TORONTO — The mostly serious woman on the other side of the Zoom call asks for your social insurance number.
She asks whether your parents have ever had heart trouble or diabetes, and if you’ve been skydiving or bungee jumping in the past five years, and how much you weigh, and when was the last time you needed an X-ray or a blood test.
The woman is screening you for life insurance, so she asks what you do for a living and how many glasses of wine you drink per week.
You tell her that you’re a sportswriter who covers the Toronto Maple Leafs. You give her an estimate on the wine. Depends on the week, you suppose.
“Good thing we’re doing this interview before Friday,” she replies. A smile curls at her lips.
Friday?
“That’s when Mitch Marner comes back,” she says. “Drinking will be way up.”
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Mitch Marner returns to Toronto on Sportsnet
Mitch Marner and the Golden Knights visit Toronto for the first time since Marner’s move to Vegas. You can watch the game Friday on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT.
The mostly serious woman on the other side of the Zoom call has jokes.
And a point.
Toronto-born Mitch Marner packed up and left the city that raised him, at least in part, because of the noise.
On Friday — draped in Vegas gold and wearing his throwback 93, same number as a local deity — Marner will step into an arena filled with the stuff.
“I’m sure it’s going to be… loud,” predicts Scott Laughton, a former teammate and fellow Torontonian. A guy who gets it.
More naive is the kind-hearted Joseph Woll.
“He’s been a special player for this team for a long time, and he’s been a big presence in the community as well,” the goaltender says.
“I would hope it’s a warm welcome. I know he has nothing but good memories here, and I think the fans have experienced a lot of good memories with him as well. So, he’s a great guy. It’s unfortunate he’s not with our group anymore. But, yeah, I think hockey is a place of respect, and I hope the fans pay him respect.”
Marner himself, a pro athlete who at various points misread his own fanbase, is coming around to the idea that Friday’s welcome-home reception in front of a well-hydrated Leafs Nation might be, well, something less than warm.
As our highly unscientific poll suggests:
Each time his blade met the puck, Marner got showered with jeers by the vocal minority of traveling Maple Leafs supporters who turned up in Las Vegas last week. It was an ear-opener.
“Now I think I kind of know going in,” Marner said that night, in his new home, after beating his old team. “They got a passionate fan base.”
At the outset of his 10th season and first representing some place other than his hometown, Marner told Sportsnet’s Colby Armstrong that Jan. 23 would feel “a little odd,” his most fervent supporters and fiercest haters packed inside the same barn. (The Marners are a tight-knit family. And, last April, the all-star’s OG buddies rented a party bus and drove to Buffalo to celebrate the forward’s first 100-point campaign live.)
“Whatever happens, I’m gonna have a lot of family, loved ones around, friends. It’s gonna be really fun to go back there, play that game, then afterward see friends,” Marner said.
“I’m sure once the moment comes, it’ll be overwhelming and exciting, a lot of nerves in a way — but really exciting as well.”
Oh, it’ll be exciting all right.
Mats Sundin, another Leafs icon who left for an underwhelming return and uncomfortable circumstances, was feted upon his February 2009 return with the Vancouver Canucks. A quicker heal to be sure:
The way Marner’s relationship with the city and the organization crumbled to shambles, years will be required to forgive, if not forget. We’re talking a Vince Carter–like timeline.
Certainly, we’re not expecting Marner to bear quite the brunt ex-Islander John Tavares did during his first game back at Nassau Coliseum. All those flaming sweaters, pelted snakes, and spitty insults … that night was about as close as a regular-season NHL game will get to 28 Days Later.
But we wouldn’t be surprised if the waves of boos and, perhaps, discarded 16 sweaters mimic that of Marner’s last twirl on Scotiabank Arena ice, his final Game 7 defeat as a Maple Leaf.
What sticks? The 804 total points, so many of them dazzling, Marner produced for Toronto? Or the unforced puck over glass and the dry-haired, uh, pep talk to his own teammates?
It’s complicated.
“You have an emotional connection to a place that you spent a lot of time and put a lot into. Nobody ever loved getting a rude welcome back, but at the end of the day, we’re here for him and just want to try to support him as much as we can,” said Vegas teammate Jack Eichel, who survived something similar in his trip to Buffalo.
“Fans are always going to have their opinions, whether it’s good or bad. But for him, it was a decision he felt he needed to make. No one’s going to fault him on that.”
Why they’ll boo may not be entirely fair, but it’s not without just cause.
Marner wanted to win a Stanley Cup in Toronto last spring, but he also had a backup plan in place. He’d been scouting the Golden Knights just as they had been scouting him.
Fans want their heroes to be as invested as they are.
Marner turned down Brad Treliving’s pitch to negotiate what would’ve been the richest contract in Maple Leafs history.
And as per his negotiated right, Marner exercised his no-move clause and blocked any potential trade for, say, a respectable return like Martin Necas, Shea Theodore, or Mikko Rantanen.
There are recent examples of superstars working with management when they intended to leave.
Matthew Tkachuk was upfront with Treliving in Calgary, and the Flames found a conclusion that made everyone happy enough.
The same goes with Quinn Hughes earlier this season. When the all-world defenceman knew he wasn’t long for Vancouver, agent Pat Brisson said the Canucks essentially treated the asset as if he had a full no-move, and the parties worked together to secure a respectable return from Minnesota.
The Leafs had to make things awkward just to salvage Nicolas Roy — a fine third-line centre — from the Knights.
In Toronto, the ol’ campsite rule — leave the place in better condition than you found it — went up in smoke.
The boos hurled at Marner will, perhaps, be more symbolic than they are personal.
Anger is hurt wearing a costume.
The Core Four was broken up too late, and Marner now represents nine long years of sparkling playoff failings. Hopes dashed. Potential wasted.
Were Brendan Shanahan, Kyle Dubas, and Treliving to do a public skate (counterclockwise only!) around SBA, they too might hear the venom from 18,000-plus.
The brass’s stubbornness and poor asset management are to blame for wasting the prime years of the best collection of elite talent since 1967.
But fans don’t buy jerseys of executives.
And not only were Leafs fans tantalized, then tortured by the we-can-we-will crew, they somehow got pointed to as being the cause of their favourite athletes’ inability to outscore their opponents.
Just because of a few overzealous outliers and social-media nonsense.
“It’s unfortunate the fans ran Marner out of town,” Brad Marchand said.
Sports need visible villains.
And pain needs an outlet.
Drink up.
