Maple Leafs Fans First Game, part 1.

As many of you know, I'm a HUGE Leafs fan. Pre-season opened this week, and I must say I like what I see, and with the news of Phil Kessel being added to the lineup, I'm excited to see how this season pans out. Might as well start the Stanley Cup parade now! OK, so I can dream, can't I? Seriously, I think Burkie's doing a pretty good job making this team competitive again. Will we see the playoffs this year? I honestly don't believe so, and even if they do, I don't expect anything past the first round.

Anyway, MSLE and Coke Zero treated Toronto fans to what they called the Fans First Game. Every ticket in the building was free, and the building was devoid of the boring suits that usually spend less than half of the game in their $250 platinum seats.

The evening started off with a tailgate party capped off with a surprise performance by Sloan. Was pretty cool too, since very few people were milling around the stage waiting for Sloan to start, since they didn't know they were going to be there. Which meant I was able to get pretty close up to snap a few shots of the band.

As you can see from the pictures, they're not the young and angry band I remember from when I was in high school, but they still rock hard, and they sounded awesome, even if they were a little less animated than they were 15 years ago.

Here are a few pics from the show. Click on them for larger versions and more pics.












Wait! Wasn't this dude just playing the drums???


This guy took over for Andrew


Towards the end of the show, these two little ones got on stage to play the maracas with the band, and to scream into the microphone a bunch of times. I guess they were kids of the band members.


Love the Kiss sticker!!


Stay tuned for part 2 of this post for pictures from the game inside ACC.

- jc