35 Years And Counting

Bursting some favourite Maple Leaf bubbles.

Evan Spence | 2002-09-24

Toronto Maple Leafs fans are delusional, in very many ways. This would be quite humorous if the Leafs didn’t dominate Canada’s sports media to an undeserving degree. As it is, I feel obliged to lob a Pint Day onion in the direction of the Air Canada Centre.

Leafs fans’ newest popular belief is that Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment Ltd.—the mothership—is only interested in making a high return on investment, and that the on-ice success of the team is incidental. The conspiracy works like this: The Leafs have a tremendous amount of money, generated by ludicrous ticket prices, cross-Canada merchandising and television rights licencing. They are the sole big-market Canadian team. At the rink, the Leafs have identifiable needs on their team, namely defence and goaltending. It goes to figure then, that TO should be putting some of their copious jack toward resolving their on-ice problems. The fact that they appear recalcitrant to do so is evidence that ownership just wants to pocket the cash, and to hell with the fans.

Delusions Help Them Sleep At Night

Uh huh. Here are some of the delusions that have gotten the fans to this point.

  1. The organization doesn’t want to win.

    Nonsense. I never believed this argument when it was Eric Lindros saying the Québec Nordiques didn’t want to win. (Why else would they have drafted him?) I’m certainly not believing it for the Leafs.

    Imagine the windfall the Leafs organization would reap if they finally won a championship. Merchandise sales would skyrocket, local and national television rights for the next season would greatly increase in value and coverage (“The Stanley Cup Champion Toronto Maple Leafs, every night, all season long on TSN.”), and there would again be room to increase ticket prices for the long suffering, strangely masochistic, hockey-watching Southern Ontario public.

    Of course they want to win. It makes their jobs easier. Winning means it’s easier, and cheaper, to attract new talent. All those unrestricted free agents who are marauding across the league when they reach the age of 31 are all looking for that evasive cup ring. (Do Leafs fans think CuJo would be playing in Detroit if Toronto had won a Stanley Cup recently? He would have found a way to stay there. As it was, he worked hard to find a way out. And my, doesn’t he look strange in red?) If the Leafs were recent winners, I can guarantee that exquisitely talented free agents such as Luc Robitaille and Rob Blake would make their way there. (It’s hard to think of a team in more desperate need of Rob Blake, isn’t it?)

    Winning means the pressure, which is quite palpable right across the country, is off. Without question the Toronto Maple Leafs want to win.

  2. There’s a league conspiracy against Toronto

    Right. Because the NHL doesn’t want the market with arguably the largest fan base to have a championship team.

    Still, I hear Toronto GM and coach Pat Quinn complain after almost every loss about either the refereeing (“We’re being singled out.”) or the schedule (“We have to travel so far to play in the West. Boo hoo, it’s not fair, poor us.”). According to Quinn, his team is perfect, has never done anything wrong, and there’s a secret cabal of all the other owners who meet fortnightly to discuss how to deprive Hogtown of their rightful wins. (“Hey, how about back to back games in Alberta, with a flight delay in between?” “Genius! Then let’s make them fly Air Canada home!”)

    If there really were such a conspiracy, there would have been no way the Leafs would have been allowed to switch to the relatively easy-travelling Wales Eastern Conference. Yet still Quinn griped about having to travel out west in the pre-season last year to play Canadian team exhibition games, which were part of the deal to allow the Leafs to move to the East.

    Even worse: the league paid attention to his whining last year, and didn’t schedule any western Canadian dates for the Leafs this year. Some conspiracy.

    With the exception of every South American soccer team that ever existed, Quinn is simply the sorest loser, ever.

  3. Buying free agents means winning the cup.

    This is the worst delusion of all. Unlike Major League Baseball, Stanley Cups simply aren’t bought. Let’s look at some recent winners to see.

    Detroit Red Wings (2002, 1998, 1997)

    They’re the case study for championship success. Yes, they’ve continued to add to their strengths by regularly signing some of the highest profile free agents, but the core of their team (Yzerman, Fedorov, Lidstrom) was drafted and developed from within. Remember those terrible Detroit teams of the late 80s? That’s when their rebuilding began.

    Colorado Avalanche (2001, 1996)

    Sakic, Forsberg (via Lindros), Drury, Hejduk. Need I say more? Having a solid, home-grown core means they can go out and get certain free agents (Bourque, for instance) or make a critical trade for one player (like maybe Patrick Roy?) because they don’t have to belly-up and buy everyone.

    New Jersey Devils (2000, 1995)

    Forget about it. Here’s a team that lives and dies on home grown talent, usually to a fault.

    Dallas Stars (1999)

    Never mind that the cup-winning “goal” was scored by vagabond sniper Brett Hull. Look at the rest of this team: Mike Modano, Jere Lehtinen, and Derian Hatcher were all drafted courtesy of the Minnesota North Star’s rotten regular season track record.

    New York Rangers (1994)

    Okay, they’re now the case study for playoff futility, but back when they beat Trevor Linden, Kirk MacLean and Pavel Bure to claim their first championship in over 40 years, they were icing a thoroughly impressive crew of blueshirt-bred talent: Richter, Leech, Kovalev, Zubov. All they had to go out and get was that last piece of the puzzle, Mark Messier. (Back when he wasn’t 80 years old.) Rest assured it wasn’t the rest of the tired Oiler re-treads Lowe, Anderson, Beukeboom, MacTavish, and Tikkanen that got them there.

    Montréal Canadiens (1993)

    Has anyone ever accused the ’93 Habs of buying a cup?

    Pittsburgh Penguins (1992, 1991)

    Didn’t buy a soul to ice the Mario-Jaromir show.

I’m sorry, Toronto, but despite what you’ve fooled yourselves into believing, you’re not a single player away from a cup. It takes a near-miracle to win the toughest championship in sports, no matter how much cash you have on the books. A near-miracle and a ton of patience. I'm from Calgary. I know a thing or two about patience and championships. Despite having a 1988–89 team laden with more talent and character than Toronto could ever possibly dream, the Flames were a split-second Mike Vernon overtime glove save from a first round exit, and zero franchise Stanley Cups.

The Leafs have some pretty respectable home-grown talent: Mats Sundin, Tomas Kaberle, and Tie Domi all come to mind. But they need more than just one large-ticket free agent to make their current squad a real contender. The team, the Toronto-based media and the fans should seriously examine the fit and worth of their current roster before choking up all of those Canadian dollars for one overpriced free agent. The Messiah, he won’t be.

(They also have to stop recirculating Calgary Flames. Gary Roberts is a great hockey player, who will come through in pressure situations every time. Robert Reichel and Jonas Hoglund, however, are not of the same cloth.)

And Pat Quinn needs to grow the hell up.

Go Flames.

Evan Spence

Tuesday, September 24, 2002
PD DLXVI

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