Maple Leaf Garden Trivia

[zamboni24]

 I was fortunate to have attended one of the last games played at MLG late 1998 on one of my road trips.

One of the 6 teams in the newly formed PWHL is playing at the Mattamy Athletic Centre which appears to be at the same address as the old MLG. The capacity claims 3,850. What am I missing here. Wikipedia has my head spinning.

Thanks

[davinator]

IIRC, the Gardens was purchased and refurbished by the U of Toronto(?) which included adding a new ceiling/floor above the lower levels...but 3850 seems low so maybe they're closing off the upper level(s) when the PWHL plays?

[davinator]

Too lazy to research this though, I am only going by my foggy memory.

[The OC]

Interesting connection for me that I didn't realize until I read your post. My wife recently modeled for an ad campaign and they had their kickoff last month in TO. We were there for a couple days and I wandered a few blocks from the hotel looking for food and stumbled upon a really nice Loblaws in a very historic looking building. Other stuff in it too, including Toronto Metropolitan University's athletic center. It didn't clue in to me until now that it was Maple Leaf Gardens.

And yes, when they built ACC the owners held on to MLG for 10 years to prevent someone buying it and competing with them for either concert bookings or even a second NHL team. Eventually they agreed to sell with the new owners only using the top part for an arena and the lower levels converted to retail, etc. It's a new ice surface. The location of the original ice is in Loblaws, and they have a red dot in the store marking where center ice was. The PWHL will play there in their first season, a local girl is one of their goalers.

[davinator]

Yes...I remember now that the ice level was moved UP a few floors in the building to create the supermarket at street level. Clever use of space!

I really need to research further now...