Three hours before the puck dropped, Nick Eaves pulled back a curtain and invited a guest to examine the thousands of empty seats inside Scotiabank Arena. A scarf had been draped over each hours before the Maple Leafs hosted their season opener, and soon, each of them would have a new owner.
More than that, as the ice resurfacer purred through its pre-game laps and ushers gathered for their pre-game meetings, Eaves wanted to show how normal it looked. Five hundred eighty-two days after their last pre-pandemic game, the Leafs were going to host a game at full capacity.
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“It was actually really, really moving to walk out and see the scarves in every seat as the first indication there were going to be 19,800-ish people in the rink,” said Eaves, chief venues and operations officer at Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment. “It was a kind of poignant moment, to be perfectly honest.”
Despite appearances, elements of the fan experience had fundamentally changed. There were also signs that suggested not all hockey fans were comfortable returning to the building, and one expert wondered why the team received permission in the first place, with the pandemic still part of everyday life.
The company — which owns the Leafs, the Raptors and the arena — had been preparing for this return for months. And under a grey October sky, fans filed past the familiar smell of hot dog stands on their way to watch the Leafs host the Montreal Canadiens.
“It’s reasonable to do this, with a giant caveat,” said Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist based at Toronto General Hospital. “And that giant caveat is, if things aren’t working out, if things don’t look like they’re headed in the right direction, you might need to scale back.”
He described it as a “time-stamped” conversation: It makes sense now, in mid-October, with infections not at a crisis point in Ontario, and with more than 80 per cent of eligible residents fully vaccinated.
“You wouldn’t want to do something like this in Saskatchewan right now,” said Bogoch, highlighting a province coping with acute strain on its healthcare infrastructure. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
There were plenty of tickets available online in the hours before faceoff, which is unusual for a Leafs home game, but especially for a season-opener at home. (They were available, but they were not exactly cheap: An open pair in Section 108, just 19 rows up, was available on Ticketmaster for $612 per seat.)
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Not everyone would be comfortable in a big crowd after 18 months of a pandemic, said Bogoch, while it was perfectly reasonable for others to want to get back into the rink.
“It’s all OK, as long as people are being thoughtful as to what they’re doing, and who they’re exposed to, day-to-day,” he said. “It’s safer. It’s not 100 per cent safe.”
Colin Furness is an infection control epidemiologist and an assistant professor in the faculty of information at the University of Toronto. He said there are good reasons for welcoming fans back into the stands, from the economic to those tied to mental health.
Having the hockey team require full vaccination as a condition of entry could even help push others to get their shot, he said.
“However, that doesn’t mean full capacity,” said Furness, “and that’s what bothers me.”
He pointed to Euro 2020, the soccer tournament that officials blamed for a rise in COVID-19 infections over the summer in Europe.
“We know: The larger the gathering, the greater the risk,” said Furness. “I would have been very incremental about this. We started being incremental about this and, all of the sudden and with no explanation, the brakes got taken off.”
The Leafs were permitted to play in front of a half-full arena in the pre-season. The Blue Jays were permitted crowds of up to 30,000 as their season drew to a close earlier this month. Images of sold-out stadiums across the U.S. have been filling daily highlight shows for months.
“It’s more complicated than just big stadiums,” said Furness. “But I guess if we want to align our policy with the U.S., then we need to brace for a lot of sickness and death. And I just don’t think anyone’s said that’s a good idea.”
He said he would be more comfortable with the idea of filling indoor sports venues once older citizens received their third dose vaccine booster, and after children younger than 12 are made eligible for their first shots.
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“Those are the two things we need to do as a baseline,” said Furness. “I’m just not willing to talk about the virtues of 20,000 people gathering until we get those done.”
MLSE announced its vaccine requirement long before the Leafs returned home. Reminders were placed around Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday, with signs telling attendees they were required to show proof of vaccination, and that they would have to wear a mask inside.
“We know that’s not perfect,” said Eaves, the company’s venue officer. “But that’s a very high bar in terms of obviously stopping the spread.”
Fans passed through checkpoints before they reached their seats. At the first, they were asked for proof of vaccination, along with a piece of government-issued identification. From there, they moved on to show their ticket, which is wholly mobile, and no longer issued in paper form.
Eaves also said it was the first regular-season game in franchise history where cash was not accepted at the arena. All transactions — at the souvenir shop, the concession stand — were electronic. (Eaves said MLSE had placed a handful of so-called “reverse ATMs” in the building, where fans could deposit cash and receive a cash card in exchange.)
Fans are also required to wear a mask inside the arena, with the notable exceptions being when they eat or drink. Before the puck dropped against the Canadiens on Wednesday, fans in the Molson Brewhouse, a watering hole outside the lower bowl, were not in any hurry to pull their mask up between sips.
In the stands, at least, Eaves said ushers have been instructed to remind fans of the rules.
“It’s not easy, but our ushers know that a big part of their job is to make sure everyone is wearing a mask when not eating or drinking,” he said. “A lot of fans prolong the eating and the drinking, so that then becomes a judgment call.”
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Eaves said none of the decisions have been made in a vacuum. In March, MLSE announced Scotiabank Arena was the first Canadian arena to receive approval from the International WELL Building Institute, which grades buildings for elements that include air quality and cleanliness.
There is also constant communication with local public health officials.
“Our total experience with Toronto Public Health prior to the pandemic was they issued us green passes for all of our restaurants and kitchens,” Eaves said with a smile. “We didn’t know that Toronto Public Health, in addition to those, also managed a global pandemic.”
(Top photo: Steve Russell / Toronto Star via Getty Images)