New Brunswick farm celebrates 100th season of Toronto Maple Leafs with annual corn maze

Hunter Brothers Farm is at it again and this time, their popular New Brunswick corn maze is paying tribute to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

The design, featuring the Leafs logo in the centre, framed by the likenesses of Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, was crafted by the owners as a way to celebrate the 100th season of the Leafs.

Leigh Hunter, son of one of the farm’s owners Chip, told Global News it started kind of as a joke following one of their previous corn mazes designed after the Montreal Canadiens’ 100th season in 2009 featuring Jean Beliveau.

READ MORE: New Brunswick corn maze latest celebration of iconic Jose Bautista bat flip

As the date grew closer though, he said celebrating just that would be mean-spirited but as the 50th anniversary also coincided with the 100th anniversary season, they would celebrate that instead.

He acknowledged they were Habs fans, but said they were confident enough in their own team they didn’t mind shining the light on other teams in the NHL.

Creating the mazes is a job that takes place over several months, starting with the idea, working with a graphic designer and land surveyor, and then cutting the crops to create the design at the farm in Florenceville-Bristol, N.B.

Hunter said in terms of deciding who to showcase in the corn maze, they cycled through possibilities including Leafs’ alumni, but came to a decision.

“They have some good young talent and so we want to focus on the future going forward,” Hunter said. “When we decided to go that way with things, it became obvious that Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner were going to be the highlights of the maze.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "They have some good young talent and so we want to focus on the future going forward," Hunter said. "When we decided to go that way with things, it became obvious that Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner were going to be the highlights of the maze."

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Each year, the farm puts together a different design for people to explore at the fall entertainment event hosted at the site. Last year, a corn maze was designed around Jose Bautista’s bat flip from the 2016 post-season to celebrate the Toronto Blue Jays’ 40th season.

The annual maze started as small paths to get people out to the farm and reconnect people with agriculture, but has grown over the past decade.

Hunter said there is pressure to have a good theme picked out for the next year.

“You can have a good theme but if there’s no good image to go with it, it’s not really worth doing,” Hunter said.

Hunter Brothers’ corn mazes have even resulted in recognition from some big names.

Hunter said they had Beliveau call them about their maze featuring him in 2009, and when they created a maze celebrating the 35th anniversary of the Terry Fox Foundation, in collaboration with the organization, Darrell Fox came out to open the maze.

But getting big name recognition isn’t the purpose of the maze.

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“It’s nice when the organization you do your maze on reacts positively to it, that’s always nice, but that’s never the goal of it. It’s really more for the fans and if the Leafs like it, then all the better,” he said.

“As long as people like what we’re doing, we’ll keep doing it.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "As long as people like what we're doing, we'll keep doing it."

Opening day of the corn maze and the Hunter Brothers’ Field of Fun is set for Sept. 9, and runs every weekend and holiday Monday until Oct. 29.