A 2 p.m. home game will take some getting used to for Frederik Andersen. It will be the goaltender’s first early start at the ACC since coming from the Anaheim Ducks a couple of years ago.
“We used to have a lot of 5 p.m. games there on Sundays,” Andersen recalled, usually an accommodation for Eastern television. “Once in awhile, it would be noon or 1 p.m. This (a weekday afternoon) is a little different.
“I’m figuring out what I want to do to get ready. When you don’t do games like this very often, you have to improvise a bit, establish the recipe on how you want to start your day.
“I won’t skate, I might get up around 6 a.m. and have a light breakfast, then go back to sleep. That’s what I’d do on the road (for afternoon games), order breakfast from room service and get it done. That way, you’re not having pasta for breakfast when you wake up again.”
SOCK TALK FROM BABS
Head coach Mike Babcock put in some overtime with his whistle yesterday — for a good cause.
The Don Mills AA Mustangs of the Greater Toronto Hockey League won a fundraising contest to sell ‘Bab Socks’, with the coach’s image on them to get money for mental health awareness, a cause dear to the Leaf bench boss.
Their reward was to watch the Leafs work out at the MasterCard Centre and then have Babcock run a Mustangs practice, which he gleefully did at full throttle.
WAY BACK WHEN
Some tidbits on the first game the franchise played on Dec. 19, 1917 at the Montreal Arena.
The team really didn’t have an official nickname, referred to under their old NHA moniker as the Blue Shirts or the Torontos. Only when their landlords, the Toronto Arena Company, were granted full ownership of the Stanley Cup winning franchise the following March did the name ‘Arenas’ stick.
Dave Ritchie scored first for the Wanderers on Sammy Herbert and the home team was up 2-0 before Reg Noble, a Collingwood-born centre who played for the Canadiens in the NHA, beat Bert Lindsay (father of Terrible Ted), the first in ‘Leaf’ history. Noble had a four-goal game in the eventual 10-9 loss and was the leading scorer through 21 games with 20 goals and 40 points.
Montreal Arena burned to the ground two weeks later, taking with it the equipment, uniforms and sticks of the home team, which had to fold, leaving the NHL with just three teams. Toronto’s home opener at 7,500-seat Mutual St. Arena was Dec. 22, an 11-4 pounding of the Ottawa Senators.