20 Years ago today was the last Leafs game played at Maple Leaf Gardens

[zeke]

i'll always remember the urinal troughs.

oh and I managed to score a goal there once.

 

[unitedstars87]

20 years later, I still don’t care

 

[Nineteen67]

i'll always remember the urinal troughs.

oh and I managed to score a goal there once.

You scored at the urinal troughs?

 

[RubberHead]

I went to see the Sabres play at the gardoons. After the game I got Punch Imlachs autograph. He was coaching the sabres. He was sighing autographs and his wife was standing patiently beside him. Roger Crozier was the Sabres goalie. Leafs won the game. Now it's a grocery store. So when you see the Conn Smythe trophy, the building at the top of the trophy is Fortinos.

 

[slozo]

Saw my first ever NHL hockey game at the Gardens...memory is extremely fuzzy on it, but I think it was the Sabres we beat that day. The other 3 or 4 games I saw there we either tied or lost, but it didn't matter...it was damn exciting to go watch a real hockey game no matter what.

I remember the urinal troughs, lol...first time I had seen something like that as a kid. I remember the random cement posts everywhere. I remember my dad complaining the seats were too small.

How could this have happened 20 years ago...where did the time slip away to?

 

[koyvoo]

My brother and a couple of his friends had season tix at the the gardens. I went a few times this season but not the last ever game. I pretty sure I didn’t. I do know however that I did go to the very last preseason game at the gardens. I think it was vs the hawks.

 

[notDatsyuk]

i'll always remember the urinal troughs.

oh and I managed to score a goal there once.

Urinal troughs. I remember them. Haven't used one in two weeks (Mexico City airport).

The old Chicago Stadium was the only original six arena I never got to. I actually skated in the Mutual Street Arena, where the Leafs played before the Gardens was built - but long after.

 

[therealkoho]

I loved the old MLG, my first time there was in 62, SC finals game 2, no idea how my dad got the tix, but it was a complete surprise for my brother and I and a memory that i'll always cherish

Urinal troughs. I remember them. Haven't used one in two weeks (Mexico City airport).

The old Chicago Stadium was the only original six arena I never got to. I actually skated in the Mutual Street Arena, where the Leafs played before the Gardens was built - but long after.

actually played in the old Chicago Stadium as a bantam, the stairs were brutal, the ice was fantastic

 

[hoglund]

We always got center grey tickets they were better than the golds because you didn't have the glass in the way and they were much cheaper.

 

[nsleaf]

My first live Leafs game was at MLG. I remember needing to pinch myself several times. They were playing the Wings and won, I think it was 3-1. Odd thing I remember that happened at that game was, I had never heard a rink announcer come over the PA before puck drop to "explain" the game of hockey briefly and warn fans to always follow the action due to the risk of flying pucks into the stands.
I thought "cool" good idea. So you know not 2-3 minutes into the game, a puck goes flying, hits a woman and she needs to be taken out on a stretcher.

 

[tmlms13]

It was also Mats Sundin's 28th birthday

 

[ACC1224]

I have 100's of stories from that building, I could fill a book.

Just checked in my desk and have the stub from the first game at the ACC.
Had row 10 Greens then, $48.

 

[the squared circle]

I am 93% (Gilmour) sure, that when we first got our seasons in 1991, our grey seats were $11 each.

 

[Beanzy]

There was no better place to watch a hockey game than the grand ole lady on Carlton. I'm biased, obviously. Growing up, my nextdoor neighbour had season tickets, so my dad would usually scoop up the games he and his son couldn't go to - for face value or less!

My first official regular season NHL game was at the gardens with my Dad in 1992 and particularly memorable was the final season at the gardens. My father and I went to 5 or 6 games at the Gardens in the 98-99 season. I got my Joseph jersey at LeafSport at a game against the Penguins just before Christmas as an early present. Our last game there was Leafs and Canadiens on Dec. 26, 1998. There was no way our neighbors were selling us tickets to the final game. Still, I remember it all like it was yesterday and was very fortunate to have gone as often as I did.

We used to park a few blocks down Carlton and I remember every step of that walk. The excitement I would feel when MLG was in view. Saturday nights when you'd walk in, the HNIC crew was setting up for Ron and Don's pregame. The ice was RIGHT THERE. I remember the escalator ride up to our seats in Section 64 of the greens. That first glimpse of the scoreboard, the smell of popcorn... everything about that place was awesome. It was LOUD too.

I'm sure it's still special for every kid who gets to see the Leafs play now, but there was something about watching them in that building... the whole night was a spectacle from start to finish.

 

[GoldenGOOSE]

I remember meeting everyone there, cause my best friend growing up was the GM of the Leafs, Gord Stellick.

He would comp me tons of times and sometimes I would sit up beside him, was almost surreal seeing injured top stars just coming up to him and say hi, and seeing the top broadcasters at the time, etc...

But the urinals were just horrendous, I was always embarassed at having to take a squirt in those things, they were really awful.

 

[Joey Hoser]

I've always missed having a building with character. SBA is like a McDonald's of sports arenas.

 

[8816 others]

Were the urinal troughs a cost cutting measure from the Ballard years?

I never got to see a game there, but I do remember watching that last game. Disappointing it was a loss to the Hawks. At least they won their first game in their new home.

 

[Joey Hoser]

Were the urinal troughs a cost cutting measure from the Ballard years?

Nah. Many years ago troughs were pretty normal, especially for large venues.

 

[notDatsyuk]

Were the urinal troughs a cost cutting measure from the Ballard years?

I never got to see a game there, but I do remember watching that last game. Disappointing it was a loss to the Hawks. At least they won their first game in their new home.

They predated Ballard by a long shot.

May have been a cost saving measure, but they could accommodate more people faster, and they were fairly common when it was built.

 

[GoldenGOOSE]

An old guy who was in the Ballard camp told me, that Ballard, was so cheap because he was broke buying the Leafs. Apparently he went all in, on purchasing the leafs according to him.

I would give the guys name, but I have since forgotten it, but he said Ballard wasn't as cheap as he was made out to be, he just went in so hard to get control, he really couldn't throw out all that much funds, as much as fans would have liked.

Anyways, lets put this under speculation, don't want to get a HF warning.

 

[notDatsyuk]

My first live Leafs game was at MLG. I remember needing to pinch myself several times. They were playing the Wings and won, I think it was 3-1. Odd thing I remember that happened at that game was, I had never heard a rink announcer come over the PA before puck drop to "explain" the game of hockey briefly and warn fans to always follow the action due to the risk of flying pucks into the stands.
I thought "cool" good idea. So you know not 2-3 minutes into the game, a puck goes flying, hits a woman and she needs to be taken out on a stretcher.

I was in the Gardens one game, and my seat was right where the high glass ends, at the end of the second row of rails. At one point, there was a photographer standing beside me, with a real fancy camera, shooting the action. The defenceman on the far side, Salming, shot the puck, and it missed the net, banged around the glass, and came out right where I was sitting. I grabbed it, and the impact knocked my hand back into the guy's camera. Just a light bump, but he was just about to explode at me, when he saw the puck in my hand, and realized I'd probably saved his camera.

 

[kevsh]

My memory will be hard to top (at least for me, compared to any hockey memory):



Jan. 16th, 1982. I was sitting with my father two rows behind Walter and Keith Gretzky, just a few rows up from the Edmonton bench. Leafs somehow blew the heavily favoured Oilers out 7-1, but the entire game was all about #99.

To say the Garden was buzzing would be a gross understatement. It was literally like a Stanley Cup final game as the entire city was talking about "the great one" coming to town. As a kid, it was surreal. Never took my eyes off him even though it was far from his best game.

 

[93LEAFS]

I didn't go to the game but a few years later I was at a sports memorabilia store in Woodbridge called Frozen Pond and they were selling programs from the final game and I purchased one, which I still have in my collection today.

I have a program from the last game at the Gardens and the first at the ACC. When I was younger my family was in a pool that split tickets and that year we got a top 2pick. We got the first ACC game which I went to with my dad. My mom entered us into a contest through a local newspaper (I think the Star), and won tickets, so he also got to go to the last game. The programs are still somewhere at my parents house.

 

[ACC1224]

I've always missed having a building with character. SBA is like a McDonald's of sports arenas.

Terrible building. Corridors are too small and the place has no character.
I was in Columbus at Christmas, that is a great building.

 

[crump]

Popcorn, programs and going up escalators looking at old photos on yellow walls. Good times.