If it’s the first sign of winter, it is also, for some, a happy one: There are Leafs on the ground in Toronto, trickling in from scattered offseason homes to begin preparations for a hope-filled hockey season.

And what are the NHL heroes doing for fun? On Tuesday, they were playing noon-hour shinny at their Etobicoke practice rink, this with the first day of training camp still three weeks away. Jonas Gustavsson and Nazem Kadri were on the team in the white jerseys. Tyler Bozak and Colby Armstrong were in blue. And who was that quick-handed forward skating alongside the latter pair? That was Tim Connolly, acquired by the Leafs in last month’s free-agent frenzy, who chose to spend his first day in the GTA on a rink with a handful of teammates, along with a smattering of players from the AHL Marlies.

“Just out there having fun,” Connolly would say later. “It’s my first day here and I already feel like I’ve been here a while with the guys . . . It felt comfortable.”

Connolly, who signed a two-year deal worth $9.5 million to end a decade-long run in Buffalo, spoke of the power of his life’s new scenery.

“I think it’s going to be good for me to have a fresh start, get re-energized. I think I’m a little more excited to play now, just coming to Toronto, the atmosphere here,” Connolly said. “It doesn’t get much better than Buffalo when you’re in the U.S. But Toronto — like I’ve said, it’s the New York Yankees of hockey.”

Sometimes it’s hard to know exactly when the new hockey season is beginning since, for many, the previous one never seemed to end. A lot of this country’s ice rinks are year-round operations.

But NHLers, in the interest of self-preservation, take varying breaks from the blade-riding grind. They holiday. They lift weights. And when they’re intent on ramping up their conditioning in anticipation of, say, the Leafs’ Sept. 18 pre-season opener, they play in pickup games like Tuesday’s.

The action was unorganized, impromptu, at times chaotic. And if those descriptors conjure visions of last season’s power play — well, it was prettier than that.

There was no hotseat-occupying coach yelling instructions from the bench. There was no impatient crowd groaning their perennial disapproval in the midst of a six-season playoff drought. There was also no Luke Schenn, the still-unsigned defenceman.

There was only a game up to five, which had to be won by two goals. Connolly’s blue team, up 5-4 and a score away from clinching it, ended up losing, by his count, 7-5. It was pointed out by a not-quite-neutral observer that the winning team had nine skaters to the losing team’s seven. The extra substitutes, given a roster not yet in game shape, were, in one estimation, a “big difference.”

“But we blew the lead,” acknowledged Connolly. “I think we pressed a little too hard to get the game winner.”

He was joking, of course. Nobody was pressing. Most players were gliding at moments when, in a regular-season game, the faithful would have been yelling at them to skate. Most players were falling back when, in a few weeks, reality will demand full-on forechecking.

This wasn’t the low-scoring, goaltender-dominated NHL brand of the game for which Bay Street’s finest fork over big chunks of their client-schmoozing budgets. This was, to some eyes, far more fun to watch.

“They look better than they usually play,” said Mississauga’s Ethan Tsin, 11. Decked in a Leafs jersey and Leafs hat, Ethan made the trip with his family to the MasterCard Centre to watch the action and scavenge for autographs.

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The scavenging has been fruitful. On Monday, Ethan got Phil Kessell to sign his jersey. On Tuesday, he managed to convince a handful of players to scribble their names with a Sharpie. Connolly, for his part, came off the ice after an hour with his blue undershirt drenched in inky sweat.

“Informal shinny is actually work,” he said. “You’re working on little things out there. Obviously, there’s no hitting or anything out there. But it gives you a chance to get your feet back under you, your legs and your hands back . . . It’s just good to be out here. I’m looking forward to getting the season started.”