Our Thursday Pick....Hockey! Hockey! Hockey!

FromADaveStiebGlove
ToThePunkRockLifeVille


Back in the days before he headed east in his early 20's, to both form and perpetually play in punk rock bands,  I don't think my youngest brother C. even had an interest in hockey.

But he did know a little bit about the restaurant business.

And so he and his friend D. opened up the little place you see pictured, above, on Queen Street west of Bathhurst in Toronto back in the days when that part of twon was still little bohemia.

'La Hacienda' finally closed its doors last fall after more than 30 years, for mostly good reasons. Ben Rayner, the Star's music critic, wrote a hell of an obituary. Here are a just a couple of bits:

Another day, another vital piece of Toronto’s proud musical past on the “soon to be extinct” list. And this one’s not even a live venue.

La Hacienda, the endearingly crusty resto-bar at 640 Queen St. W. that has served up reliably good-valued Tex-Mex meals and scowling punk-rock attitude in equally generous measure for more than three decades, will shut its doors for good when its lease comes up at the end of September...

{snip}

...For those who move in musical circles in this town, to lose La Hacienda isn’t simply to lose another tether to Queen West’s grittier good, ol’ days, when the local artist class could still find affordable rents on the strip and it didn’t quite so much resemble a streetside shopping mall. The place has served as a stable place of employment — if not an actual place to live, officially or unofficially — for dozens of indie musicians since it was opened in the late 1980s by a pair of punk rockers from the West Coast, future Chemical Sound studio operator Daryl Smith and Chris Roskelley...


When I got back to Canada in the mid-90's I started to visit T.O. semi-regularly for work and I would always try to stop by the restaurant. As a junior science geek, still in training, I really didn't fit in but the gang always made me feel welcome, regardless. And, most importantly, I was amazed how they had all taken in (and were taking care of) my formerly misfitting and sometimes slightly disillusioned brother. It was a truly wondrous thing to see.

Anyway.

Given the music-crazed underground crowd he was hanging out with, I still don't know where C.'s  obsession with the post-Ballard 1990's Maple Leafs came from.

But come it did. And it has never, to this day died.

So....

Even if it will be enjoyed entirely by an audience of one, our pick today is the 1994 Conference quarter-final play-off series between  the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Chicago Blackhawks.

Here is Game 1....

Game 2 is here.
Game 3 is here.
Sorry, couldn't find Game 4.
Game 5 is here.
Game 6 is here.


________
Alright, alright, alright!....For you Canuckleheads fans, here is the penultimate Game Six of the Riot Series from the same year...


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