How much have Raptors upstaged Leafs?
Lance Hornby Toronto Sun June 17, 2019
I’ve covered or stood curb side for the scant championship parades in Toronto the past few decades.
Bob O’Billovich clutching the Grey Cup, Joe Carter waving the Canadian flag, TFC player scarves flapping in the December breeze or dodging soccer balls and dancers on the Danforth when Italy won the World Cup or Greece took Euro 2004.
But the excitement of those civic cellys always seemed to come with a rider, from fans and media, ‘just wait until the Leafs win the Stanley Cup’.
Now that the five-day festival of the Raptors’ NBA title is complete — the clinching game viewed by a record 7.7 million in Canada, capped by an estimated two million bringing the city to a halt on Monday — that haughty notion is up for debate.
The youth-imbued crowd, the majority aged 25 and under, or young families in ‘We The North’ apparel with homemade signs, turned the streets red, packed every pub and were hanging from every tree, lamp post or atop idled garbage trucks and TTC vehicles. Across from the Osgoode Hall green, where team buses made their last triumphant turn into Nathan Philips Square, one man clung precariously on the head of a war memorial statue and when the ‘Let’s Go Raptors’ clap/chant began, used his free hand to slap the bronzed angel’s out-stretched bronzed palm to beat time.
Roaring echoes from the square bounced off skyscraper walls. Whiffs of marijuana also rode the slight breeze, along with a roving minstrel playing Drake tunes with speakers strapped to his body. He was among those pressing forward and giving the bagpipers little room to clear space for the team. It was a long way from those black-and-white snaps of genteel Leafs fans staying on the sidewalk to let the convertibles ferry George Armstrong, Dave Keon and Frank Mahovlich up Bay St. with the four Cups in the 1960s.
The extra two hours it took the caravan to snake its way to Mayor John Tory, receive the key to the city and a new ‘Raptors Way’ street sign, gave lots of time for 20-somethings Zaqi Ahmed and Harpreet Johal to argue if the Leafs bust their Cup slump, will it be anti-climactic based on what everyone was witnessing.
“The Raptors are just becoming a global team, the Leafs have been one for longer,” contended Ahmed. “When the Leafs win the Cup — and you can count on that in the next couple of years — millions of people will come here. If the city was unprepared for this, they’ve got a whole other thing coming.
“People will come from literally every inch of the planet. Two million is a lot to take in now, but just wait in a couple of years. All this Raptor hype was gained during the playoffs. When the Leafs make their run, expect double or triple this size.”
Don’t hold your breath chimes in Johal.
“This is the peak for Toronto. Everybody is out today and after this, we know what it’s going to be like. Some people might have horrible experiences and might never want to come back (later, during speeches, four people were injured in a shooting away from the main stage). Now, people will just watch at home. I don’t think the Leafs will be bigger than this.
“This is us, this is our Raptor time. We weren’t even here for the Jays. I was negative two when they won. If the Leafs win, it might be the same, but the Raptors are here to stay.”
There are many Leaf fans across Canada, but just as many haters, while the nation’s only NBA team has pulled on the country’s heart strings in recent weeks.
One of the few wearing a Leafs cap in the quest for a shady parade vantage point Monday was Kyle MacLean. Though he was probably wishing the ‘Freddy, Freddy’ call to some to the main podium was for goaltender Andersen, not point guard VanVleet, he was happy to be part of history.
“I’m thrilled as a Toronto sports fan,” insisted the 45-year-old, part of two generations bereft of a Cup winner. “It would be amazing if (Leafs) won, but that would be taking something away from what the Raptors have done today. The Leafs winning would be huge, but I don’t know about it being bigger.
“This is pretty special. It brings a different group of people together in our city that might not be hockey fans or from Canada. It’s a real sense of unity.”
The Raptors, junior partner in the Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment empire since their 1998 merger, are certainly on top today.
And while there’s no inter-lodge rivalry by the abundance of congratulatory tweets from the Leafs, Marlies, Argos, TFC — even a Raptor logo on the rival owned Jays’ exterior message board — you can’t stop wondering if the Leafs missed a big moment here.
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