'Embarrassing:' NHL team ditches bus and walks to Scotiabank Arena amid gridlock

The Utah Hockey Club got the full Toronto experience Sunday night ahead of their first-ever matchup against the Maple Leafs—bumper-to-bumper traffic that forced the team to walk to the game.

“I think that’s a first for everyone. Never saw that before,” Utah defenceman Maveric Lamoureux tells the camera that documented the team’s stroll to Scotiabank Arena.

Lamoureux said the team’s bus was “not moving at all” in the Sunday evening traffic, just hours after the Santa Claus Parade and resulting road closures.

“So it’s pretty much the whole team walking the street,” he said, noting that they would probably miss their 5:15 p.m. pre-game meeting.

The Utah Hockey Club, formerly the Arizona Coyotes, met the Leafs for the first time Sunday night. The Leafs came away with a 3-2 win, extending their win streak to four behind Mitch Marner’s two-goal push in the second period.

Toronto traffic, though, remains undefeated in its ability to push high-profile visitors out of their cars and onto the sidewalk. In July, former One Direction singer Niall Horan was forced to walk to his own concert because of the gridlock. Later that month, race car driver Lochie Hughes needed to rent a bike to get to the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy on time.

In September, Mayor Olivia Chow said the city’s traffic congestion plan is working, but acknowledged that the economic impact of congestion is “severe” and costs up to $11 billion annually.

“With all the floats and all the cars coming out, that whole area was quite jammed up,” Chow said at an unrelated news conference, referring to the traffic in the downtown core left in the parade's wake.

“Santa didn’t conspire together with the Leafs,” Chow said jokingly, and apologized to the Utah Hockey Club for the inconvenience.

Separately, Ontario Premier Doug Ford reacted to the news on X, saying the city’s traffic is a “serious problem” that could be fixed in part by “bringing sanity back to bike lane decisions.”

In October, the government tabled a bill that would require cities to ask the province for permission to install bike lanes when they remove a lane of vehicle traffic. The province also added a regulation that would rip out sections of bike lanes on some major Toronto roads. 

“It was embarrassing that the Utah hockey team had to get out of the bus and start walking to the hockey arena. It is just unacceptable, people are avoiding downtown,” Ford said during an unrelated news conference later on Monday. “Toronto (traffic) is an absolute nightmare right now, around the world and North America.”