Note: this is an old essay I rediscovered this morning. With Toronto losing to the recently terrible Canadiens last night, I thought I might dust it off with some updates.
Hockey. I would watch it over any sport. Hell, any other TV show really. I have lost women over this passion over the years, and frankly I don’t care. The game is the game. And like all others I have a team I love more than any other.
Unfortunately that team is the Toronto Maple Leafs, widely regarded - though not necessarily with merit - as one of the biggest jokes in the league with the most die hard fan bases in hockey. Indeed, the Leafs collective is up there among the most rabid fan groups in all professional sports.
Here’s the thing though. The Leafs have been pretty bad historically. The last few years have been an exception (this post was originally written in 2010) but ultimately they haven’t won the whole thing since 1967. They used to be a force to be reckoned with. Now though, there’s huge opposition: if you don’t like the Leafs, you fucking HATE the Leafs. For the longest time, Toronto’s sports teams were owned by the Ontario Teachers Union so they didn’t care whetherthey won or lost, so long as the fans keep buying new merchandise. Now they’re owned by Rogers Media, which isn’t much better because at least teachers were getting paid off all those mousepads. There’s a multitude of obstructions as to why any mostly sane human such as myself would ever root for a lost cause especially since I have lived on the West Coast for five 19 years - a place with its own massively dynamic hockey team and fan culture.
It’s a simple answer: it’s in my blood. I am a fan because of all the shitty seasons I have endured. Whenever we win, I feel elated. When I get a knowing nod from a stranger, I know it’s because of my hat. I have accepted the fact that my team is unlikely to win the Cup in my lifetime. So when we win, it brings a moment of triumph into our lives.
Out here in Whistler, and in fact anywhere in Canada, Leafs fans endure some abuse from other fans. As such, we form a bond, a giant unit that converges on the Keg, or Tapley’s, or wherever is showing the game. Through our quasi-masochistic cheering for the underdog of underdogs, we all cry into our hands a s a family, and celebrate as a mob. We are everywhere: cooking your food, making your drinks, cleaning your hotel room, and getting you on the mountain. We are Legion.
That’s why I will bleed blue and white until my dying day. When they finally attain the unattainable once more, I will be driving that bandwagon for the rest of you.
Go Leafs Go.