Toronto Maple Leafs
Rink: Scotiabank Arena
Capacity: 20,270
Built: 1999
League: NHL
City: Toronto, Ontario
Home Of: Toronto Maple Leafs
Games Attended: 5
First Game: December 13, 1999 vs Ottawa
Most Recent NHL Game: October 20, 2022 vs Dallas
Only AHL Game: March 15, 2025 vs Charlotte
Unique Arena: #2
NHL Arena: #2
AHL Arena: #18
Scotiabank Arena and its front facade looks a lot different today than it did when it opened 25 years ago. As a child who grew up in the GTA, I remember when it opened and was the newest building in the NHL. It felt like this grand place. It’s hard to believe it’s now a quarter-century old.
It is in a very convenient place in downtown Toronto. Literally connected to Union Station, next to the Gardiner Expressway, there are plenty of ways in and out. Though if you drive by car, it’s much more annoying and as you can see in this photo, expensive. The front of the building still has the spotlight sculpture that was made when the rink opened, but the front has changed a lot since then. What was once just a large parking lot and open land when the rink opened is now Maple Leaf Square. It’s a great social hangout with bars, restaurants, condos and even a giant video screen on the front for watch parties in the playoffs so the average joe can be a part of the action when they can never dream of affording to get inside for the actual game.
As I said, Scotiabank Arena when it opened felt like such a grand huge building to my 10 year old mind, but it obviously didn’t have the soul of the old Maple Leaf Gardens. Now compared to the NHL in the 2020s, the building feels, dare I say, small compared to other giant rinks with the same seating capacity but more social spaces. It’s a pretty standard two bowl setup with suites in between and more suites stacked on top of each other in the end zones. The seats are all comfortable and most have great views of the ice. Though some up in the upper bowl corners up beside the suites have obstructed views. One thing I do like that they brought from MLG is the different colours of seats. Someone tells you I’m sitting in section 127 that really doesn’t resonate. But tell him I’m in the golds and they know exactly what kind of seat you have. The concourses are a tad narrow by today’s standards and with a full house it can take a while to navigate the place. The atmosphere, as I’m sure everyone reading this is aware, is a total dud. The average Leaf fan is just as loud and passionate as any across the NHL, but we also all know the crowd at Scotiabank Arena isn’t filled with average fans. This picture was taken at opening faceoff, and the lower bowl is barely half full. The rink eventually filled up with the suits who sat on their hands all night until the final 10 minutes of a game that eventually ended with a Leafs OT victory.
As I said before, the rink feels much smaller than many others I’ve been to across the NHL so far. Getting to go to an AHL game here with a crowd of just over 8,000, all in the lower bowl only still gave off a decent enough atmosphere which you wouldn’t expect with a totally empty upper bowl. Unfortunately, that day half of the lower bowl concourse was going through some major renovations, which made a narrow concourse even more cramped. It amazed me that the main team store is not accessible once inside the ticketed area. Apparently, you can only get there from the outside, and as is now normal for all arenas at all levels, there are no in/out privileges. Perhaps that will change with the renos are done.
I’m happy I got to go to an AHL game here to experience what a hockey game at Scotiabank is like in the lower bowl for a reasonable price. It’s just such a shame the atmosphere in Toronto is so poor, because it’s so much smaller than other more modern NHL rinks that it could have an incredible atmosphere with fans on top of the action (by 90s entertainment centre standards anyway).
