The last time Toronto sports fans gathered en masse outside the Air Canada Centre it was to watch the Maple Leafs pound the Canadiens in the opening game of the NHL season.
Oh what a difference a few months make.
This Saturday, jersey-clad fans are being encouraged to congregate outside the downtown arena again, this time to protest the sustained stretch of mediocrity Toronto's professional sports teams have suffered through and to mourn what appears to be another collapse by the city's most beloved franchise – the Leafs.
The event, which runs from 12 p.m. to 2 p.m., is being organized by Toronto sports fan Ryan Jackson.
"We are not going to accept failure anymore and we are not going to accept paying the highest ticket prices around for a substandard product," Jackson told CP24.com in a telephone interview Friday. "We have reached a breaking point. It has been too many years of sorrow with nobody doing anything and now the fans are fed up."
Jackson, who has lived in Toronto his whole life and has bled blue and white for almost as long, hopes to see at least 100 fans attend Saturday's rally.
He says he's tired of excuses and makes it clear Toronto's sports woes can be attributed to poor management and not the players on the ice, field or court.
"It absolutely is starting to affect the morale of the whole city," he said. "Toronto is just starving for a winner. I mean when you think back to the early 2000s when the Leafs were making the playoffs, the bars were sold out, people were running in the streets, honking their horns. We need to get back to that."
In June, ESPN voted Toronto as the worst city for professional sports in North America and things have only gotten worse since then with the Raptors lingering near the bottom of the NBA standings and the Leafs flirting with their eighth straight season out of the playoffs.
With all that heartache, Saturday's rally will double as a bit of a support group for depressed Toronto sports fans with attendees able to say their piece over a loudspeaker.
The hope is that Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment, which owns the Leafs, Raptors and Toronto FC, will be listening.
"We obviously don't expect (Leafs General Manager Brian Burke) or (Raptors General Manager Bryan Colangelo) to step down, but we want to send a message," Jackson said. "We are concerned about the future of our teams because right now the future doesn't look bright. If we can't lure in talent and keep free agents what do we have to look forward to?"
