Toronto sports scene booming despite a disappointing night
Wednesday was a huge sports night in Toronto that fans there will never forget. Unfortunately for them, the lasting memories won’t be good ones.
For only the sixth time, four of Toronto’s major pro sports teams played on the same night: the Maple Leafs, Raptors, Blue Jays and Toronto FC. The Marlies, the Maple Leafs’ AHL farm team, also played.
At the end of the night, only one of those teams was victorious, with the Raptors beating the Washington Wizards 108-98 at the Air Canada Centre to take a 3-2 lead in their best-of-seven, first-round NBA playoff series. The Maple Leafs were eliminated when they lost 7-4 to the Bruins in Game 7 of their first-round NHL playoff series in Boston, while the Blue Jays lost 4-3 to the Boston Red Sox at the Rogers Centre. Toronto FC lost to Mexico’s Chivas on penalty kicks in the CONCACAF Champions League final in Guadalajara, and the Marlies lost 5-2 to the Comets in Utica, N.Y., preventing them from sweeping their bestof-five, first-round AHL playoff series.
The Maple Leafs’ loss is the one that will sting the most and the longest in a city that hasn’t seen a Stanley Cup parade since 1967. But the Leafs are a young, exciting team that was let down in Game 7 by some shaky goaltending from Frederik Andersen. Meanwhile, the Marlies had the best record in the AHL during the regular season. Toronto FC are the defending MLS Cup champions, the Blue Jays had a 14-9 record after Wednesday night’s loss and the Raptors were the best team in the NBA’s Eastern Conference during the regular season. There’s also the Argonauts, who are the defending Grey Cup champions, and Montreal boxer Adonis Stevenson’s championship bout next month will be held in Toronto.
Montreal sports fans can be forgiven if they’re feeling jealous about what’s happening in Toronto, which is a booming city whether we here want to admit it or not.
Former Montrealer Elliott Price has been learning that first-hand since packing up and moving to Toronto last year to join the morning radio team on Sportsnet 590 The Fan after being laid off as a morning cohost on Montreal’s TSN Radio 690 in 2015.
Price grew up in Montreal and started his radio career here in 1982. For anyone working in sports media these days, it’s refreshing to see a 61-year-old, experienced pro like Price get a fresh start. Price admits he was “a bit in shock” when he got the call from Sportsnet and he now loves working in a market with so many teams to cover.
“In Montreal, I don’t want to insult the Alouettes and the Impact, but they’re not the Canadiens,” said Price, who is part of the Starting Lineup show, along with Greg Brady and Hugh Burrill, that airs from 5:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. on weekdays. “You could talk Canadiens 24/7 in Montreal — and they do. You could talk Canadiens 12 months of the year in Montreal — and they do. The Leafs are gone now, everyone’s sad, boo-hoo, but we have time to fill now with the other teams who weren’t getting their due. The Blue Jays almost didn’t get mentioned at all on this morning ’s show.
“I admire the guys who do the shows in Montreal because that’s a tough gig,” Price added while driving to a golf course after finishing Thursday’s show. “Doing the Canadiens all the time and finding new avenues and new conversations, that is a tough gig. I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to continually make it interesting when sometimes it’s not.
“The Leafs are done here, but we have more than enough to go with (Friday). We got the Blue Jays, we got the Raptors and the NFL Draft is (Thursday night) and we’ll go big on that (Friday). Baseball and basketball are sports that I knew about that were wasting away in my head … I got to talk about each of them maybe once a week over the previous 10 years before coming here.”
As for the Toronto bashing that often goes on in Montreal and elsewhere in Canada, Price said: “What has surprised me since living here is the bashing that Toronto takes just for being Toronto. It is more projected from the outside looking in than it is from the people here. In my mind, the people in Toronto are no more different than the people in Calgary or the people in Vancouver. But people hate on Toronto and a lot of it is sportsrelated with people saying: ‘It’s always about Toronto.’ You now what? It is Toronto because they have a baseball team, a basketball team, a hockey team … that’s just the way it is.”
Price has settled in Whitby, Ont., with his wife, Julie, and their two children — Sophie, 18, and Myles, 15. He said the family is happy in their new home and that while he misses Montreal’s bagels, smoked meat and his old golfing buddies, he doesn’t miss Quebec’s language issues. “This is the best thing that happened to me,” he said. “They saved my life and I couldn’t be happier. I don’t know what else to tell you.”