The Special Ticket Office.

Over the years I have been asked many times as to why it cost me so much money to attend the final game at Maple Leaf Gardens. Afterall, I was sharing Leafs season tickets back then.

True, I did indeed share season tickets, but we had lost that privilege just before the start of the 1998-99 season, the Leafs final season at the Gardens. After it was all said and done, attending the final game at the Gardens was a very expensive evening. For me to be inside the Gardens for that final game ended up costing me just over two thousand bucks.

I had been sharing season tickets with two other friends, Jim and Paul. Jim and I originally began sharing the tickets at the start of the 1983-84 season. Jim’s girlfriend at the time was Donna. Donna's grandfather who had been a Leafs season ticket holder passed away. Because no one liked hockey in Donna’s family, Jim took over using the tickets although they still remained in the original family's name.

Once I sat in the seats for the first time, I immediately committed to sharing the tickets with Jim. The waiting list for season tickets was well over a decade long wait and the Gardens had complete control over who got tickets. Jim and Donna eventually broke up, but thankfully they still remained friends. I always worried that if they had a nasty breakup then my sharing Leaf tickets with Jim and Paul would be over for good. I know it sounds a bit selfish, but I always wished Jim and Donna would have just gotten married. Jim would have always had the tickets, but then again who knows how long I would have shared the seats with him for.

One thing I know for sure, we would have been sitting in our center ice, front row grey seats for the final game on February 13th, 1999.

Anyways, it was not meant to be.

The 1997-98 season would be our fifteenth and last season sharing the tickets. Actually, I am surprised that we lasted that long. Every summer the Gardens would send out the invoices to all season ticket holders for the upcoming season. For the most part, the invoices would arrive by mail in mid-June and would have to be paid in full before the end of July.

No exceptions.

The Gardens made it pretty clear that if they had not received your payment by the due date then you would forfeit your season tickets and your tickets would be then given to another fan on the seemingly never ending waiting list. Donna’s parents would always spend summers at their cottage and the last few summers they did not return home until early September. Once they returned home they would have a stack of mail to sort through and within that stack of mail would be the Gardens invoice. The same invoice that was supposed to be paid in full five weeks earlier.

Like clockwork Donna would call Jim to tell him the invoice was at her parent’s house. Once Jim picked up the invoice, he just assumed we no longer had the tickets. Jim figured Donna’s parents had lost the tickets because they had not yet paid the invoice and it was long overdue.

Hell, training camp would be starting in a week or so.

Like clockwork Jim would call me. “Hey bud I have the invoice, but I think we lost the tickets because they had to be paid for back in July.”

“If you want you can come and get it and maybe you and Paul can see what you can do.” He added.

Yes, it would now be up to both Paul and me to see what we could do.

Almost immediately and without hesitation I would meet Jim and pick up the invoice. I would then head down to Maple Leaf Gardens where Paul would already be waiting and like two seasoned actors we would rehearse our little skit. The skit where Paul and me both pretended to be the grandsons of the actual seat holder, Donna’s deceased grandfather. Paul like usual did most of the talking and our little skit went something like this. “Our grandfather spent the summer up at our family cottage and has been in very frail health. He forgot all about paying his season ticket invoice. Once he got home from the cottage, he saw the invoice in his stack of mail and he immediately sent us down here to pay for it." I would be one of the other grandsons who like Paul went to many games every season and was also a diehard Leaf fan.

After we both walked into the Gardens lobby, we made an immediate right turn. There was a narrow door with a frosted glass window, 'Special Ticket Office' was written on the window in gold lettering. We both went inside the door and walked up a narrow staircase. At the top we were greeted by a woman who would be sitting behind one of the two clear glass ticket wicket windows. Each September our story was the exact same and the only thing that was different would be the woman who we told the story to. We never dealt with the same woman twice, which was a good thing for us because we sure as hell didn’t want her remembering us from the previous year and then telling us to get lost.

I remember there was a large framed seating chart of Maple Leaf Gardens on a wall up in the office. Every single seat was a tiny little box and every seat was on the chart. There were 16,182 tiny boxes on the chart and for whatever reason looking at that seating chart always fascinated me.

I studied it every time I was up in the Special Ticket Office.

Although we shared the tickets for fifteen seasons, most summers Donna would always call Jim in July and we would always have the invoice stamped paid in full well before the due date. It had only been the last few years that Donna’s parents began extending their cottage stay until the end of the summer. Although it seemed like it was a lot more often, Paul and I made a total of three maybe four visits to the 'Special Ticket Office'.

Our final visit was by far the most memorable one.

After Paul had told the same annual ritual story, the woman told us that there was nothing she could do. She told us that our grandfather had lost the tickets. Paul and I were both visibly upset, but once again she told us there was nothing she could do.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

Paul and I literally got on our knees and began to beg for our tickets back. I actually thought I was going to cry, the thought of losing the tickets after so many seasons made me want to weep openly. There was just something odd about the woman’s demeanor on that day. It made me think that she was relishing in the fact she was making two grown men beg for hockey tickets. After a few minutes of our nonsense, she told us to get up off our knees and stand up.

She told us that since our grandfather had been a season ticket holder since the Gardens opened in 1931, she would be making an exception for this year. She told us that she would also be making a note in our file and should we try to pull the same stunt ever again, there would be no second chances. She took the money from Paul for the upcoming season and stamped the invoice paid in full. We walked out of the Gardens that Sunday afternoon a little embarrassed by the pathetic antics we had resorted to. But, we had our hockey tickets for the upcoming season and that was all we cared about.

Jim too was also very happy.

It was then that the three of us realized we could not risk this same scenario happening again the following September. Since we had already been granted a reprieve for our late payment, I knew Paul and I had visited the 'Special Ticket Office' for the last time. We all agreed that every Gardens invoices must be paid in full and on time going forward. Jim drew up a letter requesting that any further Maple Leaf Gardens correspondence be sent to Donna’s parent’s new address which would now be Jim’s home address. He signed the letter using the family's last name and mailed it to the Gardens. We all agreed it was what we needed to do to keep the tickets and the account current. We just assumed that the hockey tickets had become nothing but an afterthought for Donna’s parents anyway and they wouldn’t even miss them.

The following season would see the Leafs playing their final game at Maple Leaf Gardens in February. The Leafs would be finishing the season at their new home, The Air Canada Centre. Longtime Gardens season ticket holders would be assigned seats that were as good or even better before the move. Jim was receiving notifications in the mail to set up an appointment to pick out our new seats at the new Air Canada Centre. Our seats would no longer be front row greys, but purple seats and they would be a lot more expensive. Everything seemed to be humming right along, but there was one thing the three of us had not planned on. That summer Donna’s parents did not spend the complete summer at their cottage, they came home early.

Too early.

The stack of mail was not as large as the previous summers and right away they noticed that they had not received a Gardens invoice for the upcoming season. Donna’s mother called the Gardens; she was informed that the invoices had all been sent out a couple weeks earlier. It was the same invoice that was now sitting on Jim’s kitchen table. Donna’s mother told the Gardens she had not received it and asked the woman to double check. It was then discovered that it had been sent to their new address. Donna’s mother was furious when she realized that the new address on file was Jim’s address. She was even angrier when she realized Jim had instructed the Gardens to redirect all future mailings to his address.

Wow, talk about your best laid plans.

Unbeknownst to me, Donna’s mother told the Gardens during that phone call what had happened. She also let them know that the original ticket holder had died many years earlier. And after almost seven decades the family would now be relinquishing their subscription as a season ticket holder for the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Donna too was also pretty pissed off at Jim for what he had done. She could not understand why he wouldn’t have just explained the situation about the late payments and something could have been worked out. Jim phoned me and Paul to inform us that we had lost the tickets and this time it was for good. The three of us would no longer be sharing season tickets.

I now took it upon myself to try to get them back.

A few years prior I had heard that the Gardens was now allowing season ticket holders to sign over their tickets to another party, no questions asked. Sure enough after phoning the Gardens, I was told there indeed was a form that needed to be filled out and signed by both parties. I went down to the Gardens and picked up the form, from there I went to the bank and withdrew one thousand dollars cash. With the form and cash in hand, I drove straight to Donna’s parent’s house in the High Park area of Toronto.

It was late afternoon when I pulled into their driveway. I knocked at the side door and within a minute Donna’s mother came to the door. After introducing myself as a friend of Jim, I explained how I had shared her family’s season tickets with Jim for the previous fifteen seasons. I told her I understood why she was so upset and I didn’t want to lose the privilege of using their tickets. I told her that sharing the tickets was a big part of my life and I loved going to Leaf games.

I am sure I must have reeked of desperation on that afternoon.

I showed Donna’s mother the form I had brought with me from the Gardens. I explained that if she signed the form the tickets would now become mine. I sensed right away she was not too eager to sign the tickets over to me. However, I still had what I thought was an ace up my sleeve. I then told her I was prepared to pay her $1000 cash on the spot if she signed the form. I thought for sure that would seal the deal and within minutes I would be walking away with my own season tickets. The same tickets I had shared for the previous fifteen years.

I was dead wrong and Donna’s mother was still angry with Jim. She told me she would rather give up the tickets to total strangers than have Jim or any of his friends ever use them again. She then shut the door in my face like I was a Jehovah’s Witness standing there with a Watchtower in my hand.

Seriously, was she actually telling me that she would rather forgo a thousand bucks cash from a total stranger to let another total stranger have her tickets for nothing?

Yep, that was exactly what she was telling me.

Are you fuck’n kidding me?

On my way home, I remember thinking that my life as I knew it was now over. I told Jim I had gone to Donna’s mother’s house and offered her money in exchange for her signing the tickets over to me. I told Jim that had I gotten those tickets in my name, they still would have been all of our tickets. Jim told me that Donna's mother had already given up the tickets the week before I showed up to bribe her with my thousand bucks. I had wasted my time, Donna's mother no longer even had the tickets when I showed up at her house that afternoon.

The truth is once the following season began and with each passing game, I missed not going a lot less. After the Leafs moved over to the Air Canada Centre, ticket prices began to soar as the implementation of seat licensing became the norm for season ticket holders.

So yes, the final game at Maple Leaf Gardens did indeed end up costing me a small fortune. But, I would have spent an even bigger, ongoing and never ending fortune had Donna’s mother signed that form.

Maybe it was a blessing in disguise.

Then again, maybe not.