaven when I walked inside the Gardens.