When Tommy Guroluk, a 10-year-old from Kitchener, Ont., was gifted tickets to his first-ever Toronto Maple Leafs game, he imagined watching his favourite superstars on the ice, not spending half the game stranded on a GO Train.
The young hockey fan, and also player with U11 Kitchener Jr Rangers, said his parents gifted him the tickets after years of asking to go.
“I was just really happy because my dad promised me,” Guroluk told CTV News.
He was headed downtown with his dad for Thursday’s game against the New Jersey Devils.
With limited direct GO Train service between Kitchener and Toronto, the pair drove to the Oakville GO station, before hopping on a train to Union Station.
Minutes before arriving, the train came to a stop and didn’t move for over an hour and half.
“[GO Transit] said, ‘we’re having some technical difficulties’,” Guroluk recalled.
Passengers were transferred to a second train before finally reaching their destination.
By the time the father and son got to their seats, the game was nearly half over.
“I was just really sad because I didn’t know that the game had already started,” Guroluk said.
Urszula Guroluk, Tommy’s mother, admitted it took a few years to get Maple Leafs tickets because of how expensive they are. She said hearing her son was stuck on a train after puck drop was heartbreaking.
“There’s nothing you can do, there’s nothing they can do,” Urszula Guroluk said. “You’re at the mercy of whoever’s running the show.”
She said this isn’t the first time Metrolinx interruptions impacted her trip. A few years ago, she and her two young kids were stranded in Guelph, after a GO Train traveling from Kitchener to Toronto was stuck for several hours.
She adds she decided to leave her job in Toronto, because service disruptions made her commute too difficult.
Waterloo New Democratic MPP Catherine Fife says the push for expanded service to and from Kitchener has been going on for well over a decade with little progress.
“Why is our transit system, specifically GO Transit and Metrolinx so broken?”, Fife said to CTV News. “This is a government that needs to stop leaving Kitchener-Waterloo at the station.”
Fife predicts GO Transit to be a hot issue among voters in the next provincial election.
In a statement to CTV News, Metrolinx said in part:
“Expanded GO Transit service on the Kitchener Line is a priority area for expansion and work is well underway. This multi-year project is made up of many different packages of work.”
Metrolinx cited adding a second platform at the Guelph Central GO Station, completing a new storage track for maintenance vehicles west of Guelph, and constructing a new passing track in Breslau to allowing trains to pass each other.
The transportation agency adds that work is underway to expand the segment of the rail corridor between Union Station and Bramalea, allowing more of the trips from Kitchener GO to operate express to Union Station.
Urszula Guroluk says the region needs the all-day, two-way train service from Kitchener GO to Union Station to keep up with commuter demand.
The Guroluk family plans on going to another Leafs game this season, but say they won’t be taking the train again.
“We’ll drive,” Guroluk said. “That’s not ideal either, but at this point it seems more reliable.”
