THE PRIDE OF CANADA
There are no dinosaurs in Toronto’s Jurassic Park, only Raptors fans, and the screams are those of rapture. As the NBA Finals approach, there isn’t a more joyous public setting in the sporting universe.
Jack Armstrong has been a television and radio voice of the Raptors for 21 years, and he had not witnessed scenes like the one that unfolded Saturday night, when a Game 6 victory over Milwaukee meant the team’s first trip to the Finals.
Thousands gathered at the park officially known as Maple Leaf Square to watch a giantscreen telecast of the game at nearby Scotiabank Arena. “People were lined up for blocks to get in,” Armstrong said. “About two hours before game time, a huge thunderstorm and lightning hit, and they all ran for cover, singing, like a soccer crowd. Then it cleared up, they all went to watch their team, and it was a beautiful night.”
Watch parties are not so unusual, but they usually take place indoors. This was a spectacle quite reminiscent of soccer’s World Cup, a massive outpouring of national pride, and that’s really the point.
“It’s something you won’t see in the U.S., or even in this hockey-mad country,” said Armstrong, a 56-year-old New Yorker who was an assistant basketball coach at Niagara University and Fordham before anchoring the Raptors’ broadcast crew. “That’s all about regions. The Raptors have a national identity. They’re the only NBA team we’ve got, and they’ve galvanized the whole country. Leonard, Kyle Lowry, Marc Gasol, these guys are national heroes. Anywhere you go — Edmonton, Winnipeg, Calgary, Halifax — there’s some kid in a schoolyard trying to replicate Kawhi’s shot against Philadelphia.”
Even the inventive Stephen Curry would have a difficult time perfecting Leonard’s four-bounce miracle from the right corner, the greatest shot in Raptors history, eliminating the 76ers in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. It was wild, magical, and served as a bookend in Toronto’s basketball history. Long ago, there was another deeply important shot that missed. As it happens, Curry remembers it more clearly than most.
It was Game 7 of the 2001 Eastern Conference semifinals in Philadelphia, two seconds left, Raptors trailing by a point, and Curry’s father, Dell, had the ball. This was his second of three career-finishing seasons in Toronto, so the Currys were essentially a Canadian family. Entrusted to throw the inbounds pass, Curry found Vince Carter, at that time a high-flying star with a flair for the spectacular, on the left side of the court. Carter pump-faked a defender out of the picture, then fired a 20-foot jumper that caromed off the rim — the Raptors’ last chance in an 88-87 loss.
As the years went on, that shot came to haunt the Raptors, defining them in the worst possible way. It wasn’t until the 2016 season that they next lasted past the first round of the playoffs, if they got there at all. The franchise needed closure, a bookend to balance such a weighty burden. And it came from Leonard, now taking his rightful place alongside Carter, Tracy McGrady, Chris Bosh and DeMar DeRozan in the Raptors’ all-time starting five.
The Warriors know all about imposing settings. They’ve seen fans dressed up as cupcakes and heard the wicked catcalls from people immersed in hatred. It’s not like that in Toronto, often called the world’s most multicultural city, with some 200 ethnic groups represented and more than 140 languages spoken.
“Definitely the most diverse fan base in the NBA,” Armstrong said. “You walk into a Raptors game, and literally it’s like you’re in the United Nations. A cultural mosaic. And it’s a civil crowd. Nobody’s overturning cars or setting things on fire after a big win. It’s a loyal, caring, supportive group, people who appreciate hard work and their athletes getting after it.
“They didn’t quite grasp the game of basketball in that first season (1995-96), but I’ll put our fan base against any in the league in terms of passion, enthusiasm and knowledge. They know what they’re seeing and, more importantly,
why it’s happening.” A walk along Toronto’s main drag, Yonge Street, is to be transported into a truly international landscape. Branching out, visitors might find themselves in Chinatown, Greektown, Little Poland, Little Italy, Little India. The influence of basketball, in certain pockets of town, is striking to behold.
When Jeremy Lin became the NBA’s first Asian American star in 2012 (with the Knicks; he’s now with the Raptors), the recreational Toronto Chinese Basketball League was born — open to all, but most accommodating if you speak a bit of Mandarin. Then there’s a group known as the Hijabi Ballers, founded two years ago as “an ode to the athleticism of visibly Muslim women,” wrote the Toronto Star.
In these Sunday night games, women are free to play with or without the hijab, the Arabic word for headscarf, or cover. As Muslim athlete Shireen Ahmed told the Star, “Wearing hijab is an extremely personal decision, and one that shouldn’t affect an athlete’s ability or right to partake in sport.” Added Afnan Assoweh, just 15: “In basketball, and the Raptors, I can see myself and find any skin tone, or country. It’s OK to be a person of color and allow yourself to just try something.”
There’s a distinctly African theme to this year’s Raptors. Center Serge Ibaka grew up amid poverty and civil-war violence in the Republic of Congo, eventually traveling to Spain to launch his basketball career. Forward Pascal Siakam was raised in Bafia, Cameroon, concerned more about survival than recreation, and didn’t start playing basketball until he was nearly 18. Raptors President Masai Ujiri left his native Nigeria to gain a prep-school education in Seattle and rose steadily through the NBA hierarchy, but he has stayed connected to his homeland, particularly through the Basketball Without Borders program that brings NBA players and clinics to African regions.
When it comes to the craziness of Jurassic Park, they say Ujiri started it all. The team staged an impromptu rally in Maple Leaf Square before Game 1 of the 2014 playoff series against Brooklyn, and Ujiri was so overwhelmed with emotion, he yelled, “F— Brooklyn” into his microphone for all to hear. He profusely apologized in the aftermath, “but that’s when the outdoor parties became a thing, when people started calling it Jurassic,” Armstrong said. “It became this incredible scene.”
It’s been far too long since the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup — the 1966-67 season, the days of Dave Keon, Frank Mahovlich, Bob Pulford and Terry Sawchuk. Hockey will forever rule the Canadian landscape, but a perfect storm has arrived in basketball. The big names around town are Leonard, Siakam, Lowry and VanVleet, and the fans have made it quite clear: This is their time.
Bruce Jenkins is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: bjenkins@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Bruce_Jenkins1