A DREAM TICKET
Diehard Leafs fans are in for a treat,
The Toronto Maple Leafs want you to keep your tickets after this season.
The team’s centennial ticket package has been crafted — through a combo of long-lost quotes, photographs and custom artwork — to be a history-infused keepsake for fans.
“We wanted it to be something people would hold on to for their life, essentially,” said Matt Coyle, the Leafs’ creative director who spent months leading the project.
The goal, he explained, was to commemorate the team’s history and articulate the team’s values of pride, honour and courage.
The creative force behind the ticket illustrations is Conrad Garner, a Florida-based artist and longtime hockey fan.
Garner was approached by the Leafs’ creative team who were impressed by his online portfolio.
He recalls making himself an iron-on Maple Leafs T-shirt in middle school because he thought the team’s logo looked cool. So when the team approached him with an offer to collaborate, he jumped on it — one drawing blitz, more than 250 sketches and nearly 60 completed pieces later, Garner has a tired shoulder and knows the team well.
He says the behemoth of a project was a feat of human and creative strength, and one that ended up being one of the highlights of his life.
“I have a deep respect for that team and their legacy,” he said. “I would hope (fans) will see these (players) and learn more about them and what they did for the team, and this timeline that is pretty incredible.”
Mike Ferriman, the team’s director and historian, helped compile the quotes that Garner artistically worked into the tickets.
“We all know the statistics, and how many Cups they’ve won, how many goals they scored,” Ferriman said.
“But the quotes we used really talk about the player as a man, and the type of person he was — I think it gives you a fuller understanding of these players.”
He said, through some digging, he tried to let Maple Leaf players from the past century talk about the team and its legacy in their own words. The ticket for Dec. 11’s game, for example, features a photo of goalie Johnny Bower and a quote from him about playing without a mask: “I just made up my mind that I was going to lose my teeth and have my face cut to pieces.”
The Leafs’ art director Louis Cohen and designer Anthony Ruggiero also played major roles in making the ticket project happen.
“People will be going through shoeboxes for decades after this, looking through all the treasures that they saved, and I know that so many of these tickets will appear in those shoeboxes,” Ferriman said.