Both the Toronto Maple Leafs* and the Ottawa Senators* open their 2015-16 NHL Pre-Season play with simultaneous split-squad games taking place in Toronto and Ottawa Kanata. The inspiration for this simulcast cross-province event was obviously the oft-forgotten WrestleMania 2. After the initial success of the 1985 Rock'n Wrestling Connection fueled WrestleMania, then WWF chairman Vince McMahon wanted to make WM2 an even bigger success. Rather than using a single venue for his 3 hour long spectacular, WM2 would be comprised of three separate 1-hour shows broadcase from three different arenas; Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in New York, New York; the Rosemont Horizon in Chicago, Illinois; and the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California.
The show would start in New York, then jump to Chicago, then to LA with the shows in the arenas turning into Jumbotron watching affairs when their respective rings were empty. Ultimately, WM2 was ill received with many feeling the formatting hurt the in-arena atmosphere and the lackluster matches failing to hold the audiences' attention. In the pantheon of WrestleManias, WM2 is ranked as the 2nd worst of all time with only the Caesar's Palace daytime-debacle that was WM9 keeping it from the bottom spot. Looking at the "rosters" for tonight's dueling split-squad games, I don't think we, the fans, should expect anything better.
The lucky Leafs who get to play hockey in a city rather than the middle of a corn field are:
Brown - Bozak - JVR
Parenteau - Spaling - Winnik
Grabner - Nylander - Setoguchi
Leipsic - Carrick - Panik
Gardiner - Rielly
Marincin - Polak
Loov - Percy
Campbell - Fraser
Bernier
Bibeau
(Per Toronto's Twitter account, Marner - Komarov - Soshnikov could be available for tonight's game in Toronto but the roster isn't finalized.)
(Nobody cares who's playing for Ottawa.)
Seriously, this roster is so bad, it would probably lose to the 2014-15 Buffalo Sabres. Just awful.
The pucks drop at 7:30pm. Go Leafs* Go.
