They were happy. So happy. The sun was shining a brilliant May gleam, catching the light of the surrounding glass towers just so.
What the crowd inside the Air Canada Centre would be like on this night of all nights was never in doubt. They streamed into the building honouring Darryl and Wendel and Lanny and Dougie and Mats and Tie — heroes of the recent and not-so-recent past, as well as their heirs — Phil and Joffery and Dion.
The Leafs were in the playoffs, finally, hosting a home game for the first time since May 4th, 2004 when they lost 3-2 in overtime to the Philadelphia Flyers in Game 6, eliminating them in the second round. It had been nine years. You knew the faithful would be in full throat, and they were, with the first chants of Go-Leafs-Go starting early in the pre-game warmup.
But it was what was happening outside the ACC that better captured what the biggest, richest and most deprived hockey market on the planet was missing all these years.
Maple Leaf Square was the brainchild of former MLSE president Richard Peddie. Putting up a massive television screen outside the ACC was a way to bring the exclusive experience inside the arena to the people. That it might one day be Ground Zero for Toronto’s own spontaneous Stanley Cup celebration (and let’s face it, a riot, should things tip that way) was but a distant dream.
Yet it never seemed more real as the first playoff game in half a generation finally lit up the big screen and the people came in droves, armed with their passion, if not a ticket. The Go-Leafs-Go chants in the warmup may have been louder outside the building than they were inside.
Jo Sevier and Merlaine Fox got the Go Train from Port Perry, east of Toronto just after lunch in order to make it to downtown Toronto in time for an early dinner. But they were too late. Even though they arrived hoping to line up into the smaller, licensed area to watch Game 3 of the Leafs and Bruins with thousands of like-minded fans by about 5 p.m. — or two hours before game time — too many had already had the same thought. The officially designated section of Maple Leaf Square, free for all, was effectively sold out.
“We got here and the line to get in was already three blocks long,” said Sevier, 21. “There was no way we were getting in.”
The pair were among several thousand fans who were drawn to the ACC like moths to the light only to find themselves crowded behind barricades without food, water, beer, washrooms or an obvious means of escape in order to watch the game on the largest of big screens. The whole thing lent a new meaning to the idea of “pent-up demand.”
No one seemed to mind. The handful of fans who dared to come to the game in Bruins jerseys were booed lustily. The minute the Leafs took the ice for the warmup the crowd went nuts.
“It was worth it,” said Brenden Clapp, who lined up with his girlfriend Lindsay Armstrong. “My biggest concern is if I can last the whole game without a bathroom.”
To the fans’ credit, for once the atmosphere inside the building matched the energy among the majority of Leaf fans who may never set foot inside the ACC for a playoff game, given the scarcity of tickets and the 75 per cent markup — or several times that on the resale market.
“I thought the atmosphere (in the building) was awesome,” said Tyler Bozak — who, like every other Leaf on the roster — was playing in a playoff game at home for the first time in his career. “It was great to go out there and see how loud it was. I thought the fans were unbelievable tonight. Hopefully we can get one for them on Wednesday (Game 4).”
Yeah, that would be the big downer as the Leafs lost 5-2 on merit, to trail Boston in their first-round series 2-1 with Game 4 scheduled for Wednesday.
Leafs did their part to build the wave, let alone ride it. They got shots on net early and got bodies to the net too, with the likes of Leo Komarov taking extra pains to snow Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask at every chance he had.
At one point early in the first period Toronto was out-shooting the Bruins 9-5, a not-so-insignificant feat for a team that was outshot by an average of 32.3-26.2 during the regular season and badly outshot in the first two games of the series.
But the crowd’s energy was no match for the Bruins, who opened the scoring on a seeing-eye point shot by Adam McQuaid with just over six minutes left to play in the first period. After the initial Leafs push, Boston surged back to take a 17-12 edge in shots after 20 minutes; the disparity being indicative of the run of play.
This is the Leafs’ dilemma facing Boston, who are only two seasons removed from their Stanley Cup win in 2011 and accustomed to getting the worst and the loudest that a crowd can offer in Vancouver or Montreal or Philadelphia or anywhere else.
The only people not used to hearing the ACC sound like a real hockey building — or at least play in front a real hockey crowd — are the Leafs themselves.
The atmosphere — electric inside the building and a heartwarming blue-and-white mosh pit outside — did little to diminish their opponents. It may have helped remind them of what had brought them to Toronto in May in the first place.
“I kind of like to believe that you feed off the energy in here,” said Bruins veteran tough guy Shawn Thornton, part of a fourth line that did some important work keeping the puck deep in the Leafs zone late in the third period when Toronto was trying to cut Boston’s 4-2 lead into something more hopeful. “It was pretty exciting in here, it was a pretty remarkable start. The crowd is extremely loud and even though this is not your building you try and embrace it and go with it. It’s a fun time of year, why wouldn’t you? This is why you play, to make it to this time of year, for that atmosphere. Embrace it, love it.”
Leafs Nation embraced their opportunity to wrap their arms around a playoff team for the first time in too long. They rode in on the Go Train or stayed downtown after work. They paid a car payment’s worth of cash for tickets or they stood outside for hours with nowhere to pee in order to watch their team in a playoff game on TV with a few thousand of their like-minded peers, where mounted police watched nervously on horseback, aware that the smallest thing can turn a crowd sour.
Nothing untoward occurred, but the Leafs didn’t send them home happy either.
The good news is that having waited nine years for a playoff game at the ACC there is only two more sleeps before the next one.
You get the sense Leafs fans will be back in force, dearly hoping their team will too. After the club’s first three playoff games in nine years, the former is far less certain than the latter.