Section 90 Row A Seat 6.

I still remember the day like it was yesterday when a friend on my Bulls hockey team asked me if I would be interested in sharing some Leaf season tickets. 

Jim had joined my Bulls Doublerink rec team after I decided to recruit a couple new players. My friend Paul who was already on the team brought Jim out insisting that he could help the team. Jim was not a very good hockey player, but over time he just kind of grew on me like mold on a damp basement wall and he became a good friend. Back then Jim was dating a girl named Donna who for whatever reason she always reminded me of Canadian Juno and Grammy award singer K.D. Lang. 

Anyways, Donna’s grandfather had passed away. He had been a Toronto Maple Leafs season ticket holder since the Gardens opened back in 1931. Back in the early 80's Maple Leaf Gardens would never allow a season ticket holder to sell or hand over the rights to their Leaf tickets. The Gardens always had complete control over who got season tickets and the waiting list was very long in excess of ten years. 

I oughta know because I was on the list.

Jim told me that nobody in Donna’s family liked hockey or the Leafs. Since Donna was dating Jim who just happened to love the Leafs, he could use the tickets without the family having to inform the Gardens that the actual ticket subscriber had passed away.

However, there was one small problem. 

Jim told me that they were grey seats, but he said they were good greys. The seats were on the front row right at center ice. At first I never wanted to commit to sharing the greys with Jim because they were often referred to as the nosebleed seats. On a few previous occasions I had sat in the upper corner greys and I never cared much of those seats. For me the greys were always a last resort just like the standing room tickets.

The first game I attended with Jim, I absolutely loved the seats. They were not just great grey seats, but they were great seats. 

Period. 

The seats were in section ninety on the west side facing the benches, row 'A', seats six and seven. My seat would be number six. They were at a perfect vantage point and had great sightlines. Also being on the front row meant we had the advantage of the railing with a bit more legroom. The seats were dead center and were directly under the historic Gondola where Foster Hewitt, Bill Hewitt, and now Bob Cole called the play-by-play to Leaf fans right across Canada. The grey seats were also cheaper by almost half the price than the seats directly in front of us, the back row of the greens. For the most part the greys were made up of the working class diehard Leaf fans that paid for their tickets themselves.

There was no corporate money up there.

The fans were a run-of-the-mill assortment of oddballs. From George and his referee shirt to the elderly frail sisters who attended every home game together. There was the strange little grey haired lady who for years sat behind me and always had an empty seat beside her. We later found out it was reserved for her husband who had passed away ten years earlier. There was the elderly lady who sat on our row and who was always munching on snacks. She had apparently attended every game at the Gardens since it opened. The couple beside us that always showed up with subs and cans of pop who we dubbed the picnic people. Greg the punk rocker hairdresser had the lone season ticket right beside us. He loved the Rangers and his all-time favorite player was Rod Gilbert. 

When I look back at that assortment of Leaf faithful, I was proud and happy to have sat with them. I was one of them because the greys were where us real fans sat.

After a couple years of Jim and me splitting the tickets, Paul also began to share a third of the games. It only seemed natural since had it not been for Paul bringing Jim out to play with the Bulls, I would never have met Jim. When I left Collegiate Sports, Jim was hired to work at the Yorkdale store where I had worked with Paul. Perhaps if I had never left the store when I did, Jim and Paul never would have met either. 

Besides, Paul like Jim and me was also a lifelong diehard Leaf fan.

We usually got the two sheets of tickets in our hands around mid-September. The first pick for myself was always the Edmonton Oilers game and my guarantee that I was going to see Gretzky, sometimes on his one and only visit to Toronto. Jim and Paul would always choose the Montreal game since the Habs like the Oilers would only visit Toronto three times every two years.

Once all the games were divided, each of us held our own stack of upcoming Leaf triumphs and heartaches. The three of us always traded individual games amongst each other. We each kept a half dozen or so games that we could take other friends or our wives to, but for the most part two of us were in attendance at the majority of all Leaf home games. Playoff games would be a different story. If and when the Leafs were in the playoffs, two of us were always there, no exceptions. We each got an exhibition game that none of us cared for, but it was mandatory that season ticket holders pay full price for all three home exhibition games. 

We also established free parking at the Queens Park press lot. From there it was just a fifteen minute brisk walk to the Gardens back door on Wood Street. If we wanted to feel the electric atmosphere on some of the warmer game nights we would simply add an extra ten minutes to our walk. We walked down towards the always crowded Carlton Street where we entered through the main doors right under the Gardens historic marquee. On many nights when the weather was at its worst and the walk was unbearable, I can never recall ever parking in the expensive lots near the Gardens. Besides, when the games ended we were always parked far enough away that by the time we got to our cars, the postgame traffic jam had disappeared into the night. It would be just a quick jaunt down University Avenue to the Gardiner westbound.

Some of my fondest memories were the game nights driving eastbound along the busy Gardiner Expressway listening to the pregame show on the radio. The setting sun would be glistening off all the glass paneled downtown skyscrapers as we got closer to our York Street exit. The traffic was always heavy, yet it always seemed to be moving. It was as if a large asphalt conveyor belt was taking all of us Leaf fans right up to Maple Leaf Gardens.

Between the regular season and if we were lucky playoff games, it meant about thirty or so visits a season for me to the Grand Ole Lady on Carlton Street. I just loved visiting Maple Leaf Gardens. Eventually after the 1997/98 season we would lose the privilege of using the tickets. The Gardens would close its doors for good the following season on February 13, 1999.

Sharing those season tickets for fifteen years with Jim and Paul will always conjure up so many great memories. Memories that I will always cherish for the rest of my life.