Joffrey Lupul Says Toronto Maple Leafs Have ‘Quietest Building In The League’
By Cory Buck
Toronto Maple Leafs forward Joffrey Lupul said the Air Canada Centre, where the team plays its home games, is one of the quietest buildings in the NHL.
The Toronto Maple Leafs started the 2014-15 NHL season with a 1-4 record at home, which is consistent with how the Leafs have played at home for much of this past abysmal decade for the team. Forward Joffrey Lupul accepted responsibility on behalf of the Maple Leafs for that shortcoming, but also noted that the home ice advantage in Toronto isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
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“There are some nerves coming into this building,” Lupul said per the Toronto Star. “It’s quiet, it’s one of the quietest buildings in the league. And it can quickly turn bad.”
The causes are compound in this case. The Leafs haven’t been very good in a while, making the playoffs only once in the last decade. That explains why the crowd hushes quickly when things go bad.
More importantly though, the team sports the highest ticket prices in the league, meaning only the very wealthy can sit in the lower bowl, and only the upper middle class can inhabit the upper bowl. A wealthy crowd is rarely a more boisterous one, as evidenced by Toronto’s preseason games or even any road game with the Leafs involved. There you’ll see the true Leafs fans going wild in happiness that they found tickets for which they didn’t need a loan.
Unfortunately those same diehards are nowhere to be found in the Air Canada Centre during the regular season, where the Leafs are routinely getting beat.
“I don’t think guys necessarily take offence to getting booed. Guys can handle that,” Lupul said. “If you play poorly, you expect to get booed. People pay their money. We want to get it to a place eventually where they cheer, too.”
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