Entries from Torontoist tagged with 'torontomapleleafs'
May 8, 2008
180,000 people have applied to buy tickets for the eight games that the NFL's Buffalo Bills will be playing at the Rogers Centre between now and 2012. The tickets will range as high as $295 (pre-scalper), which is still better than having to go to Buffalo. Because it's such a long drive, we mean. Geez, stop being so sensitive, Buffalo. Ontario is planning to crack down on bootleg cigarettes by launching a public education......
Continue Reading "Bills Coming, Maurice Going, Dump Trucks Driving In Circle"April 9, 2008
Tomorrow, our lives come grinding to a halt until mid-June. The NHL playoffs are here—and even without the Toronto Maple Leafs (more on them in a second), that means there’s going to be meaningful hockey on TV almost every single night for the next two-and-a-half months. (That’s assuming you think it’s possible for sports to be meaningful, obviously; then again, if you didn’t, you probably wouldn’t be reading this.) Back in October we picked the......
Continue Reading "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!"April 1, 2008
Ontario considers electronics recycling fee. The proposed fee, already in operation in other provinces, would get tacked on when you purchase electronic items and would pay for provincial electronics recycling centres. It's a simple, feasible solution to a problem we need to deal with, and we have evidence it already works, so six months from now it will likely be the focus of a maelstrom of public debate as people declare that an extra......
Continue Reading "Electronics Recycling Fee Proposed, Budget Passes, Punch Andrews Passes"March 28, 2008
Robot surgeon at St. Michael's proving extremely successful. Our future robot overlords approve of the surgeon's actions, as he gathers critical data about the obsolete meat sacks who, through the accident called evolution, have dominated the planet until now. Crazy Hummer-limo joyride leaves destruction in its wake. The total damages included one person with minor injuries, a hydro pole, three vehicles and a house. While Torontoist, of course, condemns the twenty-year-old idiot who took the......
Continue Reading "Robot Surgeon Saves Fleshy Ones, Hummer Limo Goes On Rampage, And So Much For The Leafs (Again)"March 27, 2008
The Toronto Maple Leafs have been mathematically eliminated from playoff contention. Which isn't surprising, given how poorly they've played for much of the 2007/08 season. What is surprising is that it took the team this long to make it official. Heading into this week's crucial home-and-home series against the Boston Bruins, the Leafs were still on the outside of the playoff picture looking in. A two-game sweep, however, would've brought them level with the Bruins......
Continue Reading "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"March 19, 2008
Far be it from us to take pleasure in our favourite team’s misfortunes...but as much as we love the Maple Leafs, we had to laugh after Vesa Toskala’s incredible blunder against the New York Islanders earlier tonight. If you missed it, we’ve included the YouTube clip...which was probably unnecessary, since the play—a goal scored by New York defenceman Rob Davison from his own goal line, a distance of approximately 200 feet—is about to become......
Continue Reading "Vesa Toskala, Comic Genius"March 12, 2008
We at Reel Toronto usually wait until we have the whole darned movie so we can delight you with screencaps galore. That said, a couple of new TO-shot movies have recently revealed themselves to the world in trailer form and we couldn't wait any longer to share.......
Continue Reading "Reel Toronto Special Trailer Edition: Hulk and The Love Guru"March 11, 2008
Hope is a cruel thing for a sports fan: no matter how bleak the situation, as long as there's a straw in sight we'll happily clutch at it. Case in point: Leafs Nation, of which we're proud, occasionally defiant members. We've been flip-flopping over the Leafs all season long. A few weeks ago we'd written them off, then watched as the team put together an impressive run (which included comprehensive victories over the Ottawa......
Continue Reading "It's the Hard-Knock Life for Us"March 11, 2008
Gas prices in Toronto are at $1.09 or more a litre today, reflecting all-time record oil prices of over US$108 per barrel. For all our driving readers, it might cheer you up to consider that it's still cheaper to fill up your car with gas than say, orange juice or Diet Pepsi. By the way, if you do decide to go with orange juice, remember that the pulp-free kind is less likely to gum up......
Continue Reading "Gas Going Up, Government Getting Green, Governor Good As Gone"February 28, 2008
Far be it from us to conflate professional sports with Bill Shakespeare—but the Toronto Maple Leafs’ actions before, during and after Tuesday's NHL trade deadline recall Macbeth’s famous words: full of sound and fury, yet ultimately signifying nothing. Charges of heresy will be duly acknowledged. In the end, the promised blow-up never materialized. None of the five big-money, no-trade-clause-holding players could be moved. Pavel Kubina was apparently ready to be shipped off (to San......
Continue Reading "Where Are We Running?"February 23, 2008
If you're reading this and it's between the hours of 7-9:30pm EST, do yourself a favour and tune into Hockey Night in Canada. You might be witnessing the end of an era in Toronto sports. Mats Sundin, captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs since 1997, is on the trading block. Earlier this week, TSN broke the news that interim general manager Cliff Fletcher had asked Sundin for a list of teams he'd be willing to......
Continue Reading "Sundin's Last Stand?"February 13, 2008
It's been the best of times, it's been the worst of times for the Toronto Maple Leafs; in fact, the past couple weeks have been nothing short of surreal. First, the best of times: wins against the high-flying Ottawa Senators and Montreal Canadiens, followed by a thoroughly unexpected Hockey Day in Canada victory over the league-leading Detroit Red Wings, have given the team a boost. Injured players are getting healthy. The return of the......
Continue Reading "Won't the Real Maple Leafs Please Stand Up?"February 12, 2008
A three hour Blackberry outage affected millions of people across North America yesterday, leading to much wailing and handwringing over the temporary unavailability of a technology that didn't even exist ten years ago. Truly we are a nation of whiners. The Toronto Maple Leafs braved the cold to hold an unannounced outdoor skate at Withrow Park yesterday, where they were cheered on by 300 local grade-schoolers. Following the warmup, the kids formed a pickup......
Continue Reading "RIM Down, Obama Up, Leafs Cold"January 22, 2008
The saga of John Ferguson, Jr. is mercifully over: the beleaguered General Manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who's been a whipping boy for the team's misfortunes ever since his appointment in 2003, has been fired. Say what you will about Ferguson (and if you're a Leaf fan then you probably have): the way he's been treated by Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, particularly during his final few weeks in charge, has been nothing......
Continue Reading "Godspeed, JFJ"January 15, 2008
We have no problem admitting our man-love for Mats Sundin: he's been the captain of our favourite hockey team for most of our adult lives, he's one of the greatest Toronto Maple Leafs of all-time and he's a shoe-in hall-of-famer once he retires. Seeing him score his 500th career goal still ranks as the greatest sporting moment we've ever witnessed. We know we're supposed to be too old and too sophisticated to have favourite......
Continue Reading "Fallen Leafs on the Ground"January 15, 2008
The rumour mill is swirling around the Maple Leafs this week, as a less-than-stellar season and mixed signals from club ownership lead to daily reports about the fate of the team's management and captain. With all signs pointing to a third straight early vacation at season's end, the team's followers are steamed. Fans 70 years ago may also have been frustrated with the club, though in their case the problem was a team that......
Continue Reading "Vintage Toronto Ads: Hockey Night in the 1930s"January 15, 2008
Just in case this is something you like to be reminded of, you're going to die someday. The good news is that day is likely to be further off than ever, because average life expectancy in Canada has risen, with a baby born in 2005 likely to live to 80.4 years of age. On the other hand, who wants to be an 80-year-old baby? CIBC has announced that they will be selling $2.75 billion......
Continue Reading "Live Long and Prosper, CIBC Not Prospering, Prosperity Tastes Delicious"December 4, 2007
Say what you will about the Toronto Maple Leafs, but they’re not boring. Incompetent, sure, but definitely not boring—not even during their recent, well-publicized losing streak. The Leafs are a middling 3–4–3 in their last ten games, yet they're oddly compelling to watch: they’re tied for third in league scoring (this, despite the inability of some of its key players to put the puck in the net) and they’re by far and away the......
Continue Reading "Disorder in the House"November 28, 2007
A large part of the downtown core from College to Queens Quay and York to Bayview, was blacked-out for about 2 ½ hours yesterday. In response, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said that Toronto has the ability to generate all the power it needs and certainly wasn't getting any more from the Province, while Federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty agreed, adding that Torontonians should stop whining and being all dependent on electricity. Web search giant......
Continue Reading "Downtown Dark, Ban Logging In Park, Leafs Suck"November 14, 2007
Police had to quell trouble at the One Bloor condo site yesterday, as queue-jumpers moved in on agents and spotholders who had been standing in line for as long as a week. Although the interlopers were ultimately forced to the back of the line, many of those waiting were still too late to buy a unit in the development. One dissatisfied linestander said, "When do I get my iPhone?" A Caledon couple won $18.5 million......
Continue Reading "Condo Conflict, People Luckier Than You, TTC Considering New Services Not To Provide"November 1, 2007
One month into the new NHL season, and this much is obvious: the Toronto Maple Leafs are a mystery, wrapped in an enigma, dressed in the league’s silly new jerseys. The Leafs are scoring more often than your younger sister, but they’re also leaking goals at a potentially historic rate. They’ve lost two games by 7–1 final scores, but they’ve also got an 8–1 win and consecutive 4–1 road victories against consensus preseason favourites......
Continue Reading "It's November 1: How's Your Favourite Team Doing?"October 4, 2007
With much-maligned NHL commissioner Gary Bettman in the crowd, the Toronto Maple Leafs dropped the puck on the 2007-08 season at the Air Canada Centre last night. He was probably unable to catch a glimpse of a homemade sign halfway across the arena that read: “Bettman: ruining the NHL since 1993.” Despite the Buds’ slightly new uniforms (which either look like pajamas or practice jerseys, depending on who you ask), one might have been......
Continue Reading "Snatching Defeat From the Jaws of Victory"September 28, 2007
Photo by Little Dragon. Mats Sundin is back—and frankly, we can’t figure out why. Because if we were Mats Sundin, we’d have left the Toronto Maple Leafs ages ago. We’d have read one single letter to the sports editor of the Toronto Sun bemoaning the fact that a foreigner—a Euro!—could be captaining the Maple Leafs, and we’d have immediately gone someplace more...well, tolerant. If this were any other city, any other sport even, Sundin......
Continue Reading "Mats Sundin and the Toronto Sun"September 21, 2007
Earlier this week, The New York Times ditched their Times Select subscription thing, a move that saw content previously available for about $8 a month––like some well-liked columnists, for instance––unlocked and made free for everyone. Best of all, though, was the huge amount of material from the newspaper's archives that was set free, dating all the way back to 1851. The rest of the internet has already been having some fun uncovering the gems......
Continue Reading "Old York Times"September 10, 2007
The Toronto sports media have never met an axe they couldn’t grind—especially when it involves the Toronto Maple Leafs. Contrary to what you might’ve read, however, the Leafs actually are not the worst franchise in the history of professional sports. We know they haven’t made the playoffs since 2004; the way they’re covered in the local media, however, you’d think they hadn’t won a single game since 2001. Which brings us to the University......
Continue Reading "Making History, Varsity Blues Style"May 27, 2007
It's the last day of Inside Out, and this afternoon, the gay and lesbian film fest presented a pretty exciting Q&A session with director Laurie Lynd. Lynd directed, among other things, gay-friendly fare like the film version of Torontoist-fave Daniel MacIvor's House as well as episodes of Queer As Folk, Degrassi: The Next Generation and Noah's Arc. But it was his latest project that brought him to the immediate attention of Inside Out. Lynd......
Continue Reading "Inside Out Wrap-Up: Laurie Lynd and the Gay-ple Leafs"April 11, 2007
It was one of the wildest final weekends in NHL history. The Toronto Maple Leafs delivered a knockout blow to the Montreal Canadiens in one of the most electric matches in recent memory, only to have the New York Islanders break our hearts and take the final playoff spot in a shootout against the New Jersey Devils the following day. The Stanley Cup Playoffs begin tonight, but for the second consecutive year, the Leafs won't......
Continue Reading "The Only City Where the Leafs Fall in the Spring"February 18, 2007
For the long-suffering fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs, the year 1967 has become synonymous with past glories and forty years of failure. On Saturday night, the surviving members of the last Leaf team to win the Stanley Cup were reunited at the Air Canada Centre for the first time since that storied championship. An Alex Trebek-narrated video tribute began the proceedings, in what turned out to be a relatively simple, modest, and perhaps......
Continue Reading "Maple Leafs Honour '67 Squad, Also Win"February 3, 2007
Raptors fans have had to suffer a lot of humiliation over the last few years: There was the Vince Carter trade debacle, there was the night that Kobe Bryant dropped 81 points, and there was the 1-15 start last season that had ESPN speculating that the Raptors might be one of the worst teams in NBA history. But, the absolute low-point for the franchise came on the afternoon of October 16, 2005 in a pre-season......
Continue Reading "Take the Raptors Off Notice!"January 11, 2007
With their 4-1 loss to the defending Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes Tuesday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs slipped back to a .500 record (19-19-6) yet again, and now sit tied for ninth place in the Eastern Conference, fighting for their playoff lives after having played more than half of their games this season. They're missing a hospital ward full of regular players due to injury (Mike Peca, Alexei Ponikarovsky, Ian White, Kyle Wellwood, Darcy......
Continue Reading "A Just-Past-Halfway Analysis Of The Leafs"