I’m not a Leaf’s fan, I never have been and I never will be. I grew up in Quebec and I currently reside in Ottawa. I am a Montreal Canadians fan first, and an Ottawa Senators fan second.
Being an Ottawa Senators fan, it pains me to admit that Toronto Maple Leaf fans are among the most loyal fans in pro sports. It doesn’t seem to matter to them how much their team struggles or how few games they win. Over the past few years the Leafs haven’t even made it past the first round of the playoffs, if they even made the playoffs at all.
So why is it that this franchise still manages to sell out every home game they play? Some say it’s fan loyalty, some say it’s marketing, some call it magic. Me? I honestly don’t know what the secret is.
I do know that the average fan probably couldn’t afford Leafs tickets to a game even if they could get one. The last time I checked, the cheapest seats in the house sold for $80.00 plus. In fact, many fans travel to Ottawa, Montreal, and Buffalo to see their team play because it is cheaper than buying tickets to the home games.
I have been to an Ottawa Senator’s versus Toronto Maple Leafs game at Scotia bank Place, and I can say with a fair amount of certainty that when Toronto plays in Ottawa, over half the house is cheering for the visiting team. Ottawa fans don’t like it, but that’s just the way it is.
So if the average fan that can’t afford Leafs ticket in Toronto, then who is buying the tickets? That’s a very good question. You see Toronto is a very trendy city. People with any money at all feel the need to constantly impress their colleagues and friends whenever they can. So the theory is that most of the ticket holders these days are white collar, upper management sorts of people with the money to spend on the seats. To be honest, I’m not sure I believe that theory. I think that Toronto fans are so darn loyal they’ll spend money they don’t even have on a ticket if the opportunity to buy one is presented to them.
So how does a team that has performed so poorly over the past decade still manage to sell out every night? It’s simple. The Toronto Maple Leafs are not just an NHL franchise, they are an institution. They have been around since the very beginning, one of the original six. People don’t cheer for the Leafs because they love the team, they cheer for the Leafs because they’ve been raised to do so. They cheer for the Leafs because their great great great grand pappy said so. They cheer for the Leafs because it’s all they know.
As a fan of their biggest rival, I have to hate them for that. As a fan of the game itself, I admire it.
