Maple Leafs fans dreaming big at Buds’ season home opener

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There’s nothing better than the atmosphere on opening night. Every team still has a chance at winning the Stanley Cup at this point of the season.

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But it’s not just that the Scotiabank Arena is full of hope for a season that will finally end the drought — it’s more than that.

Toronto needed something happy and positive to hang on to. In a year of strangeness out on the streets, the Maple Leafs are a reminder of Toronto the Good — a place where there is a collective celebration of something and not people at each other’s throats.

Not a place where a Jewish school is shot up for a second time this year or where politicians put special interest over common sense.

There was none of that in the rink on opening night — just happiness.

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The pipes and drums of the 48th Highlanders are always a warm tradition that people enjoy. Natalie Morris doing an amazing job singing both national anthems is always a treat. People are excited.

Even at 90 years old, Don Cherry was at home watching and thrilled to see this NHL season finally begin. He’s getting ready for Sunday’s first taping of his Grapevine podcast and you know this game will be talked about — among many other things.

Grapes likes summer and baseball. But he likes hockey and winter more.

Hockey is a special game that not only the pros play. Great moments happen at the minor hockey rinks, too. As Priya Nagarajan, 13, who scored her first goal for the Erindale Spitfires in Mississauga in just her second hockey game as a player on Saturday.

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She has caught the bug and so have her family members, who were even more excited than Priya.

Hockey is more than a game. It’s a Canadian right of passage. And being at a hockey rink is a national church — no matter how big it is or even if there is a roof over it.

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Speaking of that, the under-renovation Scotiabank Arena is something new that people can also get excited about.

Auston Matthews against fellow captain Sidney Crosby. It doesn’t get any better than that. The Toronto Maple Leafs and Pittsburgh Penguins on opening night. That’s a hot ticket.

And also the Penguins are one of those teams, like Montreal and Boston, who have all sorts of people sitting together in the opposing team’s sweaters.

Brother and sister Jason and Alison Collis are an example of that. At 23, Alison has was born into a Maple Leafs family and all was normal. But when Jason came along five years later, the rules seemed to get bent.

“I don’t know, I always liked Pittsburgh,” the 18-year-old Jason said.

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And even though he’s a teenager, he’s celebrated three more Stanley Cups than any Leafs fan has under 60.

Connor Higgins is an example of that. At 34, he was there with his four-year-old son Rory, wearing their matching No. 34 Matthews sweaters, hoping this is the year.

“I just want to see it in my lifetime,” he said of a Leafs Stanley Cup.

Connor hasn’t waited as long as many, but he said he’s pretty sure Rory will see one at around the time of his fifth birthday.

All you can do is dream. That’s what a new hockey season is all about.

But perhaps more important than winning the Stanley Cup is that this night was a break from the real world.

That was something Toronto needed in a big way.

jwarmington@postmedia.com

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