Home grown games are attracting attention and democratizing participation. The Native sport of Lacrosse becomes all the rage in the 1850s. When Oscar Wilde attends a Toronto match, the city fathers brighten with pride as he gushes about the good looks of one of the home team boys. The Maple Leaf Baseball Stadium emerges in 1920 but the team disappears from Toronto until the creation of the Blue Jays in 1977, who become two time World Series Champs. Clearly, at the turn of the century indigenous sports are eclipsing British ones in popularity.
Athletes become our idols.
College football becomes popular and brings crowds to the now empty Varsity Stadium. Reeve makes history playing to win with a broken shoulder. He goes on to coach and to become a renown sports writer for the Toronto Telegram. The launch of a quintessentially Canadian game occurs with the founding of the Ontario Association of Hockey in 1890. At the edge of the Depression In 1931, Conn Smythe builds hockey's national shrine, Maple Leaf Gardens in five months.