Locals remember Maple Leaf Gardens

As 15,846 spectators paid their final respects to Maple Leaf Gardens last Saturday night, two of those sitting in the “grays” made the trip from Fort Frances.
Herb Cridland, who “never missed a game” as a “subscriber” to the Leafs from 1939-69, and who still held on to his season tickets for a period when he first moved up here, watched with his son, Doug, as the Chicago Blackhawks ruined the Garden’s curtain call with a 6-2 win over the Maple Leafs.
“I was always a sports fan and I grew up in Toronto,” recalled Cridland, 69. “I wanted to go down for the last game . . . it was a fun thing to do.”
It was rumoured scalpers were asking upwards to $5,000 for a gold seat just before face-off. The Leafs also held a lottery to award the right to purchase 500 pairs of tickets in the upper level “gray” section.
Normally sold for $26.50 apiece, those seats were going at $750 a pop for Saturday’s final game.
Cridland preferred not to disclose the price they paid for their tickets in the upper level.
His most vivid Leaf memory was back in 1967–the last time the team hoisted the Stanley Cup.
“I remember I had a bet with George Armstrong here in town for $100, and it was [Leaf captain] George Armstrong who scored the third goal in a 3-1 win over Montreal,” Cridland noted.
Hugh McTaggart, an ad salesperson at the Times, has been to the Gardens about five times, most recently in 1976. While he doesn’t remember who the Leafs played that night, he vividly recalls who the opponent was during his first visit there in 1950-51–the Montreal Canadiens.
“It’s exciting,” McTaggart, a long-time Leaf fan, replied when asked about the aura of the Gardens. “There’s a feeling there almost like a shrine, if you will, that overrides the history and all the greats that played there.”
Ironically, the Leafs opened play in the Gardens on Nov. 12, 1931 with a 2-1 loss to the Blackhawks. Back then, the $1.5-million building was the pride of Toronto.
But starting this Saturday against the Montreal Canadiens, the Leafs will call the majestic, state-of-the-art Air Canada Centre their new home.
With 18,700 seats for hockey, and 19,500 for basketball’s Raptors, the new $300-million arena will offer athletes many of the amenities the Gardens could not. But few feel it will ever overtake the sense of atmosphere that inhabited the Gardens.
There was a special aura about Maple Leaf Gardens–where legends of the game took to the ice over its 68-year, 2,533-game history. It was the last of the “original six” arenas, with fans already having bid adieu to Chicago Stadium, the Boston Gardens, and Montreal Forum in the last three years.
And Maple Leaf Gardens was a welcomed site for Fort Frances native Mike Allison, who scored a hat trick there in just his second NHL game with the New York Rangers.
He never again scored three goals in an NHL game.
“I have special memories for my first game there in my rookie year,” recalled Allison, who also played for the Leafs in the mid-’80s. “My parents had come down from Fort Frances, I had a hat trick, and I thought I was on top of the world.
“There’s no doubt it holds a special place for all the kids from Ontario,” he added.