(Author and Sportonvideo President Jonathan Gross (top left) with SOV staffer Kerry Kupecz, The Big M, Gordie Howe and broadcaster John Gallagher)

There are some rumors afoot that the NHL and Warner Home Video are working on a Toronto Maple Leaf Boxed DVD Set for the fall season. Not only is this long overdue, but it leaves us with the question as to what complete games should be on this set. In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I haven’t been a Leafs fan since they traded Frank Mahovlich to the Red Wings in 1968 in a deal involving Pete Stemkowski, rookie Gary Unger, Paul Henderson, Norm Ullman and Floyd Smith, that tipped the Leafs into a few absymal seasons. If I was to pick a game it would be Frank’s return to Toronto in a Red Wings uniform. I was at that game, a Leaf win in spite of a beautiful breakaway by The Big M. So there is the problem. Frank was traded in the season following the last Stanley Cup win by the Leafs in 1967. 

The recent Montreal Canadiens Boxed Set included several less-than-memorable tilts (as a Rangers fan I take offense to the big comeback game of the 2007-2008 season) including the last game at the Forum. The ceremonies would have been enough. But there are some terrific choices, including the 1979 semifinal game 7, which was better than any game in the final (Habs won in five over the Cinderella Rangers) and the ‘Battle of Quebec’ brawl on Good Friday 1984. The set also included the deciding game in the 1993 Stanley Cup final against the Gretzkyized Kings. To this writer, the Habs team of 1993 was the worst to ever win a Stanley Cup and would have been pulverized by Messier’s Rangers the following season. But I digress, what do you put on a Leafs boxed set when all the heroics are on old kinescopes from the mid-60s? And is it ten years too late to do something extensive on the 1967 Cup win? Are most of those that care are either gone or just too old to suffer the memory of a long vanished youth and a team that used to stand for something other than $200 tickets? So Leafs Nation, we’d love to know what three games are on your DVD wish list and why. We’ll pick the best five entries and send them a boxed set when it comes out. Right now, I’m thinking most of you poor slobs are thinking the game seven quarterfinal against the Islanders on April 29, 1978, maybe Darryl’s ten pointer and a couple from the 1993 run with Wendel and Dougie. My sleeper took place in the frigid winter of 1972 when my Rangers came to Maple Leaf Gardens with the legendary GAG line (Gilbert, Ratell, Hadfield) intact and did a Harlem Globetrotters on the Leafs through the first two periods. Alas, Mr. Keon came down the left wing and beat Ed Giacomin with a slap shot to win it 4-3. That was as good as it got back then. Now give us your wish lists in the comments and you could win a Leafs DVD set!