‘Getting back to normal’ is something to cheer about
You should probably avoid me for a while. I just spent an evening under the same roof as several thousand people who screamed at the top of their lungs on and off for several hours, and ate hot dogs and swigged beer with their masks resting under their chins. And God did it feel good. Weird. But good.
The Toronto Maple Leafs opened their season last night at Scotiabank Arena — not to an empty arena or a half-full arena, or an arena full of creepy computer projections of fans watching from home, but to an arena jam packed with real-life Leafs fans — all of them full of Pfizer, Moderna, and scorn for the Montreal Canadiens.
All of them fully vaccinated. Meanwhile, mere blocks away on Bremner Boulevard dozens of unmasked anti-vaxxers and their poor
kids played street hockey in protest of Scotiabank Arena’s vaccination policy. Unsurprisingly, failed politician Maxime Bernier posed for their cameras.
But back to the hockey game that matters, and the people who matter. “I feel pretty safe,” Cathryn Phillips told me standing by the concession stands an hour before puck drop. “I’m just really excited to be here.” Phillips, a personal support worker, and her colleagues — health-care workers with Scarborough Health Network — were hard to miss hanging around in their hospital scrubs in the sea of royal blue and white Auston Matthews jerseys. “I can’t put it into words,” she said, about being at a near-full capacity hockey game after months on the front line of a pandemic. “I’m happy to see life getting back to normal.”
Normal is a word I heard a lot from fans inside the arena Wednesday night. Everybody was happy to be “getting back to normal.” To feel normal drinking a tall can beside a stranger and not fear for their life and to feel OK in a crowd.
But while things may have felt a touch of pre-pandemic normal inside Scotiabank Arena (masks notwithstanding) they certainly didn’t feel normal outside the arena. And I’m not just talking about the anti-vax protests. I’m talking about the province’s inconsistent policy around capacity limits.
Hopefully this inconsistency rights itself soon, with the province expected to lift capacity limits in restaurants, bars and gyms, the Star’s Robert Benzie and Rob Ferguson reported Wednesday. But it was clear on this night how unjust the existing policy is.
Walking outside the arena prior to the game I had a tough time finding fans who would speak with me because so many of them were rushing to make pre-game reservations at one of the downtown Toronto pubs within walking distance of the rink. Many of these restaurants are still legally required to serve guests at limited capacity and comply with physical distancing rules whereas major venues aren’t.
In other words, these struggling pubs are serving guests at half capacity, who minutes later pour into a full-capacity hockey game where physical distancing is near impossible and masking isn’t mandatory when eating and drinking.
“It’s ... stupid,” Leafs fan Barry Lacroix told me, referencing the capacity rules.
He was on his way to a restaurant where he planned to watch the game, meaning a smaller venue where a person is probably far less likely to catch the virus than at a massive gathering like a Leafs game.
“The whole situation doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Everybody entering (the restaurant) is hopefully vaccinated.”
He’s not wrong. It does seem extremely unfair not to mention illogical that small struggling businesses must abide by safety rules that hurt their bottom lines when big businesses don’t.
“It’s an inconsistent policy that needs to be addressed,” says Toronto city councillor Joe Cressy, in whose ward Scotiabank Arena sits. Cressy recently attended a Toronto Blue Jays game with his best friend, Toronto city councillor Mike Layton. “It felt surprisingly normal but it was a transitional feeling. A hint of unease.”
I know what he means. The unease came over me Wednesday night too, not only because I was in close proximity to thousands of people wearing their masks under their noses, but because while our city’s sports venues are full, the small businesses that make it worth living in are half empty and near bankruptcy.
It’s nice the Leafs are playing to a full capacity crowd. It’ll be nicer when the pub down the street is serving a full capacity bar.