Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens
By Scott Keith on June 24, 2022
Something I've always wondered when watching the regional coverage house shows… what network had the rights to the Maple Leaf Gardens shows, if any? I know there's some shows that were taped but only for the sake of filling out their random package programs like Prime Time, but there's definitely a period in the mid 80's where it feels like a complete show meant for a live (or tape delay) broadcast.
Long story, but it has to do with why Superstars was Maple Leaf Wrestling in Canada until the 90s due to existing TV syndication rights held by Jack Tunney's promotion. They needed actual Canadian content in order to classify the show as “Canadian” for the purposes of avoiding certain tax and/or broadcast restrictions so they'd use matches from Maple Leaf Gardens shows and edit them into the syndicated Superstars episodes. Voila! Canadian content! By the late 80s they had stopped bothering and the show was just a straight up renamed Superstars anyway.
As for the full shows, I believe they aired on CHCH in Hamilton as specials, but I was on the opposite side of the country so I never saw any of them. Plus I typically just watched Superstars on the Bellingham TV stations and avoided all the fake Canadian repackaging.
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