I’m sipping coffee in Ilderton, a stone’s throw or two from Lucan, Ontario, where tonight there’s a hockey game. The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators face off in the community centre, in front of perhaps 1300 souls.

The tickets were divvied up through a lottery and I’m excited to reveal that I …

Don’t have one

So why have I headed up here, you ask. I just want to be a part of the vibe on Main Street. Maybe I’ll hug the outside walls of the arena. Or sit down with 1000 other fans in front of a giant TV screen to watch the game.

I love seeing Mitch Marner skate, pass and score. Perhaps he’ll see me in the parking lot and invite me inside … the building, the dressing room, his heart. Oh, Bruce, you are so strange.

Main Street Lucan. I parked blocks from the arena to get a feel for downtown Hockeyville. Store after store was festooned in blue and red ribbons for the two teams. Canada Post is naturally decked out in the appropriate colours but they added wraps of crepe paper to their wheelchair ramp. So cool. Hockey sweaters and sticks filled store windows. And somewhere in town, apparently there’s a church with this message on its lawn: “Love thy neighbour even if they are not Leafs fans.”

The sidewalks were full with families walking to the game, sporting Leafs and Senators jerseys, mostly Leafs. There was joy in their strolls towards town history.

At the community centre, there were TV trucks, huge buses, lots of police cars and the general milling around of folks who had little paper rectangles in their hands. Those people went inside.

I was directed to a long line behind the arena, winding its way to a huge white tent glowing in the distance. Everyone seemed to have a ticket for the giant TV showing of the game. Somebody said there were 100 tickets left an hour ago. As I joked with the locals near me, I kept an eye on a woman in the distance. She was behind a table at the gate, and kept opening and closing a small metal box. I took this to be an excellent sign that there were tickets left. When I finally reached her table, I heard these golden words: “There are twenty left, sir.” I’m in!

I never thought of bringing a lawn chair, unlike 700 other souls. Oh well. Knowing that my feet couldn’t handle three hours of standing, I went to the front left edge of the crowd and plunked myself down behind a couple in their chairs. Between them, from the vantage point of the ground, there was a perfect viewing angle. My butt hurt a lot over the next three hours but so what? I was in Lucan, two hundred metres from my team and my hero. I was roaring approval at John Tavares’ first goal as a Leaf, surrounded by the cheers of my neighbours. Otherworldly!

Smiles everywhere
Town pride everywhere
What a privilege to be immersed in such life