Standing on a Toronto Maple Leafs bench that was emptying fast, equipment manager Brian Papineau blasted a water bottle in a moment of pure joy. On the Joe Louis Arena ice, a player whose total mass appeared to be 50 percent helmet and visor was bear-hugged by Toronto captain Wendel Clark after scoring the overtime goal that sunk the Detroit Red Wings in the seventh game of an epic first-round series. Nikolai Borschevsky had returned to the series just in time to notch the marker that gave his team an unlikely victory, and restored the shine to a franchise dulled by decades of dysfunction.

It’s not as though the Leafs had absolutely nothing to cheer about from 1967 through 1993. There were the odd playoff series wins in the 1970s and ’80s, but they amounted more to momentary blips of success than foundational building blocks.

The 1992–93 squad, however, was different. Just a couple years after the passing of majority owner Harold Ballard, Toronto was benefiting from the clear direction provided by Stanley Cup–winner Cliff Fletcher in the GM’s chair, and the tough love of coach Pat Burns. From setting a new franchise record with 44 wins to Doug Gilmour establishing a new all-time Leafs mark with 127 points, the Blue and White were back. The return, however, had to be validated by playoff success, and nothing could have prepared Leafs fans, players and management for the varied emotions a fortnight of fighting with their Original Six rivals would bring.

For years, a third-place finish in the Norris Division meant a dubious berth in the playoffs that was more about the fact that 16 of the NHL’s 21 teams made the post-season than any reflection of competency. That’s how a couple Leafs outfits from the ’80s made the big dance despite a complete lack of fancy footwork. In 1992–93, however, the Norris was a powerhouse. Despite notching 99 points, Toronto finished behind two teams in its division, the Chicago Blackhawks leading the way with 106 points, followed by Detroit’s 103.

While only four points separated the clubs, the Leafs were decided underdogs versus a high-powered Wings squad that had scored more goals than any outfit in the league. Fletcher, meanwhile, had rebuilt the Leafs on the fly the previous year and a half, and nobody was quite sure what to expect from the Buds. “There was a lot of curiosity with our whole group just to see how we reacted to it,” says Fletcher.

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The early returns were positively awful. Detroit ran over Toronto in the first two games at Joe Louis Arena, winning by a combined score of 12–5. Making matters worse, Borschevsky—who scored more goals than any other Leaf that season with 34—sustained a broken cheekbone in game one that forced him to the press box. “I remember coming back to Toronto,” Fletcher recalls, “and saying, ‘Our season can’t end like this. We’ll lose everything we’ve built up.’”

Losing game three would have been a virtual death sentence for the team, so Burns decided to fight fire with fire, starting Gilmour head-to-head against Detroit captain Steve Yzerman, the fourth-leading scorer in the league with 137 points. Clark, who’d faced perhaps the harshest media criticism of his career after two uninspired performances in Detroit, came through with a goal and Dave Andreychuk—acquired at mid-season when the Leafs shipped Grant Fuhr to Buffalo and handed the goalie reins to 21-year-old Felix Potvin—bagged a pair in a 4–2 triumph. When Andreychuk notched two more in game four, Toronto knotted the series 2–2 heading back to Michigan.

The familiar Joe Louis script played out for a while in game five, with Detroit running out to a 4–1 lead. But a stirring comeback was capped in overtime when Clark picked the pocket of Nicklas Lidstrom and sent a pass to Mike Foligno, who fired the puck past Tim Cheveldae for the win. In the span of three games, winning the series had gone from seemingly impossible to inevitable—in the eyes of Leafs supporters, anyway.

“Everyone was planning the parade route in Toronto and we came home for game six and they just whipped us, badly,” Fletcher says.

Detroit’s 7–3 victory at Maple Leaf Gardens further entrenched the odd dynamic of the series. When the Leafs won, it was by the skin of their teeth; when the Wings were victorious, they flexed overwhelming offensive muscle.

“In three of the seven games, it looked like the Leafs didn’t belong,” says Jim Devellano, a member of Detroit’s front office since 1982.

Against that backdrop, Toronto travelled south, having settled firmly back into underdog status.

“I’m not even sure our wives and mothers thought we had much of a chance,” Fletcher says.

Optimism had almost fully eroded when Gilmour, with just 2:43 left in the contest, slid home the goal that tied game seven 3–3. With the Wings reeling, Peter Zezel nearly delivered the win in regulation on a wraparound attempt, but the rudimentary video review of the time could not definitively prove the puck crossed the line.

Whatever stewing occurred over that near miss, it gave way to celebration just 2:35 into overtime: “[Bob] Rouse hammers one back in for Toronto. Clark, shoving it to the corner. Out front again, Rouse. Scores! Scores! Well, the Leafs win it! The Leafs defeat the Detroit Red Wings in overtime, this has been an unbelievable turn of events!”

Had legendary CBC play-by-play man Bob Cole been able to immediately determine that Borschevsky redirected the puck into the net, maybe the call wouldn’t have been so letter perfect. But the goal occurred when Borschevsky—dressed for the first time since game one and wearing a visor to protect his busted face—beat Lidstrom out of the corner and parked himself a couple feet behind Cheveldae, who’d moved out to challenge Rouse on the shot.

Because it wasn’t blatantly obvious the puck had been tipped, the call wasn’t “Borschevsky wins it!” It was “The Leafs win it!” And that’s as it should be—not just because it emphatically confirmed what had just occurred—but because for all the justifiable focus on the team’s lead horses, Toronto was a lunch-pail gang that needed everyone pulling on the rope. They couldn’t match the Wings’ firepower, but they sure knew how to gut out the close ones.

“That was as much a special part of it, when you’re on a team where it’s just not a few guys,” says Mark Osborne, a third-liner on that club. “Yeah, you’re nowhere without Wendel or Dougie—that kind of star power. But at the same time, you know that just the stars aren’t going to do it for you.”

The wave of emotion that followed the Leafs’ win was overwhelming. Among the hair tussles and backslaps inside the dressing room, defenceman Todd Gill broke down and cried. Outside the room, old fans rediscovered their voice, while new ones finally had something other than past mythology to subsist on.

Maybe it was only a first-round victory, but it was an operatic series that handed the tragic ending to someone else. The Leafs advanced to within a single victory of the Stanley Cup Final that spring, but it was defeating Detroit that instantly seemed more like a franchise resurgence than a temporary reprieve from the heartache.

“It most certainly changed the whole atmosphere in Toronto,” Fletcher says. “Finally, they got something to be really proud of and really enjoy.”

After a pensioner stitches names onto the backs of sweaters, we find Red Wings coach Mike Babcock in his office, furiously scribbling line combinations onto a whiteboard, a practice that apparently encompasses about 85 percent of Mike Babcock’s existence. Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg is returning from injury, and although no one dares describe him as healthy, Babcock is pleased about his arrival nonetheless. “His presence and his leadership skills and his stick-to-it-veness and doing things right—I think is a big presence in our room,” Babcock says with his trademark earnestness, as if all the things he just uttered were actual words. In the storytelling business we call this foreshadowing.

Meanwhile, in Toronto, Tyler Bozak’s hamstring and oblique are finally feeling cooperative enough to allow him to do his job. This sets off a ripple effect within the Maple Leaf ranks that knocks team whipping boy Nazem Kadri off the top line—a reality that Toronto’s coaching staff doesn’t seem terribly upset about—while Bozak takes his place. “He’s Phil Kessel’s chauffeur,” Maple Leafs head coach Randy Carlyle says of Bozak, smugly. “He drives Phil around. Back and forth to the rink. Makes sure Phil is okay.” Babcock is to whiteboard scribbling as Carlyle is to casually insulting his players.

We are thrust into the Toronto loft Kessel and Bozak share, where they are watching no less than four televisions at once and fiddling with iPhones simultaneously, while Stella, Kessel’s dog, lounges atop a couch. “We’ve had a couple shakers in this place, y’know?” Kessel hesitantly boasts, confirming that poor Stella, while seeming innocent enough, has seen some things she wishes she could forget.

To Florida then, where the Red Wings are playing the Panthers when a particularly horrifying thing happens between a puck and Dan Cleary’s face that I could describe for you but would rather allow Cleary to explain for himself: “f–kin’ teeth gone—everywhere.” If you can’t write it better than they can say it, y’know? Back on the ice, the Red Wings cough up a two-goal lead and, during a television timeout, Zetterberg stick-to-it-vely instructs his mostly distracted teammates to play “a little smarter.” A period later, those same teammates score two goals to secure the game, an occurrence that I speculate may have less to do with Zetterberg’s “modeling of poise” and more to do with some hockey players shooting pucks into a net—but I’m just a lowly television recappist, so what do I know? Post-game cold ones are enjoyed awkwardly.

Back to Toronto, where there are more early-episode storylines to tidy up, such as that of young Bozak. But before we can get to that, David Clarkson hurts himself awkwardly while trying to batter a Carolina Hurricane and we get to see what it looks like both inside the Maple Leafs training room and inside Clarkson’s arm. One of them is a lot grosser than the other.

Clarkson returns in the third and “finds himself at the fulcrum of an unyielding Leafs attack,” which is not a way one could frequently describe the 2013/14 Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs score five goals, three of which are assisted by Bozak, thus satisfying our insatiable human desire to have every narrative tied up into a tidy bow.

In Nashville the Red Wings go for dinner with their fathers. Everyone wears their favourite toques. The next night Red Wings goaltender Jimmy Howard has a very, very bad game and does a very, very bad job of not appearing very, very rattled in his post-game scrum.

Meanwhile, Dion Phaneuf and Kessel bicker with each other and then play table tennis. Phaneuf gets kind of intense about it. Like, way too intense. Like, whoa, who invited this guy to the Christmas party he’s making everyone uncomfortable, intense.

Phaneuf meets his good buds “Nonie,” “Claudie” and “Reider”—or Maple Leafs executives Dave Nonis, Claude Loiselle and Reid Mitchell, if you will—in a hotel room to finalize his new contract with the Maple Leafs. These things are always done in well-lit hotel rooms without the player’s agent present, right? Phaneuf takes the opportunity to practice his ambiguous press conference clichés for us.

The Red Wings skate around in slow motion; then the Maple Leafs skate around in slow motion. I don’t know what everyone’s going on about when they say this show has gotten boring. Mike Babcock waxes reflective about Michigan Stadium, Babcockianly. The Maple Leafs take some photos and lose power in their dressing room. Phil Kessel takes off his pants and everyone laughs. The jokes, sometimes they write themselves.

And finally, the game. The coaches deliver their talks of pep. Carlyle wants his team to shoot the puck. Babcock wants his to take care of the puck. They both look very cold and angry throughout. Much of the Winter Classic footage develops as you might expect. Banalities are screamed; dressing rooms are panned across; everyone swears an awful lot. “F–k you, Alfie—you f–cking hero,” Phaneuf taunts in the direction of Red Wings geriatric Daniel Alfredsson. I don’t know what that means, only that this recap would be incomplete without its inclusion.

Traditionally, one of the best aspects of 24/7 has been the game footage, when everyone temporarily forgets the cameras and microphones are present and behaves as they ordinarily would. It is the one thing this show cannot script or manipulate. But the words and images from this year’s Classic leave a little to be desired, if only in the sense that we spend about 20 minutes in that world and not much happens. I mean, Joffrey Lupul cross-checks a man in the traches and there isn’t even an attempt at vigilante justice? I thought this was the NHL.

And maybe some of the tedium has to do with the fact that this year’s Classic wasn’t exactly a sterling display of the finesse and skill inherent in professional sports. It looks nice and snowglobey on your big screen and all, but the conditions eliminate most creativity from the contest and leave the teams to wage a competition of who can throw more pucks towards the net and get luckier. Meanwhile, Phaneuf wages his own personal competition of how long he can prattle on about things. At one point, the scoreboard flashes by, showing the shots as 43-26 in favour of Detroit, and somewhere the advanced statistics community lets out a deep sigh.

The two teams finish overtime clumsily batting the puck around on worn, snow-covered ice before the Maple Leafs prevail in a shootout, Bozak scoring the winner. The players unanimously curse the handshakes before begrudgingly going through with it. Oh, and John-Michael Liles gets traded to Carolina somewhere along the way. There are many resulting bro hugs.

Riding the high of a Winter Classic victory, a six-game point streak and fielding as healthy a roster as they’ve had in quite a while, it appeared as though things could only go up.

Toronto took on the New York Rangers, a team on the heel end of back-to-back games. There’s every assumption to be made that a team dealing with fatigue may get off to a bit of a slow start. Instead, it was Leafs’ head coach Randy Carlyle looking to rationalize his team’s slow start (a recurring theme all season). But more on that later.

The fans came into the building treated to a pre-game display of inspiring visuals from Wednesday’s outdoor game in Ann Arbor, Michigan. They were into it. When the puck dropped, the Leafs’ top forward unit of James van Riemsdyk, Tyler Bozak and Phil Kessel generated a few good opportunities.

But not long after that, there wasn’t anything good you could say about their performance. The fans turned on the team quickly, and Joffrey Lupul doesn’t blame them.

"It’s embarrassing," Lupul said immediately following the game. "We’re getting booed off the first period, second period and the end of the game and we deserved it."

To make matters worse, the Leafs could be without two players for an unknown amount of time.

Forward David Clarkson took a shot off the foot and left the game after he tried to skate on it early in the second period. The good news is the foot doesn’t appear to be broken, since he was putting pressure on his left foot, taking it out of his boot while being examined in the first period.

Defenceman Carl Gunnarsson also left in the first period after he fell awkwardly into the corner boards, appearing to favour his shoulder. A regular defensive partner for Dion Phaneuf, a long-term loss at that position could spell trouble.

Still, the absence of both of guys didn’t appear to be a factor in this game.

"No offence to those guys but I don’t know if there were going to help tonight," Lupul added. "It’s certainly not an excuse for how we played tonight. Hopefully they’ll be ready to go for next game."

There weren’t a lot of answers for this performance. Usually there’s some positive element that the Leafs have been able to take away from a game. This wasn’t one of those games.

When addressing the media, Carlyle appeared defeated while searching for some sort of reason as to why his team came out to a performance as they did on Saturday.

"We didn’t check," Carlyle said among many the things his team didn’t do.

It looked like Randy Carlyle’s "template" was finally being followed on a consistent basis over the last week and a half. A game like this one means there’s still a long way to go.

"We felt like we were being more competitive in the areas," Carlyle said about his team’s play before Saturday. "This one kind of sent an A-Bomb."

As for any Winter Classic hangover that could have lingered for the Leafs, Carlyle expected it to last for a short while, but not the whole game.

"I think you could have expected a period. That would be my assessment of it and assumption that if they were going to be flat, you may start out flat for a period but you would be able to get your legs underneath you and get your game going to be at least more competitive," Carlyle added. "It seemed like the third (Rangers) goal, that was the hockey game."

Defenceman Tim Gleason didn’t play against New York and is virtually a certainty to draw in next game. If not for performance reasons, Gunnarsson’s injury could make Gleason’s debut a necessity.

It would be easy to say Saturday night’s trouncing is a blip, but we’ve seen these types of performances creep up every now and then. Into the second half of the season, the Leafs are still very much figuring out who they are.

They’ll have to figure it out fast.

“It was pretty wild – it took us a long time to get here,” said Leafs centre Jay McClement. “People were pretty set up out there with tents and barbeques. It’s pretty amazing.”

It was only the tip of the iceberg. The feeling when the players walked into the 87-year-old stadium in front of more than 100,000 fans was truly something special. The biggest and best Winter Classic of them all lived up to its advanced billing on Wednesday and it simply wouldn’t have been possible without the hordes of Leafs fans that braved long border lines and snowy roads to stand around in the cold and watch a very long hockey game.

It was tremendous.

That the Leafs went on to grind out a 3-2 shootout victory over the division-rival Detroit Red Wings – leapfrogging them in the standings – offered a small reward for the dedication and determination shown by their loyal supporters. At least for one afternoon.

The scene also provided a reminder about the sheer size of the hopes and expectations that this fanbase continues to carry despite the fact that the team’s championship drought is creeping close to 50 years. We saw it with the thousands who packed Maple Leaf Square to watch games on TV during last year’s playoffs and then had it taken to another level during the NHL’s signature event.

No wonder the NHL is eyeing Toronto as a potential destination for this game in the future and will also likely bring the draft and all-star game to the city as part of the team’s centennial celebrations. Ideally, the Leafs performance will be on the uptick over that period as well.

One of the main messages Randy Carlyle has delivered since taking over as coach is the need to restore some pride to the organization. He dusted that off once again after watching Jonathan Bernier stop 41 shots and Tyler Bozak score the shootout winner along with a goal in regulation on Wednesday.

It clearly remains a work in progress.

“The passion that our market has demonstrated just proves to the rest of the hockey world that the value is there,” said Carlyle. “And if you see the season tickets list and the number of years that people have held their season tickets and (how much they’re) cherished and passed on from family to family, you start to get a better understanding of it.”

More than anything else, these outdoor games are about the fans. The most striking thing about this Winter Classic was how many people were wearing the sweaters of both teams – it had to be at least 80 per cent in total – and they were divided in a way that left half the stadium mostly in red and the other half almost completely in blue. What a scene.

The Leafs supporters seemed to make even more noise than their counterparts, especially when James van Riemsdyk batted a puck out of midair to tie the game 1-1 with less than a minute to play in the second period. That gave Toronto some life after a tepid opening period by both teams while they adjusted to playing outside as snow fell.

The overall pace went to an even higher level in the third period and overtime and it hardly looked like any of the fans left their seats as a result.

“I think it created an atmosphere that made it more than just a game,” said Leafs general manager Dave Nonis. “I think both teams raised their level of play – I know our team did. I think that’s the hardest we’ve competed for a long time.

“When you look at over 100,000 people in the building it’s impossible not to play harder.”

Even Red Wings veteran Daniel Alfredsson, who was booed soundly by the Leafs supporters like usual, applauded the number of Canadians who made their way to the stadium. The 41-year-old took time to look around during breaks in play when workers came out to shovel the ice surface and could hardly believe his eyes.

“I knew they were going to invade Ann Arbor pretty hard,” Alfredsson said. “They’re passionate hockey fans there as well. It was pretty cool up the stands, seeing the red (for us) and the blue for the Leafs. It was an incredible atmosphere.”

It clearly moved the Leafs as well.

Winger Joffrey Lupul said that walking out to the field was a “moment we’ll all remember forever” while defenceman Dion Phaneuf basically found himself lost for words. However, the big smile on the captain’s face said more than enough anyway.

“Words can’t describe the feeling from when both anthems were going and the building was just … so much energy,” said Phaneuf.

You couldn’t help but get the feeling that the entire experience might end up propelling the Leafs forward as they enter the second half. The win gave the team three in a row for the first time since October and came with a little extra motivation given that it was against one of the opponents they’ll be battling for playoff position.

Should they get back there again this spring, it will energize the fanbase even more – assuming that’s even possible. As the Winter Classic demonstrated, the passion of the people invested in this team runs awfully deep.

“We’re going to remember this one forever,” Bozak said, after the Leafs defeated the Original Six rival Red Wings in a road game that welcomed more Toronto fans than any game waged at the Air Canada Centre.

Here are a few specific things we’ll remember from the 2014 Winter Classic, broken down in numerical form…

1 long walk to the dressing room, by Patrick Eaves after taking a cross-check to the neck form Joffrey Lupul (who served a minor penalty)

2 pencil number used by sportswriters outdoors because the ink in a pen would freeze

3 Winter Classics played by Leafs wing James van Riemsdyk, tied with Ty Conklin for the most ever

3 whacks at the puck taken by JVR before he knocked it out of midair and past Jimmy Howard to tie the game at one in the final minute of the second period: “Luckily it went in,” van Riemsdyk said.

5 stoppages in play to scrape the ice with shovels in the first period alone

12 shovel-armed scrapers who skated out a time. “I thought it was still playable with them shoveling the snow,” said Daniel Alfredsson. “On the timeouts when they’re shoveling the snow, that’s when you really try to take it all in.”

-10°C temperature during the game (not including wind chill)

5 suspensions Red Wings alumnus Brendan Shanahan, who was expecting to get booed in the Alumni Showdown has dished out to Maple Leafs this season: “It comes with the territory,” Shanahan said, smiling. “We had enough Wings fans to drown out some of the people. With my job, you’re the bearer of bad news.”

1995 release year of Oasis’s “Wonderwall,” the backdrop to Hockey Night in Canada’s always-stellar intro montage:

1 p.m. time, on Tuesday, of puck drop for the Leafs-Wings Alumni Showdown in Detroit

1:30 p.m. time, on Tuesday, of the Leafs’ press conference in Ann Arbor to announce Dion Phaneuf’s seven-year extension

45 minutes minimum it takes to drive between Detroit and Ann Arbor in optimal conditions

0 chance of a non-superhero attending both events

$70 price of “cheap” parking spotted a kilometre’s walk away from the Big House

$9 price of a domestic beer inside the Big House

100% chance the mountains on that can of beer indicate that it’s cold enough to drink

100% of the players’ water bottles that were frozen during the game. “Nothing came out. That was a big thing—trying to stay hydrated,” said Justin Abdelkader. “The water wasn’t coming out of the bottles, so you had to unscrew the cap to get it out.”

3,688 gallons of hot chocolate that were expected to be brewed at Michigan Stadium on game day

82 NBC cameras filming the game

4 of the five most-watched NHL regular-season games in the U.S. since 1975 were Winter Classics

$4,000,000 cap hit of former Carolina Hurricanes defenceman Tim Gleason, who was traded to the Maple Leafs during the game

$3,875,000 cap hit of former Maple Leaf John-Michael Liles, who was healthy-scratched before puck drop and is off to Carolina

41 saves made by winning goaltender Jonathan Bernier, whose sweet toque remained on all game. “I did try it out in practice the day before. I found with the holes we have in our helmet, it actually kept me warm,” Bernier said. “And it looked good, too.”

2 hands Bernier shoved down the back of his pants during breaks to warm up his mitts; Bernier says the trainer supplied him with hot packets before he hit the ice, which he then hid in his pants

53 length, in feet, of the world’s largest mobile rink refrigeration unit, specially built for the Winter Classic

171 miles between Muskegon, Mich., birthplace of Abdelkader, and Ann Arbor. Abdelkader scored a clutch third-period goal to force overtime and give the Wings a standings point. ”It’s definitely one of my bigger goals,” he said, “unfortunately it didn’t come in a win.”

55,000 approximate number of Leafs fans lustily booing Daniel Alfredsson after he scored the game’s opening goal. “I knew they were going to invade Ann Arbor pretty hard. They’re passionate hockey fans there as well,” Alfie said. “It was pretty cool up the stands, seeing the red and the blue leafs.”

20 age Wings coach Mike Babcock told Alfredsson, who missed Monday’s game due to back spasms, he wasn’t. “Alfie, you’re not 20,” Babcock said on Tuesday. “You play in tomorrow’s game if you’re ready to play in tomorrow game; you don’t play in tomorrow’s game because it’s an opportunity of a lifetime.”

3 minutes Alfredsson estimates he was on the ice during Tuesday’s practice: “I couldn’t really tell until after skated. I felt more improvements today, so it was great to be out there. I don’t think anybody wants to [miss this game], but at the same time you gotta be smart and not risk future problems.”

2:30 mark of overtime that the horn blared mid-play to signal the teams switch ends. Henrik Zetterberg had a partial breakaway, the horn spoiling a Red Wings scoring chance. “I would have had a clear breakaway,” Zetterberg said. “The buzzer went. I was like, oh, man. But that’s the rules. Nothing you can do about it.”

0 weapons fans were allowed into the Big House, according to a posted sign

105,491 people who watched history on New Year’s Day 2014

8 of them who weren’t jumping around to stay warm when the House of Pain classic blared during the third period (estimate)

265,226 total spectators in attendance at the first five NHL Winter Classics

4 bases touched by Mike Babcock’s metaphor, which succinctly summed up the event: “Today was a home run for hockey.”

Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment has held high-level discussions with the municipal, provincial and federal governments and believes that they are all on board with renovating the six-year-old stadium, according to president and CEO Tim Leiweke. The driving force behind the proposed expansion is a desire to hold major events like the Winter Classic and NHL sources indicate that Toronto is in line to land the signature outdoor game should the building’s capacity be increased.

Leiweke insists that won’t be an issue if the league is committed to bringing the game to a Canadian city for the first time ever – likely in concert with the Maple Leafs’ 100th anniversary season in 2016-17.

“I think if the league liked that idea we can 100 per cent get a deal done with the various government agencies and then do the renovation so we’d be ready,” Leiweke said in an exclusive interview on Tuesday. “A lot of it will be what the league wants. If they came to us and said `We want to shoot for that, we’d be ready for that.”’

The biggest issue to be worked out for the project is determining how it is financed. BMO Field was built in 2007 for a little more than $60-million and Leiweke acknowledged that the cost of expanding it would likely end up being at least twice that much.

“It’s big money, huge money,” he said.

The building is owned by the City of Toronto and Leiweke indicated that all three levels of government would likely kick in for the upgrade. The current capacity is about 22,000 for soccer and it would need to be almost doubled to make it feasible to hold a Winter Classic.

Even though Wednesday’s outdoor game between the Leafs and Detroit Red Wings is expected to draw more than 105,000 fans to the Big House, previous versions of the event at Boston’s Fenway Park, Chicago’s Wrigley Field and Philadelphia’s Citizens Bank Park were all in the 40,000-seat range. In Leiweke’s mind, an expanded BMO Field could also be used to attract a number of big events including the Grey Cup and MLS all-star game, among other things.

“It fits a lot of needs,” he said. “It renovates it for TFC, it certainly renovates it for the Pan Am Games, it renovates it for rugby. The Grey Cup would be phenomenal in an outdoor setting in Toronto on the lake, but (the Winter Classic is) clearly one of the things we put on the wishlist.

“The city, the province and the feds have all told us it’s important to them from an economic stimulus standpoint because we see what it’s doing to the economy in Detroit now – imagine what would happen in Toronto.”

The NHL seems to have established a pattern of having visiting teams in the Winter Classic eventually serve as host of the game. That isn’t likely to change even though the Leafs will become the first Canadian team to even participate on Wednesday.

John Collins, the NHL’s chief operating officer, is enthusiastic about the possibility of bringing the event to Toronto.

“I think it would be great,” Collins told Sportsnet. “Frankly, I think the commissioner’s vision has been that the league’s centennial and the Toronto Maple Leafs centennial would be a good time to do something like this if they had a venue that would be appropriate.”

The Leafs are actually vying for all of the league’s major events. They are hoping to host the draft, all-star game and Winter Classic at some point during the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons.

However, the expansion of BMO Field seems to be at the heart of the entire plan. The hope is that the stadium would be built up with more permanent seating while also leaving some room for temporary seating that could be brought in for major events in addition to that.

The NHL and MLSE have held a number of discussions recently and are likely to formalize a plan after Wednesday’s game at the University of Michigan.

“This is their game and we’d be honoured to host it,” said Leiweke. “I think at the end of the day we’ve got to follow their lead. What we’re doing now is working hard and trying to figure out what kind of capacity they want and when best to do it.

“Look, there’s other things we want to host – we’d like all-star games and drafts to be part of the bigger picture. There’s an awful lot going on between us and the league.”

What exactly a Winter Classic would look like in Toronto remains to be seen.

Leiweke hinted that the Leafs are hoping to expand the event to include even more ancillary activities than there are already. He believes that everything from the number of hotel rooms in the city to the various transportation options to the open space around the stadium make it an ideal location.

“It’s not iconic like Fenway and it’s not iconic like Wrigley, but on the other side of it is there a more important place to play the game than Toronto?” said Leiweke. “I think if we can find a way from a location standpoint a way to host a Winter Classic where it’s right in downtown, right connected to where all the other events are going to be (it would be special).

“You have the ability of not only integrating but also doing a massive public celebration right there in Ontario Place or Exhibition Place and then I think you’re dealing with an even bigger Winter Classic than anything they’ve ever had.”

The only thing that seems to stand between seeing that dream become a reality is getting BMO Field expanded in a timely fashion. However, the MLSE boss sounded motivated by the NHL’s clear interest in bringing the Winter Classic north of the border.

“We know what we’ve got to do and we’ve seen some designs already that would work,” said Leiweke. “We have a pretty good idea how to take the capacity and get it to one level for permanent and expand it for things like this.

“We have a path – now we’re just trying to figure it out.”

Due to popular demand from alumni of the Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs, the Original Six franchises dressed two full squads each for a double-header of outdoor hockey great shinny, fittingly played in the centre of a baseball diamond.

So what if they’re a step or five slower?

When the sun peaked through the clouds and a dusting of midday snow fell on the red-and-blue sweaters that circled the ice and filled the stands, the final afternoon of 2013 felt like a postcard jammed inside a snow globe wrapped in a child’s favourite memory.

“When I was a kid, we played outdoors all the time. Once a week we played indoors, and it was a privilege. A hundred years later, it’s flipped the other way. Now you play indoors all the time, and it’s a privilege to play outdoors,” said Red Berenson, the 74-year-old Detroit alumni and head coach of the Michigan Wolverines.

The games, of course, were free of body-checks (Al Iafrete committed the day’s lone penalty) and defensive responsibility, yet full of fun moments. Play for play’s sake.

“It’s a real honour when people want to come and fork out their money to see you play,” said the Leafs’ Stew Gavin, who scored in Game 1. “The quality of hockey might not be what it was a number of years ago, but it was still nice they enjoyed watching us play.”

Here are some fun things we learned from the Alumni Showdown double-header, which the home team swept in a pair of one-goal games.

Your resume must be impeccable to make the Red Wings’ A team.

Members of Detroit’s featured alumni team, which took to the ice for the second game on Tuesday, had to meet at least one of the following criteria to make the cut: (a) be a two-time Stanley Cup champion, (b) belong to the Hockey Hall of Fame, or (c) have your name engraved on one of the NHL’s individual trophies.

Call him Chris Celly-os.

After Chris Chelios scored to make it 2-0 Wings in the first period, the Hall of Famer sped back towards the home end, dove and slid on his back in celebration. The overt display of joy made Nail Yakupov sick.

“I’ve seen him do that in practice on a clean sheet of ice, and I wasn’t expecting him to do it in a game like this,” said Niklas Lidstrom. “But it was awesome.”
When Tie Domi sniped one on a breakaway in the second period, the former Leaf made a point to skate over the Wings’ bench and playfully tap Chelios on the head.

The Red Wings do pregame rituals right.

Joe Kocur wore a Bob Probert jersey for the introductions, Gordie Howe dropped the ceremonial face-off, Vladimir Kostantinov was honoured on the ice, and Steve Yzerman was the last Wing to make the walk from dugout to the rink:

Red Barenson is a 74-year-old beast

Playing alongside 33-year-old Jiri Fishcer in the first alumni game was a man only 41 years his senior, the legendary Red Berenson—a man who retired from playing two years before Fischer was even born.

The self-proclaimed “senior citizen of the team” and a veteran of the 1972 Summit Series, Berenson held his own as the eldest active alumnus on either club.

“He’s my new idol. If I can get in my 60s or even 70s and be invited to games, it’d be fantastic,” said Leafs alum Stew Gavin.

The last 14 seconds still mean something.

With Wings up by a single goal and the Leafs pulling the goalie in favour of an extra skater in the waning moments of Game 1, Barenson huddled with the other Red Wings to devise a game plan for an important defensive-zone draw.

“Old-time hockey. I’m going to tie up the centreman, and Jiri is going to come in and get the puck, and then we’re going to wheel it around or chip it out the short side. So we had it figured out,” Berenson explained. “My head was into it. I’ve been doing this every day as a coach. Scotty (Bowman) put me out there. He knew I could figure it out and not screw it up.”

Marsh was blown away by Berenson’s tactics.

“The last face-off was hugely impressive. He was so strong on the puck that our guy couldn’t win the draw. He just clamped right down,” said the Leafs’ Brad Marsh. “As the minutes clicked by, the intensity level rose. We all still want to win the game.”

So do the last two seconds.

The Leafs’ Bryan McCabe tied the second game at five with just a pair of seconds remaining in regulation, triggering fireworks (literally) and forcing a crowd-pleasing shootout.

“We all wanted to play five minutes of overtime, but the people doing the TV said we had to end it with a shootout,” said Brendan Shanahan. Scotty called my name but I could hear all the fans chanting ‘Stevie!’ So I turned to [Yzerman] and said, ‘You get out here.’ And he said, ‘No way!'”

Recent retiree Tomas Holmstrom had the best move of the skills competition, beating Curtis Joseph with a roofed backhand.

There is a benefit to being part of the alumni’s B squad.

“We’ll wish the guys luck and drink all the beer before they get back,” quipped Marsh, who played in the earlier game.

Mike Palmateer never updated his gear.

The Leafs goaltender, who celebrates his 60th birthday in January, played the first period of Game 2 in his vintage brown pads and memorable blue-and-white mask from the late ’70s.

Palmateer wasn’t the only one to make a fashion statement.

Wings goalie Eddie Mio donned a Terry Sawchuk-style mask for warm-ups. The Leafs’ Jamie Macoun sported an earflap winter hat as fuzzy as his moustache. And Bryan Berard strode with a glorious mullet.

Brad Marsh still feels safe without a helmet.

“In a game such as this when you’re playing against other alumni, it’s a pretty safe environment out there. I didn’t wear it in Philadelphia when I played in the Winter Classic there, and I chose not to wear it today.”

The ice was fantastic.

Berenson, who has coached his Wolverines through four outdoor games, said the ice at Comerica was the best fresh-air surface he’s ever played in. And fast.
“I thought the ice was great,” agreed the Leafs’ Tom Fergus. “It’s got a little different feel to it when it’s outdoors. It actually feels harder and slipperier.”

One problem with alumni games: two players can wear the same number.

This can lead to some confusion on scoring plays. We overheard this from the game’s official scorers: “Toronto had two 15s on the ice! I almost had 9 from 15 and 15.”

Peter Ing’s children got to see him play.

The former Leafs goaltender not only got to don the blue and white before his children for the first time, the Winter Classic also afforded him a chance to catch up with his boarders when he played junior across the bridge for the OHL’s Windsor Spitfires back in the late ’80s.

“The cold didn’t play a factor,” said Ing, returning to the crease after 17 years. “I personally loved it when you started to see the snow come down. It was like your childhood.”

Tuesday saw each team practice in the chilly weather, while also enjoying special moments on the ice with family. Two alumni games were held as well and the combination provided a tangibly magic New Year’s Eve atmosphere on Twitter leading into the main event.

https://twitter.com/ChrisTessaro/status/418156523580190720

10. Dustin Penner: hockey player by night, fact-checker by day, husband not so much:

9. Toronto Maple Leafs centre Nazem Kadri misses one game due to the death of his namesake grandfather, then returns to action and immediately scores two goals and helps snap his club’s five-game losing skid:

8. Professional (d)angler:

7. Stocking suffer:

6. Roberto “My Contract Sucks” Luongo on Henrik Lundqvist’s eight-year, $59.5-million contract:

5. Jordin Tootoo celebrates three years of sobriety on the same night he gets back into the Red Wings’ lineup for the first time in a month and a half:

4. Question: Is Wayne Simmonds the Pippen to Claude Giroux’s Jordan?

3. Bros before clothes:

2. Daughter Molly’s response to Brian Burke’s hair-raising press conference is priceless:

1. Adorable:

@eddielack looking forward to the wine, dining minus the 69ing…..

— Strombone (@strombone1) December 21, 2013