Once upon a time at the historic ice pad at Maple Leaf Gardens, the Maple Leafs raised 13 Stanley Cup banners to the rafters. Right next to them were seven Memorial Cup banners won by their farm team, the Toronto Marlboros of the Ontario Hockey Association, the most successful team in Canadian junior hockey history.
The Marlboros would move down the 403 to Hamilton in 1989 due to poor performance and low attendance. Brampton Battalion and Mississauga Ice Dogs moving out of the Greater Toronto Area while the Oshawa Generals struggle to draw a sellout crowd.
The Marlboros were once a powerhouse on the national stage with not only seven Memorial Cups, but 10 OHA (predecessor to the OHL) championships in 17 appearances. In the 1950s, they were the hottest ticket in town.
The Leafs did not win a Stanley Cup from 1951 to 1961, but the city’s economy was on the rise after World War II and so was its passion for hockey. Turk Broda, the legendary Leafs netminder, was the coach of the Marlies and demanded success and won back-to-back Memorial Cup victories in 1955 and 1956.
The 1950s was the Marlies’ heyday. They were owned by the Smythe Family and had several players making the jump to the NHL, which was not always an easy task with limited jobs available on only six teams.
Bill White,74, a defenceman for Team Canada in the historic 1972 Summit Series and who played 19 years in the NHL with the Los Angeles Kings and Chicago Blackhawks, he played three years under Broda in the late 1950s. White remembers a time when the Maple Leaf Gardens stands were packed for him and his Marlies teammates.
“Sunday doubleheaders were unbelievable,” White said. “The mites (the younger division) played in the morning and we played in the afternoon.”
The team was unique in that it was the only amateur association in Toronto that provided equipment to all its players by its owner at the time, Conn Smythe.
“We would go to a skate room at Maple Leaf Gardens and we tried on reconditioned skates that belonged to the Leafs.” White says. “The sense of honour and pride was put through the ranks of the organization by the Smythe Family.”
That was 56 years ago.
Now, there is no Toronto Marlboros and with them went the appeal of junior hockey in the city. The Oshawa Generals consider filling half the seats to be a full house. Thehistoric St. Michael’s Majors, revived in 1996, moved to Mississauga in 2007 where they experienced financial woes and a lackluster fan base that would make a hockey team in the desert blush.
The team was subsequently sold in 2012 to new ownership and changed the team’s name to the Mississauga Steelheads.
Scott Rogers, vice-president of the Steelheads, is aware of OHL teams’ failure to take a slice out of the Maple Leafs monopoly in the GTA market and knows it won’t be an easy task.
“Mississauga is clearly a hockey market and it’s clearly a big market. Just look at the excitement the people have for the Leafs,” Rogers says. “I know it’s not the same thing, but OHL hockey is next to the NHL. These guys are future stars.”
Rogers says the new ownership group led by Ottawa Senators owner Eugene Melnyk see the opportunity for growth in a diverse market like Mississauga and aspires to build a hockey culture in the Toronto suburb similar to those in London and Kitchener.
“It’s about promoting awareness (of the team),” Rogers says. “It’s not about converting Leafs fans, it’s about converting non-hockey fans.”
The Steelheads have an average attendance hovering around the 50 percent mark at the Hershey Centre, but the ownership sees potential with their most expensive tickets at $21, compared to the Leafs’ cheapest seat at over $100.
“You can’t beat quality hockey and a family outing for under $100,” Rogers said.
The Marlboros also benefited from cheap seats to fill the stands.
Dan Berger, assistant general manager at Mattamy Athletic Centre (the new name of Maple Leaf Gardens), fondly remembers going to Marlies games in the early 1980s to see future NHLers Sean Burke and Peter Zezel thanks to free tickets from the Toronto Star.
“As a 10-year-old, I used to be a paperboy,” Berger says. “There were games that the Toronto Star would give us free tickets in which there would be 16,000 paper boys jammed into the building.”
Rogers doesn’t see the departure of the Brampton Battalion as a sign of an OHL exodus from the GTA, but rather as less competition. With the departure, the Steelheads have the Peel Region to themselves, a population of over 1.2 million, and are even promoting the team in downtown Toronto.