A bookshelf behind Maple Leafs organist Jimmy Holmstrom’s workspace is full of Maple Leafs media guides, NHL record books and numerous volumes on hockey.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
Jimmy Holmstrom’s mother pulled him out of a music academy so he and his younger brother could attend the Maple Leafs’ most recent Stanley Cup parade.
On May 5, 1967, she plopped the boys along a curb in downtown Toronto and as George Armstrong and other players rode past they waved each of them over. For a few blocks, Jimmy, then in the third or fourth grade, sat on a player’s knee in the back seat of one Mustang convertible. His brother did the same in the vehicle behind him.
“I had never seen anything like it,” Mr. Holmstrom says. “So much ticker tape was coming down that you couldn’t even see the sky.
Fast forward to today and Mr. Holmstrom and the entirety of Maple Leafs nation still awaits its next Stanley Cup celebration. He is a little more invested than most, however.
For 35 years, Mr. Holmstrom has played the organ at Maple Leafs games at Maple Leaf Gardens and their current home, Scotiabank Arena. He hasn’t missed one since he was hired in 1988 by Gord Stellick, then the club’s general manager.
“It doesn’t feel like that,” Mr. Holmstrom says. “It feels like we are just starting.”
On Tuesday night, when Toronto begins its first-round playoff series against the Tampa Bay Lightning, he will perform at his 1,434th consecutive home game.
It takes a little guess-timating – averaging out the rink capacities – but over that span he has probably entertained roughly 27 million spectators.
Those numbers don’t include preseason games; he hasn’t missed one of them either.
“Every night is special,” Mr. Holmstrom says. “Every night is exciting. Every night is brand new.”
He is a retired teacher who played keyboards for a rock band that travelled the East Coast from Florida to Newfoundland and across Ontario.
Some gigs were better than others.
“We played in places where chicken wire separated us from the crowd,” he says.
He was a studio musician when Mr. Stellick invited him to a game in 1987. He sat in the organist’s booth at Maple Leaf Gardens and then Mr. Stellick asked the organist to slide over and let Mr. Holmstrom give it a whirl.
“I sat down and the first thing I heard was 17,000 people clapping along,” he says. “I got a huge shot of adrenalin. The other organist had to pull me off.
“I tell you I was born for this job. Some people are weaned on mother’s milk. I was weaned on hockey.”
Last Saturday morning Mr. Holmstrom and Taylor Dean, the director of game presentation for Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, huddled in the organ loft above the ice at Scotiabank Arena.
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They were already getting ready for Game 1.
He sits at a Roland G-1000 work station, a synthesizer and music arranger and sequencer, and has a keyboard beside it. He plays live and recorded music, oversees sound effects, sets off the goal horn and cues up Hall & Oates every time the home team scores.
He watches for offsides and icing and other breaks in play. He watches for the goal light to go on and for the referees to signal it is in the net.
“I can’t blink,” Mr. Holmstrom says. “I can’t miss anything.”
Every time you hear the organ start before the “Go Leafs Go” chant reverberates around the rink, that is his handiwork.
“For me, having him react to what is happening on the ice is very important,” Ms. Dean says. She has worked for MLSE for 14 years and has been the arena show director since 2016. “He is able to read the crowd and read the room. Jim is very good at that.”
Mr. Holmstrom is a retired teacher who played keyboards for a rock band that travelled the East Coast from Florida to Newfoundland and across Ontario.Christopher Katsarov/The Globe and Mail
It is not a game day, but Mr. Holmstrom is dressed in a smart suit with a Maple Leafs tie, a Maple Leafs watch, a Maple Leafs lapel pin, and most likely, has on a pair of Maple Leafs socks.
“I am a collector of collectibles as long as it has blue in it,” he says.
A bookshelf behind his workspace is full of Maple Leafs media guides, NHL record books and numerous volumes on hockey: 100 Things Maple Leafs Fans Should Know, Voices in Blue & White: Pride and Passion for the Maple Leafs, Barilko and others. The keyboard from Maple Leaf Gardens sits on one shelf.
He thinks back to 1967 and how his mother pulled him out of class to watch the parade.
“You win one Stanley Cup and maybe another and then take it for granted that you are going to win it for the rest of your life,” Mr. Holmstrom says. “Then something happens and you don’t win. Definitely the stars have to be aligned.
“She didn’t want me to miss it because I don’t think she had ever seen one either.”
He has watched a lot of hockey. He played the organ at two International Ice Hockey Federation world junior tournaments and during the 2020 playoffs he played the organ for all 12 teams in the pandemic bubble at Scotiabank Arena. There were 55 games in all, and 16- and 18-hour days for both him and Ms. Dean.
“I played for the Stanley Cup champions,” Mr. Holmstrom says of the Lightning, who will begin their quest to win a third championship in four seasons Tuesday night.
Just a bit of hockey-organist humour.