Toronto Maple Leafs - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

References to the Toronto Maple Leafs have been very common in Canadian movies and television shows.

In 1946, the comedy team of Wayne and Shuster performed a sketch on their CBC radio program in which the imaginary hockey team, the Mimico Mice, competed against the Maple Leafs. Foster Hewitt did the play-by-play of the game, real Maple Leaf player names were used for the Leafs and Wayne and Shuster played the entire Mimico team. In 1949, Foster Hewitt wrote a juvenile hockey novel, He Shoots, he scores!, which featured the team, including actual managers and players.

In 1963, Scott Young wrote A Boy at the Leafs' Camp, a children's book giving a behind-the-scenes insight into the sport. In 1971, Young and George Robertson cowrote an adult hockey-romance novel, Face-off, about the experiences of a star rookie player, Billy Duke, with the Maple Leafs. The novel became a movie in 1971 with Art Hindle as Billy Duke. The film featured many of the players. Jim McKenny, body-doubled for Hindle for the on-ice action scenes due to a resemblance to Hindle. Owner Ballard had a part as the team doctor.

In 1979, Roch Carrier wrote the short story The Hockey Sweater about a young boy who was forced to wear the hated Leafs' sweater of instead of his beloved Canadiens by his mother who had given it to him as a present. In 1980, the story was turned into an animated short by the National Film Board of Canada.

In 1992, the rock band The Tragically Hip released the song "Fifty Mission Cap," which memorialized Bill Barilko. The 1993 film Gross Misconduct was about the life of former Maple Leaf Brian Spencer. Comedian Mike Myers, a fan, often included references and even an entire plot line in his films. In Goldmember, the ticker below the news item on a television reads, "Maple Leafs win Stanley Cup". In another scene, the character Mini-Me wears a Maple Leaf sweater. In Myers played a guru hired to help the Leafs' star player in the movie The Love Guru. At the beginning of the 2010 spy film Fair Game, CIA agent Valerie Plame is being questioned by a suspicious weapons trafficker. He asks her if she is an American, and after responding that she is Canadian, he asks her about the Maple Leafs. She replies that she is not a fan.