Photo: Secondarywaltz · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Secondarywaltz · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Sports Travel
Scotiabank Arena, the most passionate hockey crowd on earth, and a city that lives for this team. How to plan a hockey weekend in Toronto.
Toronto doesn't just like the Maple Leafs; the city is emotionally invested in a way that's hard to understand until you've been in Scotiabank Arena when the Leafs score in the third period. This is the center of the hockey universe, a team with a century of history and a fanbase that treats every season like the one. Check the Leafs' Dayfari page for the schedule; game nights are the city's heartbeat from fall through spring.
Hockey travel is the best kind of sports travel: the games are fast, the arenas are intimate compared to baseball or football stadiums, and Toronto itself is a great weekend city. Here's the playbook.
Let's be straight: Leafs tickets are among the most expensive in the NHL, and the secondary market is ruthless. But there are ways in. Weekday games against non-rival teams are meaningfully cheaper than Saturday night against Montreal. Upper bowl seats at Scotiabank Arena still have great sightlines; hockey is one of those sports where the cheap seats are genuinely fine.
Photo: William Notman & Son · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Check the Maple Leafs' Dayfari page for the full schedule, recent results, and ticket links before you commit to dates. If Toronto's prices make you wince, remember the city has options: our Toronto pages track everything else on that weekend, and a great trip doesn't hinge on one game.
Scotiabank Arena sits right downtown at Union Station, which makes the logistics almost unfairly easy. Take the train in, walk underground through the PATH system if the weather's bad (it will be; it's hockey season in Canada), and you're there. The area around the arena, Maple Leaf Square, fills up with fans hours before puck drop, and on big nights the outdoor screen draws a crowd of its own.
Photo: Dillan Payne · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Inside: the anthem is a moment (Toronto crowds sing it like they mean it), the intermissions are quick, and the whole thing is over in about two and a half hours. Eat before you go; downtown Toronto's restaurant scene is excellent and far cheaper than arena food.
Toronto earns the trip beyond the rink. The Distillery District for the old Victorian streets, Kensington Market for the weird and wonderful, a walk along the waterfront, and the city's genuinely world-class food scene. In hockey season the whole downtown core has a buzz on game nights that spills into the bars afterward, win or lose.
Check our Toronto city page and weekend picks for what's on around your game: concerts, theatre, festivals. The best hockey weekends are the ones where the game is the centerpiece, not the whole trip.
Get the Dayfari app — save events, get reminders, and plan road trips around them.