Absolutely no oneâ apart from Taylor Swift â is secure from gridlock in Toronto.
The NHLâs Utah Hockey Club, around to play the Maple Leafs onNov 24, reached experience all the awfulness Canadaâs biggest city needed to supply when gamers were required to stroll to Scotiabank Arena for the video game due to web traffic.
In a video clip captioned âGotta get our steps inâ published to the groupâs Instagram account, gamers were revealed deserting the group bus prior to walking under the Gardiner Expressway and past the CN Tower and Union Station towards the rink.
âWalking pregame to get to the rink because thereâs way too much traffic,â said Utah defenceman Maveric Lamoureux during the teamâs stroll. âThe bus is not moving at all, so itâs just pretty much the whole team walking the street.â
Lamoureux laughed, adding that they were all about to be late for a team meeting which was supposed to start in one minute.
âSo I think thatâs a first for everyone. Never saw that before.â
Fans, as youâd expected had some fun with the situation on social media.
âSome gamesmanship, eh? I SEE YOU, CANADA,â wrote one user on X.
âThis is the hockey gods punishing you for injuring Ovechkin,â quipped another.
One reply read, âYou think thatâs the end of it? Wait till you get back to Pearson.â While another user wrote:
âTrust me thereâs no conspiracy, Toronto/GTA has some of the worst traffic in the world. Worst transit system for a major city in the world. Just be happier it wasnât colder out when yall had to walk lol, sry eh!â One reply read.
âYou should brought some bikes and you could use all of our empty bike lanes!â Read another.
The latter commenter was absolutely spot on with their analysis as, less than 12 hours after X user âRandy Steffanâ predicted Doug Ford would blame the traffic on Torontoâs bike lanes, the Ontario Premier did exactly that.
âWhen Toronto traffic is so bad that NHL teams have to walk to their games, weâve got a serious problem,â Ford wrote.
âThatâs why itâs so important that we deliver on our plan to fight gridlock by bringing sanity back to bike lane decisions, building highways and public transit, and speeding up construction on the Gardiner,â he added.
When Toronto traffic is so bad that NHL teams have to walk to their games, weâve got a serious problem.
Thatâs why itâs so important that we deliver on our plan to fight gridlock by bringing sanity back to bike lane decisions, building highways and public transit, and speedingâĤ https://t.co/zyx9S0EFHE
â Doug Ford (@fordnation) November 25, 2024
X users werenât going to let Ford off that easy, however, as many were quick to remind the Premier that the annual Santa Clause Parade, which occupied many streets in Torontoâs downtown core on Sunday afternoon, was probably to blame for the traffic situation.
âFolks, Iâm cancelling the Santa Clause parade because people need to commute on Sunday,â quipped one user on X.
âYou might as well ban The Santa Claus Parade. Thatâs what caused grid lock on Sunday,â wrote another.
âDoug it was because of the Santa Clause parade, how do you not know whatâs going on in the city that youâre the premayor of?â One commenter wrote, while another quipped: âJust ban reindeer from using bike lanes. Easy peasy.â
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow also confirmed that the Santa Claus parade was to blame, joking that âSanta didnât conspire together with the Leafs.â
Ford, whose war on bike lanes in Ontario cities has been picking up steam over the past few weeks, added more fuel to the fire during an unrelated press conference on Nov. 25.
âIt 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,â Ford said.
â[Traffic in] Toronto is an absolute nightmare right now, around the world and North America.â
Whatever you think about Ford and how he plans to tackle road congestion in growing Ontario cities, thereâs one thing we can all agree: Toronto traffic is absolutely next level.
It also doesnât discriminate, as everyone from actors to singers to pro-athletes and beyond have been affected in some way or another by the brutal traffic conditions plaguing Torontoâs streets.
Back in July of 2024, former One Direction singer Niall Horan had to walk to his own show because traffic was at a standstill. Race car driver Lochie Hughes experienced something similar later that month en route to the Ontario Honda Dealers Indy in Toronto â ditching his vehicle and renting a bike before finishing the journey to Torontoâs Exhibition Place on foot.
Australian IndyCar driver Lochie Hughes, who is in Toronto to compete in the Honda Indy this weekend, almost missed a pre-race press conference at Exhibition Place on Thursday because of the cityâs infamous gridlock.< a data-i13n=" cpos:4; pos:1 pic.twitter.com/oYbNOvFmI6
rel=â nofollow July 18, 2024
As far as the game goes, Utahâs night started out on the wrong foot and ended much the same, as the teamâs commuting misfortunes foreshadowed a 3-2 loss to the Maple Leafs â who leaned on a two-goal showing from Mitch Marner.
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