Sport in Toronto - Hockey

Hockey

See also: Toronto Blueshirts, Toronto Toros, Toronto Roadrunners, and Toronto Marlies

The city is famously known for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League, a team with passionate and fanatical support in the city, and equally fervent detractors throughout Canada. It is the most financially successful sport franchise in the country, and is usually featured on Hockey Night in Canada's first game of Saturday night broadcasts.

The team built Maple Leaf Gardens, an iconic sporting venue which not only served as the home arena for the Maple Leafs, but was also employed for cultural and other events. Since 1999, they have played out of the Air Canada Centre.

The Toronto Toros of the defunct World Hockey Association first entered Toronto's sports scene in 1973. In an attempt to capture a portion of Toronto's hockey market, they could only attract a fraction of the attendance numbers the competing Leafs drew. In their inaugural season, they played out of Varsity Arena, but played the next two seasons out of Maple Leaf Gardens. It was then where they drew the ire of Leafs' owner Harold Ballard who had recently regained control of the building. He would charge the team excessive rent fees per game, force them to construct their own dressing rooms, and have the cushions from the hockey benches removed for their games. The team played their final game in Toronto in 1976 before relocating to Birmingham, Alabama as the Birmingham Bulls.

In 2003, the Toronto Roadrunners of the American Hockey League played their inaugural season out of Ricoh Coliseum in Exhibition Place. They served as a farm club for the NHL's Edmonton Oilers. After a season of bad attendance, the team relocated to Edmonton, Alberta and folded a season later. The AHL experiment in Toronto seemed to be over.

However, with the Ricoh Coliseum vacated, the Maple Leafs found a new tenant for the facility by relocating their AHL farm team, the St. John's Maple Leafs, from St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador to Toronto as the Toronto Marlies in 2005. It is the Leafs' hope that an AHL team affiliated with the Leafs would beget attendance figures that would not be as severe as it was with the Roadrunners.

Toronto has also hosted various international hockey tournaments, hosting parts of the 1972 and 1974 Summit Series, parts of the 1976 and 1991 Canada Cups, and parts of the 2004 World Cup of Hockey.