April 03, 2006

The Tao of a Toronto Maple Leaf Fan: Toronto's NHL team may be a storied franchise, but it's a horror story, according to Weedy McSmokey

Well, it appears another year has come and gone and though the details change the result is ever familiar: The Toronto Maple Leafs will not win the Stanley Cup. Next season is the 40th anniversary of the last Leaf Cup victory. A victory in 1967, by a team of veterans not expected to win. A victory that happened back when there were only six teams and two playoff rounds and was a full ten years before my birth. It's safe to say it no longer counts. In the modern NHL the Leafs have been a complete and utter failure. The laundry list of reasons/excuses/voodoo curses/Gretzky-high-sticked-Glimours that document these failures are available to everyone. They are unimportant. What is important is the impact that this kind of a sports franchise can have on the individual. My aim is to explore the lighter side of being a Leaf fan. Lord knows we need one. But first -- the context. There is a constant paradox to this team. Technically, the Leafs are the second most successful team in the history of the sport -- yet so comically and legitimately unsuccessful that people who have never seen a victory speak of them in songs despite the fact that they occurred decades before they existed (the primary reason why The Tragically Hip will never attain true coolness. Being a Leaf fan is not cool. It is fun, but never cool. Mike Myers is a Leaf fan. Enough said.). It is a franchise that has been so buoyed by national radio and TV coverage for the better part of a century that it has bullied its way into being the favourite son of the land of hockey, boasting legions of fans from coast to coast -- fans who are unquestionably loyal, despite having been given every reason to question that loyalty. Self-loathing and celebrating unite every Saturday. The usual lazy analogy is that the Leafs are the hockey equivalent of the Red Sox. I disagree. The ineptness of the Leafs must be viewed in its true uniqueness in order to appreciate its gifts. The Red Sox actually got to championships and lost -- and of course recently won something. Theirs was a more uphill battle with the chance of actually making the playoffs tight. But the Red Sox also had the spectre of the Yankees -- a bigger, richer brother sitting on their head and farting on their aspirations. Fans had a focus for their ire -- a true rival. Leafs fans have no such icon. They are the richest franchise in the NHL -- have been for many, many moons. Their rivalries are either a convenient new team in the same province (already boasting the kind of talent the Leafs have really never seen), or are based on history now fuzzier than Bob Cole's ability to remember who the hell is actually on the ice. They exist in this kind of isolation; a combined monstrosity of Yankee greed and Red Sox haplessness. Fan ire and frustration are focused both inward and at the universe at large. The Knicks would be a closer analogy, but the Knicks at least manage to be the worst team in the league, while the Leafs are like an ecstasy-ridden Jessica Simpson behind bulletproof glass -- a tease. A phenomenally, ridiculous, cosmic tease. I mean, they've actually played more playoff games than any other franchise in the Pat Quinn era. Detroit and NJ have won five cups between them in that time. This shouldn't even be mathematically possible, but here we are. Finally, the Leafs are principally owned by the Ontario School Teachers Pension Fund. So, that asshole math teacher that tormented you fifteen years ago is profiting from your yearly misery. That's the kind of attention to detail that you have to respect. The extra, almost unnoticed, Marquis de Sade-esque, exquisite nipple-twist cherry on the crotch-kick sundae. Frankly, there isn't an equivalent franchise anywhere that I can think of. And I'm not researching it. I'm positively revelling in it. Because being a Leaf fan is truly fantastic. On the surface this seem less than the case, but being a Leaf fan affords one the opportunity to experience wisdom and gain knowledge. It provides nourishment for the growth of the soul. You have to actually live in Toronto to truly understand this, but trust me - it's a great gig. Here is a short series of truths, nay -- life lessons - that one can learn as one follows the Toronto Maple Leafs year in and year out: My actions are the product of many circumstances; I am not an island: There are many reasons why my own particular shortcomings in the workplace and bedroom can be blamed on Aki Berg. At my office, you can now select Aki Berg as one of the drop-down options on the 'lost business' report: Competition, Business Sold, Aki Berg, Changed Broker... Everything is connected. Experiences are shared: Every thing that happens to the Leafs has far-ranging repercussions regardless of how distant they get from the source. Doug Glimour tears his ACL and two guys in Oshawa, sensing that fortune is an elusive mistress, start a car battery store. In Oakville, you chose the steak instead of the chicken, after all life is short and success is fickle -- just ask Doug Glimour. It's all connected. Being a Leaf fan offers you a glimpse of the lattice of coincidence and shared experience that governs the universe. Trés Buddha. The sublime exists best within the surreal: Wade Belak can't go out of his house at night without wearing sunglasses so as not to be mobbed by fans. Ilya Kovalchuk could run naked through the streets of Atlanta and not get arrested; Belak wears sunglasses at night. Wade fucking Belak. Rock star. The amazing ability to be considered a storied and valuable franchise despite never having a player considered to be among the elite in the history of the NHL. Hey, I like Darryl Sittler too, but he's not going to be confused with any of the best players of all time. But we wouldn't really know. We've never had any. Yet we are storied and have limitless value. Does anyone buy this anymore? I feel confident in saying this because no one who has actually seen Turk Broda, Max Bentley and Johnny Bower play can use a computer. Mostly because they're all DEAD. One can have many lives. Today's failure is tomorrow's victory: The total friggin' hysteria following each loss and each win. The Leafs are the phone-in radio show equivalent of the 2005/2006 Ice Cats (see: SpoFi Hockey Pool, subsection: Garfield). Mats Sundin has been traded, released, re-signed, murdered and resurrected so often in the minds of Leaf fans he makes Rasputin look apathetic and uninvolved. A large chunk of the population actually still thinks that at age 36, Tie Domi had 'developed' into a 'real contributor' and was worth a two year deal at the going rate of a Mike Sillinger or Brian Rolston. That's a huge talent. That's Cris Angel-I-just-walked-through-a-plate-glass-door-without-breaking-it magic. I swear there are no psychotropics in the water table. I've sampled. According to management -- every player wants to play here, in the centre of the hockey universe where hockey reigns supreme. But apparently none of them want to play here when they're any good. And I mean ever. Upon looking out at the abyss, the Big Picture becomes clear: Humour is mainly the product of pain and tragedy. Toronto is a very funny town. Everyone is younger in Toronto. We think young. For instance, when Ottawa trades for Dany Heatley, Sens fans say it's a good deal because he's young and in the prime of his career. When Toronto trades for Owen Nolan, Leafs fans say it's a good deal because he's young and in the prime of his career. Owen Nolan is nine years older than Dany Heatley. See? Youthful thinking -- the key to long life. The Leafs lose, and work downtown is loose and unproductive. The Leafs win, and work downtown is loose and unproductive. Both happen for obvious reasons. Limitations are the invention of the self. You can do anything (just look at these idiots in charge): The saga of Richard Peddie and Larry Tanenbaum. For those not in the know, Peddie and Tanenbaum ostensibly run both the Leafs and the Toronto Raptors (see: NBA, subsection: laughingstock) for MLSEL. Peddie is the CEO and Tanenbaum is one of the owners (he has something like 12%) These guys are awful. Like Michael Ovitz hiding under his desk awful. I honestly believe there is a huge bet involved in this somehow. An Illuminati-style bet for millions that we'll never know the truth about -- involving arms dealers, Colonel Sanders, Big Tobacco and Galen Weston. It makes the most sense. I also assume Mike Milbury was involved in this bet for a long-time and he lost. Or won. I'm not sure -- it's complicated. These people are re-writing the book on executive incompetence. It will be studied for decades thereafter. They'll call it a paradigm shift or invent a word for the strategy -- maybe "Boob-a-realpolitik". These are the guys who said -- "Hey were the most valuable franchise in hockey with a desperate need to win the Cup -- Oooo, let's hire a rookie GM!" and "I think what we need is a revolving door of hockey operations leadership -- maybe we can get a few people spots in the Liberal party! Now, who wants to build Toronto Maple Leaf condos?" It's either that or Tanenbaum's office is protected by ED-209 and he rules with absolute fear -"You will trade for Luke Richardson. You have 30 seconds to comply". True suffering is the path to enlightenment. When the combined weight of expectation, hope, mania, frustration, wealth and incompetence settle down on your shoulders with each passing year and the sun still manages to come up, one is given the gift of ultimate perspective. (And while that's great and everything, I'd prefer a Cup while I can still party and have a functioning prostate.) What it really comes down to is fundamental personal growth. The Leafs are a less a hockey club than a window to understanding life -- when outcomes are assured, one has the opportunity to examine the nuances -- the lessons that are subtly taught by a crappy franchise in a town where they rule all. A double reverse King Midas -- where everything they touch turns to shit, but it doesn't matter because the gold just keeps rolling in. Never boring, but at the same time calmingly certain that the Leafs will flirt with the unreachable, tease once again and settle for the inevitable result. There is, at the heart of it all, the way of the Buddha -- offering the truth and the chance to examine the richness of Man's work, with its equal parts of idiocy and wonder. And when they DO win (and eventually, they will -- the front office fake-outs will get so good and subtle that they'll just fake themselves out and in spite of their best efforts to only appear like they intend to win - in some kind of orgy of Cartesian duality - they'll actually win.) -- The horror…. The horror… So go Leafs, go. Or don't go. Either way I'm (probably) going to be OK. SIDENOTE: Wade Belak should actively start referring to himself as Wade "The Total Package" Belak. There is simply no reason not to.

posted by WeedyMcSmokey to commentary at 11:04 AM - 0 comments