Utah Hockey Club centre Logan Cooley (92) celebrates his goal against the Toronto Maple Leafs with teammates during first period NHL hockey action in Toronto on November 24, 2024. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

TORONTO - Utah’s NHL team was forced to walk to their game against the Maple Leafs after their bus got stuck in Toronto traffic Sunday night, prompting Premier Doug Ford to call the city’s gridlock “embarrassing.”

The Utah Hockey Club posted on social media a video of team members marching to Scotiabank Arena, with player Maveric Lamoureux saying the bus was “not moving at all.”

Several city streets had been closed during the day for the annual Santa Claus parade.

“I think that’s a first for everyone,” Lamoureux quipped in the video as the group walked along the downtown streets. “Never saw that before.”

The viral incident prompted Premier Doug Ford to call the road congestion "unacceptable,” highlighting his government's plan to address the city's gridlock through bike lane legislation.

"We're really focused on the congestion in Toronto,” he said Monday at an unrelated press conference. “It's the worst congested city in North America, third worst in the entire world, even to the point last night it was embarrassing that the Utah Hockey Club has to get out of the bus and start walking to the hockey arena.”

Ford said people are “avoiding downtown” due to the traffic, pointing to bike lanes as part of the problem.

Ontario passed a divisive bike lane bill on Monday that will require municipalities to get the province’s approval to install bike lanes when they would remove a lane for vehicles. The bill also removes sections of bike lanes in Toronto and restores them as lanes for vehicle traffic.

At a press conference on Monday, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow pointed to the Santa Claus parade as the cause of Sunday's gridlock.

"All the big floats and the people flooding out from the Santa Claus parade was jamming that whole area," Chow said. "It was just because of that reason."

Chow said while she's glad the Leafs won the game, she's sorry the Utah team got caught in the congestion.

"Santa didn't conspire together with the Leafs," she said.

Chow had said in September that the city's traffic congestion measures are working, according to data that shows travel times along certain corridors have sped up.

The Utah Hockey Club's walk to the arena wasn't the first time a Toronto visitor had to ditch their vehicle to make it to an event on time.

In June, former One Direction band member Niall Horan had to walk through bumper-to-bumper traffic to get to his concert at Scotiabank Arena.

“Traffic’s too bad in Toronto, so we’re walking to the venue," he said in a social media post at the time. "In all the years playing shows, I don't think I ever walked to a venue."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 25, 2024.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2024