HOLIDAY MOOD: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for an entire city. Keenan,
For years, Toronto sports fans have been taunted with the phrase ‘Plan the parade!’ When we finally did, it was. . .
The University subway near St. Clair West was more crowded than usual Monday morning around 10. a.m. Rushhour crowded. Yonge-line-at-rushhour crowded. People-on-the-platform-not-able-to-get-on crowded. Not typical, but not an unheard of sight on the Toronto subway.
But on board, the usual commuter misery was entirely absent. There were no mindless middle-distance stares among those crowded together. No groaning when an announcement came on to mention a passenger assistance alarm somewhere.
Instead there were smiles. There was laughter. There was chatter among friends and a good deal among strangers, loud enough you couldn’t really even hear that operator announcement. There was Raptors red everywhere, and Raptors purple, and Raptors black and gold.
A baby tapped me on the shoulder and looked at me with wide eyes, as babies do. “Hello!” I said.
“This is her first subway ride,” her mother said to me. “Big day. We drove from Brampton to get on.”
“Are you going to a parade?” I asked the baby. The baby silently looked at me with those wide eyes, smiling and tapping my shoulder again.
“We are, maybe not for all of it,” her mother said.
“It might be too crowded. But we didn’t want them to miss it,” she said, gesturing to her other children.
No one wanted to miss it. Crowd estimates are notoriously difficult, but I certainly heard some in the two-million range for the Raptors victory parade and celebrations Monday — which would be about a third of the entire GTA population crowded into a dozen or so blocks of downtown Toronto. I don’t know what two million people looks like, but what I saw was more people than I’ve ever seen anywhere in my life — and I’ve been at two World Youth Day masses by the Pope that were said to have been attended by 300,000 to 600,000 people.
Nathan Phillips Square, University Ave., Lake Shore Blvd. Each of them was like a very orderly, pleasant mosh pit, where people stood shoulder to shoulder in the warmth and sun as the parade made its five-hour journey from the CNE to city hall.
Cars parked on the Gardiner and people stood at the rails, watching the team buses pass beneath them.
It’s been widely noted that this city’s sports teams have been taunted with the phrase “Plan the parade!” for a generation.
Our fans are so loud and proud and maybe occasionally optimistic, and our teams have had such a run of futility, that sneering opponents could greet any expression of hope with a quick “plan the parade” and shut it all down.
The taunt picked up steam after Tim Leiweke, who came and went as the honcho at MLSE earlier this decade, actually had planned a parade for the Leafs in 2013.
Hard just now to remember why it stung.
Because you know what? This city loves a parade. We’re good at parades. Santa Claus, Pride, Caribana — some of my earliest memories are of regular dragon-dance parades past my childhood home to open new restaurants in the Chinatown along Gerrard St. E. We’re good at parades. Parades are a hell of a lot of fun.
And this was the parade to top them all, at least in most of our memories.
There’s plenty of important, pressing business in the world that needs attention. But as a famous truant once said, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” Monday was like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off for the entire city. A day where so many of us — most of us, it certainly seemed — just put everything else on hold to get together in a mass demonstration of joyous positivity. Drake led a big group hug, for goodness sake. It was a bonding moment for the entire city — one that will live in memory, an “I was there” event to cap the festivities that kicked off with the other massive street party that kicked off immediately after the Raptors won. Something, for once, we could pretty much all agree on, and could pretty much all get into. Something fun. It was dampened somewhat by a shooting as the speeches were underway that prompted part of the crowd near Queen St. to scatter and run. The violence and the few injuries (reportedly not life-threatening, thankfully) are a stain on the events.
But the panic didn’t spread. The vague appeal for calm made from the stage after the “incident” was a little bewildering at the time, but appears to have worked to prevent any kind of mass panic from setting in. With people packed in for blocks around, it’s easy to imagine how that could have turned to tragedy.
Instead, it quickly turned back to celebration. Delightfully goofy player speeches. Love.
We planned the parade, and held one, and it was absolutely magnificent.
A taunt? This parade was awesome. Let’s make this the slogan on the signs welcoming visitors to Toronto: “Hell yeah, we’re planning the parade.”
It would be nice to get to throw another one soon. But at long, long last, we had this one, and it was something to see. Something to be a part of. Something to remember.