Hope and Heartbreak in Toronto. Peter Robinson

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.

      Ask any NHL player who grew up in Ontario and even beyond where his favourite place to play was and virtually every single one would give you a simple two-word answer: the Gardens. Even Wayne Gretzky stated so time and time again.

      We now know, sadly, of the shocking acts going on down at the intersection of Church and Carlton. Almost a hundred boys were sexually abused there by a small group of Gardens staff members. When the abuse came to light in 1997 shortly before the arena closed its doors, the revelation stained its legacy. Reconciling those horrible crimes with the dreams of my youth was not easy, and the situation certainly did give me pause to reconsider. But over time the disgust faded away and I, like so many others, have rediscovered the feeling of growing up in awe of the place. Even now, when I walk the short distance from the intersection of College and Yonge, where the street straightens out and gives way to Carlton, I get chills as the Gardens comes into view.

      Game 5 of the 1993 NHL Campbell Conference final between the Leafs and Los Angeles Kings, played at the Gardens on May 25, was the second-best sporting event I have ever witnessed live. The only game that possibly surpasses it for excitement was the gold medal final at the Vancouver Olympics between Canada and the U.S., February 28, 2010. I think I’m just forcing myself to believe that the Olympic final was more exciting because the stakes in the Canada–U.S. game were much, much higher. As important as any NHL conference final is, neither the Leafs nor Kings were going home series winners after Game 5 back in 1993. Also, two conference finals take place every year. That description may make it sound run-of-the-mill, but I would argue the 1993 example is the most memorable hockey game to take place in Toronto in modern hockey history — because the Leafs won. Four nights later Gretzky came back and quashed the dreams of the fans and the team that he grew up watching. Game 7 was far more important, but it all ended so badly.

      With the sixth contest set for Los Angeles two days later, Game 5 was a virtual must-win for the Leafs. The night started with the crowd cheering as they were informed that Mark Osborne had been scratched from the Leafs lineup. Osborne, one-third of the so-called B-O-Z line that also included Bill Berg and the late Peter Zezel, had some issues scoring goals that post-season even though Zezel had set him up with