This article was posted on 9/9 but fitting for today.

from Lance Hornby of the Toronto Sun,

The staff of the St. John’s Maple Leafs shambled around their offices in disbelief that morning of 9/11, haunted by the TV images of the Twin Towers burning and collapsing and victims jumping out of the flaming skyscrapers.

They were still coming to grips, along with millions of others, that security as they’d known it no longer prevailed, even in their cozy island enclave where the real world rarely intruded.

The first direct consequence was their year of planning festivities for a visit by the parent NHL Leafs to show off their city and new rink — the Mile One Centre — was either cancelled or sure to be curtailed. But team president Glenn Stanford assembled them for a more immediate, important task.

“We got word from the U.S. that a number of flights were coming in to St. John’s and the rest of our province, to Gander, Goose Bay, Stephenville,” Stanford recalled. “The City called us to say our building ‘might be used in a different capacity’. At that point we didn’t know how many planes, five, 10 … 15.

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