Frustrated and disappointed season ticket holders of the Maple Leafs and Raptors will get a financial break of some sort on Monday when they’re informed that their April 8 deadline payment on next season’s tickets will be pushed back a month.
That decision has been made after heated exchanges between season ticket holders and account executives, many that ended up with name-calling and threats of removing tickets.
The change of date by one month is a consolation of some kind for those who have been scrapping with Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment. The push back is nice at first glance but still probably not enough for those whose businesses, lives or professions have been on hold in the wake of COVID-19.
Earlier, MLSE had offered some financial flexibility for season ticket holders of the Argos and Toronto FC. The big money, though, comes from Leafs and Raptors tickets.
The request for a down payment on season tickets, moved to May 8 now, comes without understanding of what happens to money already paid for tickets and games that may not be played. There are seven games left on the Maple Leafs regular season schedule and nine Raptors games remaining. All of them paid in full by ticket holders.
With the likelihood that the remaining money will be advanced towards the purchase of next season’s tickets. Raptor ticket prices have gone up by 6% for the coming season, Leafs tickets will be up around 9% price.
THIS AND THAT
Stick tap to the NHL for being the first of four major leagues to make their star players available for online interviews during this shutdown. That was the good part. The bad part, the NHL deciding who could or couldn’t be on the calls. That’s a dangerous game for any professional league to be playing, determining who you want to cover you … Watched the famous Wayne Gretzky high stick on Friday. Backed it up and watched it again. And again. It’s easy to see the blood on Doug Gilmour from 1993. It’s not so easy to see the high stick that referee Kerry Fraser never called. If you have to watch something over and over again to get a sense of exactly what happened on the play, you can’t expect an on-ice official, in real time, without replay, to make the call … The Leafs still could have won Game 6 and that series had Glenn Anderson not taken a really foolish penalty in the final seconds of regulation time and had the Leafs defence, on a penalty kill, left Gretzky all alone in front of Toronto’s goal. It’s 27 years ago and in a way seems like yesterday … Watched Gilmour play in the Stanley Cup Finals with the Calgary Flames in 1989 and again in the playoffs in 1991. He was a good player. But watch him with the Leafs in `93 and `94 and he was sensational. You wouldn’t have known it was the same guy and not many years apart. Something magical happened to Gilmour in Toronto that never happened before or after Toronto … One of the real differences between the 1993 Los Angeles Kings and the Leafs. Kings had Rob Blake on defence. Leafs had no one to compare to him.
HEAR AND THERE
Keeping up with the Jones’. Within 24 hours of each other, Jon (Bones) Jones, forever in trouble, got busted for driving while impaired. Another notch on his messed up championship belt. Meanwhile his younger brother, Chandler, a linebacker with the Arizona Cardinals, was donating 150,000 meals to the food back for those affected by coronavirus. Same family, different people … NHL VP Bill Daly talked the other day about finishing the season and the Stanley Cup playoffs. Jays president Mark Shapiro cautioned about figuring it could be months before there’ll be a baseball season. Truth is: we don’t know. We can’t know and we may not know for months. Professional leagues are working out all kinds of scenarios, not knowing the time frame on any of them. In the meantime, be safe, be smart, stay home, and be healthy … You can’t make up stuff like this: Dominik Hasek is considering running for president of the Czech Republic. If he talks as fast in his native tongue as he does in English, no one will understand a word he says … Not knowing who else the Leafs will have on defence next season, but assuming they don’t have Tyson Barrie back, they’ll have to protect Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin plus one of a) new defenceman b) Justin Holl c) Travis Dermott on the backline in the upcoming expansion draft. They could lose a defenceman or goaltender Jack Campbell to the Seattle hopefully named Fielders … You can make a case that O.G. Anunoby is the best small forward in Raptors history, which tells you how thin the list of Toronto small forwards has been. There’s Morris Peterson. There’s Terrence Ross. And there’s who else?
SCENE AND HEARD
What really doesn’t interest me: Pictures of your dog. You can love your dog. I love dogs. I just don’t care much what yours looks like – or seeing videos of them playing with your cats … Alex Anthopoulos has taken huge heat over the years for trading Noah Syndergaard to the Mets for R.A. Dickey. Dickey started 130 games for the Jays, his last one in 2016. Four years later and Syndergaard has started just 118 for the Mets and he won’t pitch this season, if there is one, and halfway though next season after getting Tommy John surgery … Baseball played a shortened season and shortened playoffs in 1972 but had a terrific seven-game World Series with Catfish Hunter’s Oakland A’s winning Game 7 against the Big Red Machine Cincinnati Reds of the `70s with Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, Pete Rose and Tony Perez … The 1979 NHL Draft was delayed and held in August, delayed because of the merger negotiations between the NHL and the WHA. It turned out of be one of the stronger drafts in history. From that draft came: Ray Bourque, Mark Messier, Mike Gartner, Dale Hunter, Michel Goulet, Glenn Anderson, Rick Vaive, Guy Carbonneau and Kevin Lowe. Passed over in that draft: 608 goal scorer Dino Ciccarelli … This isn’t necessarilt coronavirus related: If horse racing can’t make in Canada without government assistance, then say bye bye to horse racing. There’s too much for government to support right now. Horse racing should be way down the list for handouts … Anyone who has already qualified for the Tokyo Olympics will be in for 2021. Now the complicated part, training, money, preparation, lifestyle, qualification standards. The usual. Postponing had to happen. It doesn’t uncomplicate the forever complicated Olympic sporting life.
AND ANOTHER THING
One hockey game to play, who do you want calling it? Danny Gallivan? Bob Cole? Foster Hewitt? Doc Emrick? Chris Cuthbert? Gord Miller? Dan Kelly? If it was Montreal playing, I’d want Gallivan. For the rest, I’ll take Cole. But I can hear each of them in my head, with their signature calls and their singular styles … Players still in the NHL who were playing in the league the last time there was no Stanley Cup presented: Joe Thornton, Patrick Marleau, Ilya Kovalchuk, Jason Spezza, Justin Williams, Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron, Eric Staal, Ron Hainsey … A good time to catch up on some fine Canadian comedy: Top of my list, Schitt’s Creek, Kim’s Convenience and if you can find these treasures, any reruns of SCTV … My own Muhammad Ali booklist: 1. King of the World by David Remnick; 2. Muhammad Ali by Thomas Hauser; 3. Sound and Fury, two powerful lives (about Ali and Howard Cosell) by Dave Kindred; 4. Facing Ali by Stephen Brunt … Joel Embiid shot 47% in the NBA last season, 37% when playing against Marc Gasol and the Raptors in the playoffs. Gasol played 45 minutes in Game 7 of Round 2, same as Embiid played. Truth: the Raptors don’t win an NBA championship without Kawhi Leonard. But more truth: They don’t win if they don’t trade for Gasol at the deadline … Happy birthday to Tom Wilson (26), Jeff Beukeboom (55), Keith Tkachuk (48), Walt Frazier (75), Rick Barry (76), Denny McLain (76), Marie-Philip Poulin ((29), Egon Beiler (67) and John Anderson (63) … And hey, whatever became of B.J. Ryan?
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*****
You probably don’t know the name Borislav Stankovic, but you should.
There may not have been a Toronto NBA team without him.
He was one of prominent international basketball people in the world in the early `90s when his country, Yugoslavia, was on the verge of breaking up. Yugoslavia was supposed to play host to the World Basketball Championship in 1994, but considering the politics, that wasn’t going to happen.
And this was years before ’94. Stankovic, who was friendly with Paul Henderson, the international rowing voice and IOC member, asked Henderson if Toronto had any interest in hosting the world event. Henderson wasn’t sure, years before the event was to bed held.
So he asked local businessman John Bitove if he had interest in putting on the basketball worlds in Toronto, knowing that Bitove had aspirations of eventually bringing an NBA team to this city.
A meeting was set up by Henderson with Stankovic: Bitove was there along with prominent city politician Joe Halstead and Rick Traer then of Basketball Canada. At the meeting, the group asked Stankovic if he would introduce them to David Stern, then commissioner of the NBA. This was before there was an NBA team in the city.
The world championships were held in Toronto in the summer of 1994. But before that, in November of 1993, Toronto was awarded an NBA expansion franchise. Bitove was the original owner.
Borislav Stankovic passed away last week at the age of 95. The Raptors are the defending NBA champions. Paul Henderson, by the way, who set up the original meeting, has been to just one Raptors game in the club’s history.
*****
I’ve been watching too many old NHL games in recent days and the more you see of Wendel Clark in 1993 and 1994 – he scored 19 playoff goals in 39 games – the more you realize the kind of guts it must have taken for Cliff Fletcher to make the deal for Mats Sundin.
Clark was a tour de force in the `93 series against the Los Angeles Kings and it was clear his wrist shot had completely intimidated Kings’ goalie Kelly Hrudey. In the famous Game 6 – the Wayne Gretzky high stick that wasn’t called – Clark scored a hat trick against Hrudey.
In retrospect, considering all Sundin did for the Leafs, it was an easy and necessary trade to make. But looking back, and considering the circumstances, it had to have been gut wrenching for Fletcher, who was no stranger to making big deals.
He brought Doug Gilmour to Toronto. He traded Clark away for Sundin. He brought in future Hall of Fame players Glenn Anderson, Dave Andreychuk, Mike Gartner and Grant Fuhr to play for the Leafs.
Before that, Fletcher had traded for Joey Mullen, Lanny McDonald and Doug Risebrough while with the Flames – and also, traded Brett Hull away.
But when you watch Clark’s last season with the Leafs, first time around, he scored 55 goals in 82 games, regular season and playoffs combined. Huge numbers. And then was dealt. And he never scored like that again.
When offensive lineman Bryan Bulaga recently left the Green Bay Packers for the Los Angeles Chargers, I found myself thinking of a conversation we had during the lead up to Super Bowl XLV.
I was working on a story on Mike McCarthy, then coach of the Packers, now coach of the Dallas Cowboys, and asking a variety of players to pass on their best McCarthy anecdote.
Bulaga told this story. He was a rookie with the Packers and during training camp McCarthy made the unusual decision to give the team the afternoon off from two-a-day football practices and replace the practice with a home run derby, softball style.
The winner got a car that was sitting in the Packers parking lot, fully covered.
The derby came down to the rookie Bulaga and the veteran receiver Donald Driver. A huge man and a not so huge man. A 300-pounder against a 190-pounder. “I was basically broke at the time,” said Bulaga. “I needed that car.”
Bulaga went on to win the home run competition. When he and his teammates got to the parking lot to unveil the winning vehicle, they found a dented, beaten-up, trashed car. The whole team had a good laugh about it. Except for maybe Bulaga, who is laughing all these years later.
The deal he recently signed with the Chargers is for three years and $30 million, $19.2 million of that guaranteed. If he needs a new car, he doesn’t have to hit home runs. He can just buy one.
