The CN Tower will alight in favour of the Toronto Maple Leafs this postseason, but Leafs fan Scotty Booth has not been granted his wish.
“My goal is not to light up the tower; it’s to turn it into a goal light,” Booth said Wednesday. “I was already assuming they were going to light it up blue or something. I’m sure lots of things in the city will be lit up blue as well.”
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CN Tower p.r. announced Wednesday on Twitter that Canada’s largest freestanding structure will glow blue for every Leafs playoff game in support of Toronto’s hockey club, which ended the NHL’s longest active playoff drought by qualifying for the postseason for the first time since 2004.
Booth, a Toronto marketing grad and proud member of Leafs Nation, started a petition on the weekend to convince the CN Tower and Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment to turn the national monument into the world’s tallest goal light whenever the Leafs scored a goal in the playoffs. By Wednesday afternoon, he had gathered nearly 15,000 signatures towards his goal of 50,000.
Momentum swelled early in the week as several news outlets reported the story, and on Tuesday Leafs star Nazem Kadri announced his support for Booth’s idea:
“There are lots of fans that have made it known that they want this to happen. (CN Tower officials) saying no hopefully upsets those people and pushes this petition even further,” Booth said.
“Goal lights aren’t blue; they’re red. But more important than their colour is their significance. They alert the crowd to start celebrating, they recognize the hard work it takes to put a puck in the net, and did I mention they are red?” Booth added. “I like the CN Tower’s idea to turn it blue — it would contrast nicely with a bright red when a goal is scored.”