Leafs bringing out little boy in the players

Every hockey mom and dad loves to show off a picture or video of their kid in uniform.

But the parents of the players wearing Maple Leafs’ garb now have quite the platform, the giant screens at the ACC with musical accompaniment and special effects to make a most memorable slide show.

It’s the new clip played before all home games that’s struck a chord with the team and the public, a montage of youth hockey pictures or home video supplied by the players and their families, juxtaposed with them in NHL poses or highlights of draft day and game action.

It opens with wee Tyler Bozak skating alone on a frozen lake in Saskatchewan in the late 1980s while his father does a Hockey Night in Canada commentary.

Shy moppet Mitch Marner tells a sportscaster he wants to play for the Maple Leafs one day and it later cuts to a cheering Nazem Kadri in what looks like Leafs pyjamas. Pint-sized Auston Matthews is seen scoring in the Scottsdale, Ariz., minor hockey program. Other portrait shots have Frederik Andersen grinning with a gift of oversized goal pads and a defiant looking Matt Martin from his Windsor youth.

“I saw a few guys’ pictures before I went out on the ice,” Martin said. “It’s cool. Mitch hasn’t changed at all. It’s interesting to see the guys at that age.”

“It’s something that the fans really get into,” said Connor Brown, whose mother got right back to the Leafs when they requested photos over the summer. “You see how unreal it is for guys such as Mitch and I, growing up in the Toronto area and looking up to the Leafs, how cool it is for us to be on this side of the fence.”

As the images roll, the song Witness to History by Vonlichten is playing. Anton Wright, director of game presentation for MLSE, developed the idea, which other pro sports teams have used in some variations before.