Mark Fera amassed massive Leafs collection while healing along the way

The basement of Mark Fera’s Brampton home holds one of the world’s largest collections of Maple Leafs game-used and vintage memorabilia. From the stick Darryl Sittler used for his historic 10-point night to a piece of Bill Barilko’s plane wreckage to the puck Bobby Baun scored with on a broken ankle in Game 6 of the 1964 Stanley Cup final, every corner of Fera’s basement tells a chapter in Leafs history.

But for Fera, the collection is about more than just preserving history.

As a boy, he says he was a victim of the Maple Leaf Gardens sex abuse scandal. Fera is currently suing Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, alleging the company failed to protect him from his alleged abuser, John Paul Roby, who was convicted in 1999 of sexually abusing young fans in the 1970s and 1980s. The man declared to be a dangerous offender later died in prison in 2001. 

The $6.25-million lawsuit has yet to be tested in court.

Fera carried that trauma in silence for years, only revealing it to his father when he was in his twenties. By then, the damage had already been done.

“I missed out on a lot of things. I got two great stepdaughters, but I will never be a biological dad. I got married at 52 to my best friend, but we missed a lot of years together, a lot of years of marriage,” Fera said. “There were a lot of issues along the way, and I continue to work hard at them, and they will affect me for the rest of my life.”

Despite the ongoing lawsuit, Fera resisted pursuing legal action for years. He would tell lawyers he couldn’t because he’s a Leafs fan and loves the team. Only later did he realize his love for the team did not mean staying silent about what happened.

The duality of loving the team while confronting its darkest chapter also runs through his collection. Fera said every piece is about the story it carries, whether triumphant or challenging.

“As I say, some of my best memories were with my dad in the stands, sitting in Section 67, row F, seats one and two in Maple Leaf Gardens, and some of the worst ones will be what took place under the Gardens,” Fera said.

It was with his father that the collection first began to take shape.

After playing hockey, he and his dad would buy packs of hockey cards. Soon, Fera was racing down to the store with whatever change he could find, even returning pop bottles and beer cans to get enough money for another pack.

He would sort through his cards, sell some to friends and trade for the “old stuff” they did not want. At one point, Fera estimates he had more than 100,000 cards, maybe even a quarter of a million.

His first game at the Maple Leaf Gardens was in 1983. That night, his father brought home a stick from former Leaf Greg Terrion, covered in faded signatures from the team.

For a young Fera, it was a magical moment. The kid thought it was amazing to own something nobody else had.

He alleges that it was also around the same time the abuses began, and Roby, who was a Maple Leaf Gardens usher and a one-time Boy Scout leader, lured him with promises of game-used items that never materialized.

Decades later, Fera has built the collection the young kid who traded hockey cards never imagined: more than 300 game-worn sweaters, 250 game-used sticks, hundreds of pucks and more.

When he first met her wife, she didn’t understand it. She even suggested the fuselage from the float plane that crashed and killed Barilko in 1951 could be used to hang wet laundry. Barilko won four Stanley Cups in five years with the Leafs, but the team wouldn’t win another cup until his remains were found in 1962.

Now, she embraces it, falling in love with the Leafs, especially William Nylander, and recognizing the collection is really about stories.

Fera is grateful for his wife. She embraces his passion and enjoys it with him. With a smile, he added that her only rule is that nothing from the collection goes upstairs.

“Downstairs is mine, and upstairs is hers. But if I buy her a couple of Wonder Woman things, it keeps her happy for a bit,” Fera said.

When visitors visit his home, whether fans or former players like Mike Palmateer, Frank Mahovlich, Ron Ellis or David Keon, Fera always asks them what they feel most connected to.

“And everybody’s [answer] is different, and that’s what I love about it,” Fera said.

He remembers watching Keon handle his old hockey sticks like a man transformed, “going from a senior to a young man again.” Moments like that remind Fera of the importance of his collection.

“I feel like part of my job is to tell the story of the Toronto Maple Leafs and to help raise awareness for not only my cause but hopefully for potentially other causes,” Fera said.

As his work life slows down, he hopes to start a charity to support people who have gone through traumas like his. For now, the collection keeps growing, and some of its most prized pieces are from Leafs’ modern-day superstar Auston Matthews.

Fera received an invitation on Aug. 31 to watch Matthews skate privately at the Ford Performance Centre the next morning. At first, he almost turned it down. At the cottage with his wife and stepdaughter, he was just “minutes away from pouring a glass of whisky.”

“My wife looks at my stepdaughter, they look at me, and they are like, ‘What are you talking about? We are out of here, you’ve got to be there,’” Fera said.

After a sleepless night, Fera arrived at the practice facility around 9:30 a.m.

“We walked around the corner, and I’m in the change room, and there’s Auston, sitting at a stall, introducing himself to me,” Fera said.

He said they talked about the collection and how they had first met at a Hospital for Sick Children event. “He looks at me and he goes ‘Holy mackerel, I remember meeting you and hearing about your story,’” Fera said.

Matthews was surprised by the size of the collection, telling Fera he would have to come see it one day. Of all the players and alumni Fera has spoken with, he said Matthews was the most genuine and invested in the conversation.

During the two-hour-and-25-minute practice, which Fera described as Matthews going “full bore,” he was told he could leave at any point.

“I said, ‘If he stays here for five hours, I’m watching for five hours,’” Fera said.

Matthews asked Fera what he thought of the practice, and jokingly answered that he got tired of just watching how hard he was working on the ice.

At one point, feeling comfortable, Fera even extended an invitation.

“I was even joking with him, saying, ‘I got an Italian restaurant across the house that if you want to come over, I’ll order you a good meal,’” Fera said.

Then came a line he will never forget.

“I said, ‘You are the f—— captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs, do you realize what that is?’” Fera said. “He gets this smile on his face. He is proud, honoured and understands what it is like to be the captain of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

“He gave me everything he had for those moments, to a point where I didn’t have much left to say,” said Fera, adding Matthews is his favourite Maple Leaf of all time, with Wendel Clark a close second.

For the ultimate Leaf fan that is known on social media as the “torontomapleleafguy,” it all comes down to sharing the stories, connecting with people and using his platform for something bigger.

“I’m looking to raise awareness for certain causes, including boys that have been sexually abused and the history of the Toronto Maple Leafs,” Fera said. “I’d love to get the follows and the likes from people, because at the end of the day, however this works out, it’s going to be something for everybody to enjoy.”