Chapter One: Bridge of Troubled Souls It''s impossible to know what 35-year-old Martin Kruze was thinking as he headed east on the subway out of downtown Toronto en route to the Broadview Avenue station on Thursday, October 30, 1997. Was he calm because of the decision he had made or, more likely, was he tormented with anguish as he grappled with the many horrors that had driven him to believe the only way to finally alleviate his pain was to take his own life? Broadview was the first stop after the train had clacked across a platform built directly underneath the Prince Edward Viaduct in double-decker style. The massive five-arched steel and concrete structure, some 494 metres long (1,620 feet), spans the slender Don River, as well as its cavernous namesake valley below. A section of the heavily travelled vehicle route, the Don Valley Parkway, also winds down below. Officially opened on October 18, 1918, the bridge united the west and east sides of the city by transportation and foot, a critical structure in the development of the burgeoning metropolis of some half a million people. Christened the Bloor Viaduct, a new name for the bridge was proposed almost a year later following a three-day visit to Toronto by Edward, the Prince of Wales (who would later become King Edward V111 until his abdication in December 1936). The prince was immensely popular in Canada, especially because of his service in the British Army during WW1, for which he won the Military Cross. Shortly after his tour, Toronto council asked if the city could name the bridge after him.

He consented, and on October 6, 1919, it was officially designated the Prince Edward Viaduct, although his royal highness was not in attendance. But the name never stuck, and almost all Torontonians call it the Bloor Viaduct or the Bloor Street Viaduct. It was a majestic architectural accomplishment. Soon after its construction, however, a dark notoriety emerged: the bridge had become a "suicide magnet," a place that a small but significant number of people decided was a "romantic" public location from which to kill themselves. It''s unlikely many who crossed over it during their commute to work or shop knew it was second in North America, only to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, in total number of deaths from people jumping off it. When Kruze emerged from the subway around 11:00 a.m., he was greeted by a delicious blast of sunshine and seasonable temperatures.

A few minutes later, he had walked to a spot on the south side of the Viaduct. After climbing on top of the bridge''s railing, he yelled, "Watch me!" to a couple of pedestrians passing by and plunged to his death some forty metres (131 feet) to the Don Valley below. What had triggered Kruze to end his life, some close to him believed, was the lenient sentence of two years less a day in prison a judge had imposed three days earlier on Gordon Stuckless, who had pled guilty to sexually assaulting more than two dozen boys at Maple Leaf Gardens over a period of about twenty years, including Kruze. "Martin was devastated," his sister-in-law Teresa later said. "It was a large slap in the face. It plunged him into such a deep despair, he felt ashamed." But the real source of Kruze''s despair was what had happened to him as a young teenager with dreams of becoming a National Hockey League player. Kruze was one of the victims of a horrific pedophile ring that had operated, seemingly with impunity, for many years at Maple Leaf Gardens, the legendary home of the Toronto Maple Leafs hockey team.

He idolized the Leafs, as did so many boys. A talented young hockey player, in 1974 at age thirteen, Kruze (who was then called Arnie; he changed it to Martin many years later) had been introduced to George Hannah, the Leafs'' equipment manager. They met through a contact of Arnie''s father, Imants, whose curtain and drapery business supplied the Gardens. Imants had fought for the U.S. Army during the Second World War, while his mother, Astrida, had come to Canada from Latvia at age twenty after Russia had invaded her county. Hannah, about age fifty at the time, took an immediate shine to the angelic-looking teenager with white-blond bangs. He soon introduced Arnie to Gordon Stuckless, a 25-year-old assistant equipment manager.

Hannah began bestowing gifts on the young boy, such as access to the press box during games, visits to the dressing room to meet the players, dinners at the arena''s exclusive Hot Stove lounge, used sticks and other treasured perks. He also dangled the intoxicating possibility of a tryout with the Toronto Marlies, the Leafs'' American Hockey League team. Its illustrious alumni included George Armstrong, who was not long retired as the Leafs'' long-serving captain. To an aspiring player, a chance to play on the Marlies, which was a very real steppingstone to the Leafs, was the ultimate seduction. "[Hannah] made me feel like a king," Kruze wrote about the grooming process some twenty years later, "but what a price I paid." Not long before Arnie turned fourteen, Hannah and Stuckless began sexually abusing the young teenager at the Gardens, known colloquially as Puckingham Palace. Constructed in late 1931, the aging building offered numerous small offices, rooms, dark hallways and other locations where abuse could take place unobserved. The assaults continued for seven years, sometimes involving other employees in group sex activities, which permanently damaged Kruze.

He said later that Hannah had "shattered" his love of life and that he often wanted to die during the horrible ordeals. "From thirteen to twenty years old, I would be in bed.and pray for God to take me. They robbed me of my innocence." The abuse finally ended in 1982, but the years following were incredibly difficult for Arnie. He became addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex, and food, all-too-common consequences of what he had endured. He also attempted suicide on more than one occasion. "It''s a matter of public record that Martin tried to take his life several times in the past," broadcaster Teresa Kruze said after his death.

She said her brother-in-law had frequently been "dragged" off the Viaduct while contemplating killing himself. Martin was fascinated by the Viaduct, says Martin''s brother, Gary, who was also an accomplished hockey player. "The very last Junior A hockey team I played for, the Dixie Beehives, one of our players, Dan, jumped off the Bloor Viaduct, in 1979," Martin often came to Gary''s games and knew about the suicide. "He''d mention Dan a lot, and he almost had an obsession about [what had happened]," Gary says. "For about ten years after that, when he was in a bad way or depressed or something -- we didn''t know why, at that time -- he threatened to jump off that bridge many times. I''d say, oh, Martin, come on, you''re not gonna jump off the bridge, come on, come on, what''s wrong?".