Shanahan and his new head coach agree; they’re in this adventure together

He had me at: “I’m thrilled to be here.”

Maybe even before Mike Babcock opened his mouth to speak — when he came out from behind the curtain at the Air Canada Centre, looked directly at his wife sitting in the front row, and grinned.

As if this was very much an intimate and transcendental moment, despite the scores of reporters, the phalanx of TV cameras, the Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment employees lined up along the galleria balustrade.

Toronto offered Babcock 10 years; he took eight. Babcock offered the Leafs an “out’’ clause in his $50-million contract; Brendan Shanahan said uh-uh.

“That was important to them, that I had none,” the new bench boss told reporters following a meet-the-gang media confab Thursday morning, and by gang I mean those same reporters who will fell trees of newsprint chronicling the Mike Babcock Era hereabouts and the television crews that tracked every mile of procession from airport to arena. Because this is Toronto and these are the Maple Leafs and nothing else matters quite so much on the sporting scene.

“When they made me that offer and I went back to them with an out, Shanny said, ‘That doesn’t work for us. When we make a commitment to you, you’re making a commitment to us.’ I was very happy to hear them talk like that. I don’t think I should have an out and they shouldn’t have an out either. We should be in this together.”

Funny, though, that the getting-out, the leave-taking, should have been front of mind, even before Babcock had formally pledged his troth to the Leafs.

The deal hockey boss Shanahan presented to Babcock back on May 10 — just two days after receiving permission from the Wings to speak with him — wasn’t essentially any different from the contract formally accepted on Wednesday afternoon following a night of tossing and turning. Babcock had gone to bed with a decision in mind. He heard his daughter running off a term paper on the computer and checked the nightstand clock: 3:32 a.m.

“Ours is a long-term plan . . . that’s why we were talking eight years, 10 years.” LARRY TANENBAUM MINORITY OWNER

“By morning I had a different plan.”

Babcock texted Detroit GM Ken Holland, asking to meet at his house. Reaching constantly for Kleenex — because it was an emotional face-toface — they discussed the three scenarios under winnowed-down consideration: staying with the Red Wings, signing with Buffalo, or inking with Toronto. At 7:30 a.m. Babcock informed both Shanahan and Sabres general manager Tim Murray that he needed until 11:30. Went through it all in his head again, with his wife, with their three kids. “In the end, this was the best decision for the Babcocks and for myself.”

Which put a lot of noses in Buffalo out of joint, noses that were lifted in bitter accusation yesterday by the Buffalo media mafia, which had travelled to Toronto not to praise Caesar but to bury him.

“Did you have a deal with them or not!” shouted a scribe from south of the border, after accusing Babcock of lying to Sabres ownership, which was confident it had landed the prize. “No.” And yet. “Did we work on financial stuff and term? Absolutely.”

Which sounds an awful lot like an agreement. But no signature on the dotted line.

“Lying is an interesting word,” suggested Babcock, who never lost his cool. “I’ve been in the public eye for a long, long time. I don’t think that (word) goes anywhere near who I am or what I’m about. I’ve been real straightforward and hon-

The money in Buffalo was grand, of course, but the Sabres aren’t the Leafs and Buffalo isn’t Toronto

est in the process with all the teams I talked to.”

The money was grand, of course, and would have been equally grand in Buffalo. But the Sabres aren’t the Leafs and Buffalo isn’t Toronto and it really did come down to that.

“Lots of teams we talked to were set up better,” acknowledged Babcock, referring to his multitude of suitors and their attractive rosters. “But they weren’t the Maple Leafs and they weren’t in this city.”

We’ve heard it before: the same awe expressed by so many of Babcock’s predecessors, taking over the coaching reigns of this Original Six franchise, convinced they could take it where the Leafs hadn’t gone since 1967. And every single one of them thwarted, booted to the curb.

Babcock, with a Stanley Cup ring and two Olympic gold medals, casts it in a slightly different context, an even more gaudy frame of reference. “Whether you believe it or not, I believe this is Canada’s team and we need to put Canada’s team back on the map.” Suspension of disbelief is required. To hear Shanahan tell it, from the outset he didn’t attempt to sugarcoat the gargantuan task at hand; indeed, following their initial phone chat, he fretted to his wife that the picture he’d drawn was too bleak. “It was a very truthful conversation. Mike asked hard questions and I didn’t lie. I got off the phone and I wondered if I’d made a huge mistake.”

Yet Babcock didn’t shy away in horror. The Leafs then flew him to Toronto, somehow managing to keep that clandestine meeting off the media radar.

They palavered again, frequently, during the world championship in Prague.

Despite reports to the contrary, the Leafs were never out of the bidding loop and never added fetching incentives such as personnel say-so.

“I outlined my vision,” said Shanahan. “Nothing changed. I just kept hitting Mike with the same thing, what our vision was, what anyone who was coming here needs to expect and should expect. Mike’s questions for me were not pushing back against the build and the vision. It’s what we’ve talked about here for the past year. Do we have the ability as a city and as an organization to stick to it through the hard times? Mike coming here was really about making sure that we’re not speeding up the process.

“So, there was no last-minute change or last-minute swooping in with a new idea or a new pitch or a new financial pitch. It was really me hammering the same thing at Mike, which was brutal honesty.”

No short cuts. No trade-deadline maneuvres that might tip Toronto into the playoffs but cost them prospects and draft picks. And doubtless many nights when Babcock will want to pull out his hair. “On game day I’ll be short-sighted for sure. But I’ve got a big picture in mind. If you think there’s no pain coming — there’s pain coming.”

Once in, Babcock was all in. Pleased with embarking on a new chapter in his life, he and his wife now empty-nesters, kids spread out across American universities, becoming downtown condo-dwellers. “I embrace this opportunity of coaching the Maple Leafs. I came here with my eyes wide open.” Still, not without apprehension. It has been decades, not since his first season coaching the Spokane Chiefs of the Western Hockey League, that Babcock has experienced chronic losing. He’s not accustomed to it but knows that’s what lies ahead in the methodical re-build that Shanahan has drawn up. He even used the word “fear”, although that was directed mostly at walking in to the gladiator’s arena of his first press conference.

“Fear, I think, is a great thing. Some people wouldn’t. You know, I tell this story lots. In 1997 I was bear-hunting. I got the call, they said you’re going to coach the world junior team. Right away I thought, oh my God — they’d just won four or five in a row — what did I get myself into? When Steve Yzerman had me in his office and said, ‘Mike, you’re going to coach the 2010 Olympic team’ — when I got in my truck, I was scared to death. What did I get myself into? In 2014, the same thing.” Fear, though, can be liberating too. “I meant, that was exhilarating. It’s about being alive.’’

Thus, when Babcock called Shanahan on Wednesday and said deal done, “I was exhilarated. I was relieved. As the day wore on, it just got better and better. And it was even better this morning.

“So, let’s go.”