As I'm sure most Leaf fans know, on Tuesday December 1st, the federal government announced $20M infrastructure funding for the transformation of Maple Leaf Gardens into an athletic facility.

For the last while, I've been very fortunate to have been part of the team that worked on this inititiative.

As a Leafs fan, it's been an amazing experience to spend many hours inside Maple Leaf Gardens, a space that was witness to some incredible moments of Canadian history.  From Stanley Cup wins to Elvis, the Beatles, Winston Churchill and Tim Buck.

Sometime soon, I'll put up a post with some thoughts and hopefully lots of photographs, in the interim, here are some stunning photos of the Gardens taken a month or so ago by Toronto Star photographer (I don't think I can oversell how great these Star photos are) and some recent shots from a Flickr pool. 

And here are a few ideas of what the new space might look like:

A rendering of the building looking at the south east corner (Church and Carlton)

The interior: underground parking, retail at grade, an MLG heritage site, athletic facilities - including a rink - on two upper levels.

PPP has already proposed booking ice some time in 2011-12 for a Barilkosphere skate...