Looking at highs and lows of Maple Leaf team photo day

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Almost 100 years of Maple Leaf team photo day have seen both tall tales and tall players.

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Those 1980s sessions where cantankerous owner Harold Ballard wanted his big herding dog, TC Puck, in the pic, but TC’s genitals froze to the ice and his howls disrupted the shoot. In the 70s’s, Ballard also ordered the heads of club execs he didn‘t like or bearded players superimposed with someone more to his liking, a tricky business before photo-shop.

The 2025 portrait, taken Tuesday at Scotiabank Arena with the team and its huge support staff, will be remembered for its towering cast of players.

Six Leafs, 6-foot-4 up to 6-foot-7, had to be squeezed into the frame.

“I didn’t have my skates on for the first couple of pictures,” laughed 6-foot-5 defenceman Brandon Carlo. “They had to make us look shorter. Me,(6-foot-7 defenceman Jani)

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Hakanpaa, Stevie Lorentz, it was all the tall guys to the back row.”

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NHL team photos used to be generally taken early in the season and also at year’s end, but now are mostly done after the trade deadline to accommodate new players such as Carlo and centre Scott Laughton. The media was once welcomed at Toronto’s annual session and newspapers made huge colour souvenirs, but not since the MLSE era made it a private affair.

“I was in a lot of pictures with Philadelphia, they’re all in my basement in Jersey,” Laughton said. “It’s cool to see those you played with over the years. They’re on the walls of the (Flyer) dressing room, too.”

Tuesday was Auston Matthews first in the front row as Leaf captain and about Morgan Rielly’s 10th.

“I missed a couple, and I’d say (to younger players) not to do that,” Rielly said. “I know Jake Gardiner did miss one before I got here.”

Craig Berube’s brief 40-game career as a Leaf in 1991-92 did not include picture day, but he too was up front as Toronto’s 32nd coach

“It was great, and as I’ve said before, an honour to be in the Leafs organization. To be in that picture means a lot to me.”

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