TORONTO (Mar. 18) — The answer is short and simple: As long as this is allowed to happen, it will continue.

Unabated and unchallenged.

Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment has its season ticket patrons by the short and curlies. And, it yanks harder on that hair every year. Pardon me for the gruesome analogy. But, it’s apropos in a city that continues to be spellbound by a hockey team that never wins. And, an umbrella company that has no economic mercy; taking full and complete advantage, at every turn, of the financial might that accompanies the Leafs logo. There are many fewer seats at Scotiabank Arena than hockey fans who wish to occupy them. So long as demand far outweighs supply, the Maple Leafs remain in charge. They snap their fingers… you follow. Next time you’re in Maple Leaf Square, cast your eyes heavenward. Those skyscraping condominium towers are owned by MLSE and financed by the Leafs logo. You paid for their construction and continue to finance them by refusing to push back against a decades–long obsession: Coughing up whatever the insatiable Leaf owners demand. God forbid a bunch of you corporate types should organize and decline to pay $36,000 up front for playoff tickets that will go mostly unused. Even once. The bank interest on those payments is all that matters to MLSE. If enough ticket purchasers showed a bit of jam, the company wouldn’t be able to play them like a timeworn fiddle. Year after underachieving year.

Call them the Toronto Maple Leeches.

You know the old bromide that “money is the root of all evil.” When you have too much of it, greed invariably prevails. And, it happens with very good and decent people, which I’m sure inhabit MLSE at the very top (you’ll not come across a kinder individual than Larry Tanenbaum; nor one as philanthropic). But, these business tychoons can no longer view life through the same prism as you and I. When money cascades in merely by unlocking the arena doors, there is no limit to choking blood from a stone. Neither can there be sufficient income to placate such high rollers. Money becomes the equivalent of an opioid: you need more and more to induce the same “high”. As such, if MLSE feels it has sufficiently gouged its top–price patrons, there’s only one option left — squeezing the blood–stained snot out of those who inhabit the upper levels of the arena. Even if not gazillionaires, these jersey clad disciples possess some measure of cash–flow to afford their admissions. Nothing is cheap at the ol’ Hangar.

So, why not diminish their hard–earned resources, as well?

This inevitable narrative was broken last week by Simon Houpt, the increasingly superb reporter at the Globe and Mail. The Toronto Star and Sun followed with detailed posts, inciting rage amid the beleaguered fan base. The all–sports TV networks, owned by MLSE, couldn’t go near the subject. But, it’s all white noise. Has been, forever… even if the sheer power of the Leafs logo is quite puzzling. Unlike the “giants” in other sports — the Yankees, Dodgers, Dallas Cowboys, Los Angeles Lakers, Boston Celtics — the Leafs have neither played for nor won a championship in the color–TV era. Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were still alive when the Leafs last hoisted the Stanley Cup. Bruce Springsteen was 17; Tom Hanks still 10. It was a long, frickin’ time ago. Yet, the emblem grows more persuasive and domineering each day and month, entirely irrespective of team performance.

This happens to be a good era for the hockey club (playoffs notwithstanding). Back in the early 1980’s, when Harold Ballard dressed 20 clowns each night, the old Gardens was still bursting at the seams. Nothing, it appears, can dissuade or discourage those who covet Leaf tickets. And, certainly not those who already own them as subscribers. Just name the amount; give the poor saps a deadline… and the e–transfers will roll in quicker than they can be tabulated. As Ken Dryden so–succinctly put it some years back: “Watching the Leafs is a habit.” So is paying to watch the Leafs. And, it will continue to grow more extravagant as time marches on. The saying that “there’s a limit to everything” doesn’t apply to MLSE. Not yet, anyhow. Because, there is no economic confinement amid those who purchase the high–end tickets — the local and national corporations that gobble them up for preferred clients as a tax write–off. Like we said, it’s a bloody habit. This year, MLSE has gone after the comparative everyman. Chugging ale up in the nosebleed sections of the arena. Why? Because it can. Why the heck else?

Compounding the bemusement of Leaf fans is the malarkey that accompanies such unconscionable ticket hikes. Done, according to the metric beancounters, only after exhaustive study of “historical data and market factors.” I’m sure MLSE had to hire the top marketing firm in Canada to determine that normal people in Toronto become deferential sheep once the Maple Leafs begin to play each September. You need geniuses for that, right? And, there is no clemency. Never was… from Conn Smythe… to Ballard… to Steve Stavro, the Teachers and, now, MLSE.

Hockey people in such non–traditional markets as San Jose, Nashville, Columbus and Salt Lake City must shake their heads when apprised of what the Maple Leafs can get away with. Year after year. Decade after decade. Stanley Cup drought be damned. And, you wonder why the Leafs would summon the Canadian military to prevent another National Hockey League club from invading their territory. Can you imagine if the Golden Knights franchise landed, say, in Markham (northeast of Toronto) rather than Las Vegas in 2017? And, went to the Stanley Cup final in its first year? The Leafs would have been laughed out of the city, province and country.

So long as MLSE has a choke–hold on the docile denizens, it will smirk all the way to the bank.

At their interminable and godforsaken expense.

THREE GAMES, TWO DAYS… AND RFK

Why do I remember Oct. 21, 1967? There’s no good answer. I was eight years old and retain only scant recollection of anything before the age of 10. Knew zippo about politics… other than the famous president getting shot, four years earlier, in Dallas. Yet, my mind’s eye somehow remains sharp when recalling the Leafs–Rangers game Dad took me to that Saturday night. We sat in the north–mezzanine Blues for the 5–3 New York triumph. The TV camera up behind the penalty benches on the west side kept focusing on a patron in the lower seats. Turns out it was the aforementioned Robert F. Kennedy, making, as it turned out, his final trip to our country. He watched the Leafs and Rangers, then accompanied the club’s part–owner, John Bassett, to the old CNE Stadium for a Sunday afternoon tilt between the Argonauts (Bassett solely owned the Canadian Football League club) and Ottawa Rough Riders. I still remember leaving the front (Carlton St.) entrance of Maple Leaf Gardens and seeing the motorcade of vehicles lined up at the sidewalk for the Democratic presidential candidate. Tragically, RFK would succumb to an assassin’s bullet in Los Angeles less than nine months later. When looking through my collection, I realized I had three game programs from that weekend, nearly 57½ years ago. The Leafs and Rangers; the Montreal Alouettes at Edmonton Eskimos on the Saturday night… and the Argonauts hosting Ottawa on Sunday:

ROBERT F. KENNEDY EXCITEDLY WATCHED THE ARGOS AND ROUGH RIDERS AT CNE STADIUM ON OCT. 22, 1967 (A 28–28 TIE). THE BESPECTACLED MAN WITH RFK WAS ARGOS OWNER JOHN BASSETT.

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