It was a warm and sunny June day as the people of Toronto began to gather along the length of Yonge Street. People appeared out of the underground subway stations and poured off side streets, following the sound of the crowd and wafting smell of blue and white cotton candy. Almost everyone – estimates for the crowd that day went as high as three million – was wearing a blue and white jersey or t-shirt, with their favourite players’ names and numbers emblazoned on the backs. Kids took turns running out into the middle of the street and peering down toward the lake in search of the end of people lining both sides of Toronto’s east-west divide.
Mobile kiosks along the curbs were hawking jerseys, pennants, scarves and buttons with an additional tagline reading “1917-2067 – 150 years of Bleeding Blue and White.” Media drones buzzed overhead to live-stream the fizz of excitement.
Today was the Toronto Maple Leafs’ first parade in exactly 100 years. Dozens of floats for the team’s major advertisers idled along the sidestreets, waiting for the show to hit the road.
Carlton the Bear danced around on the puck-shaped platform of the lead float, dancing and entertaining kids as they walked past toward Yonge. Current and former Leafs players and management were scattered along the train of cars and festooned flatbeds. More than a few of them were taking surreptitious tugs from sport drink-logoed bottles spiked with vodka, taking the edge off a hangover from the previous night’s more private alumni reunion.
The last of the floats was themed after the Stanley Cup. Propped up in the centre of the bowl was a bald and stooped old man sitting on a bench in an Original Six-style Leafs jersey with the number “1” on both sleeves.
Beside him, the NHL’s lead broadcast correspondent, whose on-air name was Rani Hockey, yelled into the geezer’s ear.
“Are you excited for the parade, Mr. Unwin?”
“What’s that, darling?”
“I said, are you excited about the parade?”
“You’re damned rights I’m excited,” he said. “I’ve waited 100 years to see another Stanley Cup in Toronto.”
“But Mr. Unwin, the Maple Leafs didn’t actually win the cup,” Rani said. “This is a “Maple Leafs” parade. It marks the 150th season of the team and 100 years since the last Cup back in 1967.”
“Don’t be silly darling, no one in their right mind would ever have a parade for that,” Mr. Unwin said.
Rani’s producer laughed through her ear piece from the studio in New York.
“Well, he’s got you there, Rani,” he said. “Coming to you in three… two…one…”
Rani crouched down in front of the camera until her head was level and pressed tight to Mr. Unwin’s.
“Welcome everyone to the Toronto Maple Leafs parade! I am here with our honourary parade marshal, John Unwin. Mr. Unwin is the last living Leafs fan to have attended that magical game in 1967 when the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup by defeating the Montreal Canadiens. Mr. Unwin, can you tell everyone watching the parade at home how old you are?”
Mr. Unwin sat up a little and looked into the camera.
“I am 104 years young,” he said with a wink for the camera and a pat on Rani’s bent-over backside.
“Uh, now Mr. Unwin, how does it feel to be the parade marshall for this special occasion?”
“I still can’t believe it,” he said. “I’ve waited my entire life to see another Stanley Cup parade in Toronto, and now it’s here.”
Rani’s producer barked through her earpiece.
“He can’t call it a Stanley Cup parade. The Stanley Cup parade is in Minnesota. Again, for Chrissakes”
Rani plowed on.
“So Mr. Unwin, do you remember anything from that fateful championship 100 years ago?”
“I remember it like it was yesterday, young lady. Darryl Sittler and the Swedish boy were fantastic.”
Rani looked confused.
“Uh, Mr. Unwin, Darryl Sittler and Borje Salming never won the cup, unfortunately.”
Mr. Unwin paused, but recovered quickly.
“Of course I know that, Sweetheart. The Swede I”m talking about was the other one. Sundin.”
“A Hall of Fame player indeed,” said Rani, “But still not a Cup winner, I’m afraid. Who are some of your other favourite players over the past century?”
Mr. Unwin paused.
“There were a lot of good ones… and a lot of lousy ones,” he finally said. “Some, like the team in ‘36, were so good. I still can’t believe the Winnipeg Jets stole the Cup from our boys. That one truly broke my heart, even more than 1993 and ‘94. And then in the ‘40s, to see our former captain hoist the Cup with the Fort Lauderdale Flyers and win the Conn Smythe trophy as MVP (Unwin stops and hiccups a small sob)… four months after leaving Toronto… Well, it just left a hole right here.”
Mr. Unwin thumped his fist against his chest and bowed his head.
Rani turned to the camera to buy some time for the weeping Mr. Unwin.
“That’s right everyone, our Maple Leafs have certainly served up their share of heartbreak over the years. Let’s take a trip down memory lane at some of those great teams from the past decades.”
Viewers were treated to a montage of Maple Leafs highlights spanning the past 50 years. A non-hockey fan would be forgiven for assuming that the Leafs had won several Cups during those years, but fans like Mr. Unwin nursed each spring letdown like a scab that never healed.
Mr. Unwin first gained some public attention as a veteran fan 30 years earlier when it was discovered his family had held season tickets for more than 100 years. He revelled in the limelight. Even when one especially cynical sportswriter synonymized his surname to nickname him ‘Johnny Loser’. Johnny retorted by purchasing a Jersey with the number “1” on the back and the name “Johnny One-win” over the shoulders, to tout his credentials as a four-year-old at the 1967 championship.
“Don’t forget the 2050 finals,” he said to Rani as he leaned toward her microphone. “We were minutes from the championship, do you remember? Our man Raj Cooper got hauled down in front of the Penguins’ net, and our keeper was skating toward the bench on a delayed penalty.”
Tears welled up as Johnny’s eyes gazed in the distance.
“Teemu Omamaali – I never liked that Finnish S-O-B – threw a no-look pass backward to no one and it drifted straight into our own empty net. A piece of me died that day.”
He bowed his head again and hiccupped.
Omamaali tried to recover the following year, but was chased back to Europe after enduring half a season of merciless taunting. Every time he got the puck, fans, home and away, would shout, “Shoot!” and clap sarcastically when he managed not to score on his own goal. Fans wouldn’t admit it until much later, but they missed Omamaali greatly once he was gone.
Rani patted Mr. Unwin’s shoulder.
“There have been some tough times, for sure, Mr. Unwin.”
While the Leafs’s exit from the playoffs in 2030 wasn’t dramatic, it sparked a bitter and violent spring in Toronto. Every 13 years, the Hockey Hall of Fame adds a new silver band to the Stanley Cup’s base for the next round of winning teams and players’ names. The keepers of the Cup make room on the base by removing the oldest of its existing 13 rows. That year, the winning teams from the late 1960s and ‘70s were removed, and the Toronto Maple Leafs were no longer evident on Hockey’s Holy Grail.
The city’s mood was funereal until a drunken group of die-hards marched down Yonge Street in a mock parade, wearing brown paper bags over their heads. When they reached the Scotiabank Arena, they carried on unimpeded onto the playing surface (it was a basketball court at that moment) and held a 14-day sit-in demanding the owners sell the team ‘to someone who gives a shit.” Rink management were content to let the group let off some steam, but ultimately the police were called in to haul them away before the highly anticipated four-night stand of Nickelback’s Farewell Tour.
The protesters got their wish a decade later when Rogers Communications made a corporate overhaul and sold its majority stake in the team to a Mississauga-based pharmaceutical company. The rink was quickly renamed after the brand of their revolutionary, no-hangover sleeping medication, earning the sarcastic nickname and motto, “The Sleep Shack: Where dreams go to die.”
Rani meanwhile was powering on with her interview with Johnny.
“How has it been for you, a fan of more than 100 years, waiting for a Stanley Cup, Mr. Unwin?”
Johnny thought for a second before answering.
“How has it been? It’s been like entering a new circle of hell every year. For 100 springs, so much hope, even confidence, only to have it ripped out of us. But finally, the day has come, hasn’t it! This is the happiest day of my life.”
“Uh, right.”
“Just go with it,” said Rani’s producer.
“Mr. Unwin, your optimism is inspiring to us all. Let’s go down to Deshaun on the street to hear from some younger fans.”
Deshaun stood curbside, surrounded by Leafs fans crowding over his shoulders.
“Thanks Rani. I’m here with a boisterous group of fans whose Be-Leaf springs eternal.”
Deshaun pointed his microphone toward a young man in his early 20s. He wore a relic of a Blue Jays baseball cap with beer can holders on both sides and plastic straws leading down to his mouth.
“What’s your name, friend?”
“I’m Eddy. Go Leafs!”
The kids surrounding them whooped for the camera.
“Eddy, do you think the Leafs are ever going to bring the Cup home again?”
“Who gives a shit about the Cup? This is going to be the biggest parade the NHL has ever seen. We’re the greatest fans in the league. Where’s the cup for that?”
“Well said, Eddy, well said, and apologies to our more tender-eared fans out there. Rani, back to you.”
“Thanks Deshaun. It looks like the parade is just about to roll, so I’ll give Mr. Unwin the last word from here. Mr. Unwin?”
“Thank God the wait for another parade is over,” said Mr. Unwin. “Finally, I can rest in peace.”
Out in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Bob and Ellen Forster were puttering around the kitchen as the news broadcast the parade live.
Bob stopped drying dishes and stared at the television slack jawed.
“For God’s sakes. Toronto throws a parade to celebrate 100 years of losing and the rest of the country has to watch. Classic CBC.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Ellen said, not looking up from her jigsaw puzzle. “Say what you want about those Leafs, Toronto sure knows how to throw a parade.”
True to Ellen’s word, the parade was widely considered an unprecedented success. The team sold more merchandise that day than they normally do all season. Bay Street economists were interviewed for days afterward to talk about the economic impact of the huge event. Politicians and police patted themselves on the back for the lack of reported violence and property crime during the event.
Two weeks later, Mr. Unwin passed away in his sleep. He was buried in his favourite Leafs Jersey with the number 1 on the back. Honouring Johnny’s special requests, the Maple Leafs’ organist played all the fan favourites at the service for his guests. On opening day of the following hockey season, the city unveiled a bench along Yonge Street across from the Hockey Hall of Fame with a plaque “in memory of Johnny Unwin, parade marshall of the Toronto Maple Leafs’ first annual parade.”