Eight moments in the Toronto-Montreal rivalry

When Toronto FC and the Montreal Impact take to the pitch at Olympic Stadium on Tuesday night for the first leg of Major League Soccer’s Eastern Conference final, a new chapter will be written in the age-old rivalry between Canada’s two cultural centres.

To get prepped for the epic encounter that will end with a Canadian club in the MLS Cup for the first time ever, let’s take a look back on some of the more memorable dates in the history of the Toronto-Montreal rivalry, but a couple of notes first:

There have been eight Stanley Cup finals contested between franchises from the two cities, but none since 1967. While many of these encounters were epic, the focus here will be on recent history. The oldest of these dates occurred just over 20 years ago. Why this decision?  Simply to illustrate that even though the days of “the two solitudes” are over, the quest for Canadian supremacy remains just as relevant.

So without further ado, let’s start with the most recent entry:

October 29, 2015 – Fairytale Ends with a Thud

It wouldn’t be unfair to say that for much of Toronto FC’s early days, the club was as dysfunctional as they came in North American pro sports. With nine managers in nine seasons and enough crushing disappointment for supporters to make even Cleveland Browns fans cringe, TFC was often the laughingstock of MLS despite having some of the league’s most passionate fans. So it came as no surprise to see TFC treat its first playoff appearance like, ahem, a bloody big deal.

After a regular season that saw Sebastian Giovinco capture the league’s MVP award, TFC aired commercials set to Etta James’ “At Last” to celebrate the occasion of reaching the postseason. Toronto FC’s time had finally come. Unfortunately, nobody told the Montreal Impact that.

The Impact had already been to the playoffs before - in only their second season as an MLS franchise - and were fresh off a CONCACAF Champions League final appearance in the spring, coming up just short against Club America. To the Impact, Toronto FC’s maiden voyage into the postseason was an inconvenience to their own playoff ambitions. TFC’s Cinderella story wouldn’t have a happy ending.

In the first-ever postseason edition of the 401 Derby at Stade Saputo, the hosts were merciless. First-half goals from captain Patrice Bernier, Ignacio Piatti and Didier Drogba ran TFC off the pitch and the Impact cruised to a 3-0 victory and passage to the knockout round.

Redemption for Toronto FC would have to wait.

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April 7, 2007 – The Battle for the Final Playoff Spot…Maybe - It was billed as a winner-take-all final showdown between the heated rivals where the victors would head to the playoffs and the losers forced to go get their golf clubs out of the shed. Ultimately, the New York Islanders had other ideas, but more on that in a minute.

It was the last game of the season at the Air Canada Centre and the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference was on the line as the Habs visited the Leafs. The two teams hadn’t met in the postseason in nearly 20 years, so this was the closest thing to an honest-to-God playoff game between the two teams in two decades.

Montreal entered the game hot, needing to be after a swoon in February. An injury to starter Cristobal Huet in February meant the Canadiens turned to a David Aebischer-Jaroslav Halak tandem in goal. Halak grabbed the starter’s mantle in March through a streak of seven wins in eight games and the Habs came into the game having won nine of their last 12. Despite Halak's strong play, the returning Huet was handed the start in Toronto.

The Leafs were buoyed by a strong run at home, having won eight straight at the ACC on the back of the much-maligned Andrew Raycroft. But an injury to Raycroft meant that Jean-Sebastien Aubin got the start in the final game of the season.

By early in the second period, the Leafs jumped out to a 3-1 lead on goals from Bates Battaglia, Nik Antropov and Alex Steen. But things were far from comfortable for the Leafs (as they often weren’t that season) and the Habs struck back in a fury in the second frame. A Michael Ryder hat trick and a power-play marker from Chris Higgins put the Habs up 5-3 late in the period.

Carlo Colaiacovo pulled the Leafs back within one in the final minutes of the second, but the turning point in the game came in the dying seconds. A Steve Begin double-minor for high sticking meant the Leafs would start the third on the power play and the home team took advantage.

Bryan McCabe and Kyle Wellwood scored on the man advantage to retake the lead and the Leafs held on to eliminate the Habs and clinch a playoff spot…well, no. Not that last part – this is where the Islanders come into play.

Sitting on 91 points, the Leafs were forced to wait until the season’s final afternoon and a game between the Islanders and the New Jersey Devils to find out their playoff fates. The Isles needed a win and got it in a 3-2 shootout, meaning they would finish on 92 points and jump the Leafs for the eighth seed in the East.

All the euphoria from dumping their archrivals from the night before evaporated for the Leafs as the realization set in that they would be seeing the Canadiens on the links.

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July 1, 1997 – Outshining the Rocket – The Pearson Cup was a fun idea in concept. Established in 1978, the Montreal Expos and Toronto Blue Jays would compete in a midseason exhibition game for Canadian bragging rights with money being raised for minor-league baseball initiatives in Canada. The two teams took the games as seriously as you would an exhibition game in the middle of the season (Really, that was a terrible idea), so few tears were shed in 1987 when the annual game was shelved because they were exhibition games in the middle of the season.

With the advent of Interleague play in 1997, the on-field rivalry between the Expos and Blue Jays was sparked anew, this time with games of actual consequence. The two teams would go on to play 43 regular season games against each other, with the Jays holding the edge at 24-19. With this celebration of Canadian baseball, only one of these 43 games was actually played on Canada Day and that one game might have been the very best of the bunch.

It came during the very first regular season series in 1997 at the SkyDome. The Blue Jays sent prized free agent acquisition Roger Clemens to the mound on that sunny afternoon. Clemens would spend only two seasons with the Jays before forcing a trade to the New York Yankees, but in both of them, he’d win the pitching triple crown and capture the Cy Young Award. But on that day, Clemens would be second-best. The Expos trotted out Jeff Juden. A journeyman, the 25-year-old righty was in his second season with the Expos (he’d later be dealt to Cleveland at the trade deadline) and was a bright spot for Expos’ rotation that year. In fact, the 1997 season was only his first full one as a starting pitcher. His 11 wins that year were Juden’s career high.

Clemens was good that day. He went 8.1 innings, allowing only two earned runs on 10 hits and striking out eight.

Juden was better. In fact, that Canada Day start might have been the best of Juden’s career. He also went 8.1 innings, allowing just two hits. The lone blemish on the scoresheet was a solo home run surrendered to Shawn Green in the eighth. Ugueth Urbina would come in for ninth to close up shop for a 2-1 win.

While it might have been only a regular season, Interleague game in July, for the first time in years, Montreal felt like the baseball capital of Canada — even if it were only for fleeting moments.

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November 18, 2012 – Denying a Dynasty – Anything resembling a dynasty in the modern CFL is a rarity, but the Montreal Alouettes teams of the 2000s led by the incomparable Anthony Calvillo were probably the closest thing to one.

From 2000 to 2010, the Als appeared in eight Grey Cups, winning three of them, including back-to-back victories in 2009 and 2010.

The Als appeared primed for another trip in 2012, the top team in what was a weak East. The only team in the East with a record better than .500 at 11-7, the Als would host the Toronto Argonauts at home in the East final. The prior weekend, the Argos hammered the crossover Edmonton Eskimos, 42-26, to earn a berth in the conference championship.

In front of 50,000 fans at the Big O, the Als headed into the third quarter with a 17-10 lead. The Argos would take over in the third, though, with Ricky Ray at the helm. Two majors – including one off of a Calvillo interception – gave the Argos a 24-14 lead.

Late in the game, the Als had an opportunity to tie it when Calvillo found Brian Bratton in the end zone, but Bratton couldn’t hang onto the ball. The Argos would add another field goal, win the game 27-20 and go on to win the 100^th Grey Cup, 35-22 at the Rogers Centre over the Calgary Stampeders.

The loss seemed to signal a changing of the guard for the Alouettes. That East final marked the last game in the CFL for Als head coach Marc Trestman, who jumped to the NFL with the Chicago Bears. The Als haven’t returned to the Grey Cup since.

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July 1, 2009 – Mike Komisarek Turns Heel – Though people might not like to admit it now, there was once serious talk of Mike Komisarek one day becoming the captain of the Montreal Canadiens. And why not?

In his first six seasons in the NHL, Komisarek quickly became a fan favourite at the Bell Centre for his take-no-prisoners style and toughness. Komisarek evolved into one of the hardest-hitting rearguards in the game and thrived in the glare of the Montreal spotlight. In 2008, he led the league in blocked shots and the following year, he was among four Habs in the startling lineup at the All-Star Game in Montreal.

Komisarek seemed to be on the path to immortality among Habs fans and in the pantheon of great Habs defencemen before him, like Larry Robinson, Serge Savard and Chris Chelios.

But that would all change on Canada Day in 2009.

Players depart in free agency all the time. It’s commonplace in modern professional sports and, as a fan, it sucks to see a player you admired move on elsewhere. You’re supposed to be used to it, but to see a player like Komisarek leave for the Leafs? Sure, there had been many players before to play for both teams, but not like this. Well, needless to say, Habs fans were incensed.

“People [in Montreal] are definitely not going to be cheering for me, but it's hockey, it's competition,” Komisarek said at the time. “It's what makes our sport great. You go from being hero to villain to hero."

Except, Komisarek never went back to hero. His Leafs tenure seemed doomed from the get-go when an injury in his first season with the team meant that he was limited to just 34 games and missed out on representing the United States at the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. He’d never play a full season in the Blue and White with Komisarek looking a shadow the player that captivated fans in Montreal. Komisarek’s tenure with the Leafs would end with a demotion to the AHL Marlies in 2013.

He was bought out by the Leafs that summer. Komisarek went on to play just 34 more games in the NHL before retiring.

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November 6, 2001 – Stabbed in the Back

The 2001 World Series was a momentous one for a couple of reasons. It was the first sports championship played following the terrorist attacks of September 11 and it featured a New York club – the Yankees – at a time when Gotham was still reeling from the horror. Baseball was a needed respite from reality for many. Behind the scenes, though, trouble was brewing for the league.

In late October, a report from the Windsor Star indicated that Major League Baseball intended to buy out and contract the Montreal Expos and the Florida Marlins in time for the 2002 season. Days later, reports surfaced that the Minnesota Twins, not the Marlins, were the more likely candidate for contraction. Commissioner Bud Selig neither confirmed, nor denied reports.

On Nov. 6 at the owners’ meetings following the conclusion of the World Series with the Arizona Diamondbacks coming out victorious in seven games, owners voted 28 to 2 in favour of contraction. Though the votes were meant to be private, sources reported that the two dissenting votes came from the Expos and Twins themselves. This meant, then, that the Toronto Blue Jays voted to contract their Canadian cousins in Quebec.

With the tide so obviously in favour of contraction, the Jays could have chosen to vote against the motion in solidarity with the Expos or even simply abstain altogether, but the club didn’t. It actively voted against the Expos. The team wanted to go it alone in the Canadian market.

The vote ended up being moot, anyway. The Minnesota Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal of a December injunction that forced the Twins to uphold their lease at the Metrodome and, by early February, contraction was dead. But it wasn’t forgotten.

In the years since the Expos finally left for Washington, D.C. in 2004, the Jays have attempted to make inroads with fans in Montreal, officially apologizing for their vote and holding an annual exhibition series at the Big O.

Still, if time heals all wounds, not enough of it has passed for some Expos fans to forgive.

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November 17, 1996 – Flutie Flays the Als

The 1996 CFL season brought to an end the American experiment of the early ‘90s for the league. The Shreveport Pirates, Memphis Mad Dogs and Birmingham Barracudas all disbanded, while the San Antonio Texans folded. One team stayed in existence, though: the Baltimore Stallions, who just happened to be the defending Grey Cup champions. The Stallions moved to Montreal to become the third iteration of the Alouettes.

While the 1996 Alouettes weren’t the exact same team as the Baltimore team that captured the CFL’s top prize a year earlier (Because the team was now Canadian, it was subject to import quotas the same way any other Canadian team was, meaning that half of its roster had to be Canadian), it was still one of the top teams in the CFL and a true Grey Cup contender. Montreal had been without a CFL franchise since 1987 and the Als had not won a Grey Cup since 1977, so a championship in the club’s first year back would have gone a long way to reinvigorate football fans in La Belle Province.

After taking care of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in the divisional round, the Als traveled to Toronto to face the soon-to-be-named Most Outstanding Player, Doug Flutie, and the Argonauts.

The Argos had a comeback story of their own in 1996 – back to prominence. A year after going 4-14, Flutie – and new coach Don Matthews – led the team to the league’s best record at 15-3. The dominance continued into the playoffs as Flutie and the Argonauts crushed the Als 43-7 on the way to the first of back-to-back Grey Cup triumphs.

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July 3, 2008 – Belorussian Bad Blood – Though trades between the Leafs and the Habs are rarities, they’re not unheard of entirely.

While the last trade between the two teams nearly a decade ago might not have been the exact impetus for bad blood among countrymen, it certainly exacerbated it. In trading Mikhail Grabovski to the Leafs in 2008, the Canadiens broke up their trio of Belorussian players in Grabovski and the Kotstitsyn brothers, Sergei and Andrei. As it turns out, none of the three players would be too brokenhearted over the move.

Though talented, Grabovski is mercurial and that nature helped precipitate his trade from the Habs. Late in his rookie season, Grabovski found himself a healthy scratch in a road game against the Coyotes. Feeling slighted, he left the team and travelled to Los Angeles on his own (where the Habs were scheduled to play next) to meet with his agent. The decision to do that didn’t exactly endear him to general manager Bob Gainey and an already expendable player became persona non grata with the team.

Following the trade in a November 2008 game between the two teams that saw the Leafs win 6-3, Sergei took a run at Grabovski and got himself a 10-minute misconduct. During the next Leafs/Habs matchup in January, the pair went at it again late in the game, forcing officials to keep them apart. During the melee, Grabovski shoved a linesman and received a three-game suspension for his troubles.

After the game, Andrei accused Grabovski of speaking ill of the brothers to the Russian press. When asked why there was such rancor between countrymen, Grabovski pulled no punches.

"I think he is not Belarusian now, he is French, because I never fight with Belarusian guys," Grabovski said. "I don't know why he wants to fight with me. If he wants to fight, we'll go in the street and, every minute of every day, I'll wait for him and we'll fight."

Grabovski wasn’t finished angering the Habs and their fans that season. Late in the season in 2009, he delivered a hit to defenceman Andrei Markov that sidelined the veteran Russian rearguard for the final four games of the regular season and the team’s first-round playoff series against the Boston Bruins with a knee injury.

The feud between Grabovski and the Kostitsyns simmered to the point that the head of the Belarus Ice Hockey Federation had to mediate between them prior to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics to make sure their enmity wouldn’t be an issue at the Games. It wasn’t, but Belarus didn’t get out of the group stage, going 1-2 (Sergei ended up having a good tournament, though, with a goal and four assists in the three games).

While both Kostitsyns were out of Montreal by 2013 (both were traded to the Nashville Predators in separate deals in the preceding two years) and the Kostitsyns versus Grabovski feud was seemingly dead, Grabovski hadn’t finished inciting the Habs and their fans. In a Feb. 9 game at the Bell Centre that saw the Leafs up 6-0 in the third period, Grabovski got into a skirmish with Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty. As Pacioretty grabbed at Grabovski from behind, the Toronto forward appeared to bite Pacioretty’s arm.

The future Habs captain immediately showed the evidence to the referees, but no additional penalty was given with both receiving offsetting 10-minute misconducts. For his part, Pacioretty said he got a tetanus shot after the incident just to be safe.

Grabovski didn’t exactly deny anything.

"[Pacioretty] was choking me and I bit him,” Grabovski told Yahoo! Sports. “Don’t stick your hands where you shouldn’t. To be honest with you, he was choking me pretty hard, to the point where I really couldn’t breathe. And I couldn’t pull his hand away at all. I tried to hit him with my other hand, but I couldn’t because he was choking me. There was nothing left to do but bite him."

Though the Leafs-Canadiens rivalry remains fierce (albeit lopsided, with the Habs having won the last 12 matchups), a little spark left it when Grabovski was bought out by the Leafs in the summer of 2013.