Category Archives: Sports

Digital-Age Hockey Fandom: The Passion That Unites Us All is Other Leaf Fans

21 Friday Mar 2025

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If you know me, you know I’m not big on technology. One major, blessed exception is how social media connects Leaf fans.

The Toronto Maple Leafs famously have the most fans and haters in the NHL. Canada produces most of the NHL players and Ontario produces more than any province. Leaf passion is a naturally occurring geographical phenomenon. But the Leafs are also a much despised corporate behemoth.

The Leafs went in 2012 from having a controlling-share owned by the giant but faceless Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan to one of Canada’s most hated corporate faces, Edward Rogers.

Rogers own a controlling share in our team, arena, and the channel that broadcasts most games. It’s vertically-integrated mediocrity I suspect they’d call “synergy.” To be sure, complaints about Rogers aren’t merely political. Sportsnet’s hockey coverage and play-by-play both suck. Whether it’s between or during periods, their product is simply very bad. To get an idea, watch Sportsnet botch the call on Nylander’s goal to seal game 6 versus Boston, then watch Joe Bowen call the same goal.

I have no proof that the Sportsnet commentators find whatever angle irritates Leaf fans most because they have an agenda, but it sure seems that way. No team is perfect and god knows the Leafs have flaws! Leaf chokes have taken years off my life! The very last people who need to hear that the Leafs have problems is Leaf fans! Trust me…we know!

But at the same time, our roster is stacked with killers who break franchise records every other game. Just this week, Matthews overtook Sundin for goals on home ice. Last night, Nylander hit 600 points and JT hit 1,100 in their careers. Knies is the first Leaf to get 25 goals and 150 hits since they started counting it 25 years ago.

Are the Leafs a perfect team? No team is and we’re certainly not either. We’re probably a B-level contender, one tier below the top dogs. But the way Sportsnet’s writers rush to minimize the team’s success and highlight our flaws, you wouldn’t know that with 13 games left in the regular season, we have the exact same record as the defending Stanley Cup champions: 42-23-3.

That’s why it’s so nice to bypass the professional haters at Sportsnet and check out what actual fans of this team are saying after games. Twitter is breaking under Musk, but it’s still OK for this. The real treat is watching Steve Dangle videos and reading the comments to find out what real fans think. People invested in the team, who watch and care and whose sense of impending doom is natural and not contrived for click-bait, like my own.

Somehow, Nick Kypreos became a big name in hockey coverage. Kyper did a TV commercial years ago flaunting his Stanley Cup ring, punching into the camera. In 1994, the year his Rangers won the Cup, Kypreos had a grand total of 0 points in 3 playoff games. Frankly, he was better at playing hockey than covering it. He’s been there a long time now and he’s considerably more polished and assured than he was years ago, but I can’t watch Sportsnet without feeling like most of their panelists are reading a script they didn’t write. Maybe there’s no top-down corporate agenda to rile up Leaf fans for engagement, and the Sportsnet feed simply sucks organically. Ultimately, it’s a distinction without a difference. It sucks.

TSN has a way better broadcast, with O-Dog being an unapologetic Leaf fan still willing to criticize the buds when necessary. I remember when Jeff O’ Neil played for the Leafs and hearing his takes is great.

It’s as if Sportsnet wants to avoid seeming pro-Leafs because Rogers, being a cheap ass company that doesn’t care about their products, only syndicates the same nationwide broadcast for every fan base, instead of regional broadcasts. “Efficiencies.”

You’d think Leaf fans would be the target demographic of the Leaf broadcast, but we’re not. The people covering Leaf games for Sportsnet are Canucks fans. At the very least, their indifference to the Leafs is palpable. Leaf legend Joe Bowen got relegated to radio for some reason? I was re-watching highlights from the Leafs’ insane 3-goal comeback with 3 minutes left in the third against Columbus in the 2020 bubble playoff the other night, and Sportsnet botched the call on the Matthews OT winner, crediting Kapanen instead, who wasn’t on the ice. Brutal.

What’s stunned Leaf fans this year is how good the Amazon broadcast has been in only their first year. Their commentators praise the Leafs! Incredibly, they think Nylander, currently second in NHL goal scoring, is good! They think Mitch Marner, currently 6th in NHL points, is also good! Leaf fans were shocked to hear people on TV compliment our players.

Their feed has legends between periods like Mark Messier doing commentary. The stories are better, production is higher grade. Sportsnet finds reasons for hating. When they do compliment the Leafs, you can feel their reluctance. Steve Dangle was briefly on Sportsnet years ago, until he wasn’t. Amazon wisely hired Dangle to do an intermission a couple weeks ago. Sportsnet had the answer in their hands and let him walk.  

To be sure, I think it’s gross paying for Rogers cable TV doesn’t get you every Leaf game, that now you also need an Amazon Prime subscription. It’s cheap and tacky and makes me think the Rogers TV execs who sold away the rights to their own team’s games were raised by pigs. But in terms of just the coverage, Amazon has been better by a mile.

Steve Dangle is an unbelievable fan who puts himself out there. Rival fans tune in after losses to see him lose his mind, and those are his most-watched videos. But he isn’t merely trading in schaudenfraude. The entire Leaf fan base is extremely lucky to have him! Dangle has made LFR videos, short for Leaf Fan Reaction, after every game since 2007! The Sundin era, when Paul Maurice was our coach! Dangle knows the entire organization inside and out, from players, staff, even the Marlies. He’s extremely passionate, clear-eyed, and informed. Real fans trust him.

Whatever you think of his commentary, and I agree with almost every word, nobody doubts he’s only saying what he really thinks. Every fan base deserves a fun super fan that functions as a node and community hub, so I’m extremely grateful for Steve Dangle. His production is sharp, funny, knowledgeable, and has quick turn-around. Hat tip to Leaf Nations’ favourite Avs fan, Producer Drew.

Frankly, Steve Dangle’s LFR leaves Sportsnet’s coverage in the dust. TSN is wonderful compared to Sportsnet, but the days of watching 30 minutes of TV to wait for Leaf highlights are long gone, thanks to Omar at @TicTacTOmar on twitter. Amazon’s broadcast might be the best of the three, but they don’t do much post-game coverage.

YouTube has other great hockey channels too. Hockey Psychology is excellent. Being a hockey fan in the digital era means you don’t need to rely on TV giants to watch good stuff.

“The Passion That Unites Us All” is a lovely slogan, but practically speaking, our passion revolves around the Leafs, but the thing actually uniting us all is social media. That Leaf fans rely on each other to stay connected is pretty funny when you consider that our hockey team, their arena, and TV rights are owned by the country’s largest telecom company.

Our Heroes: A balanced perspective of the Maple Leafs’ journey to the 2014 Stanley Cup

11 Tuesday Mar 2014

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Game #4–Friday, Philly

The Leafs got ahead of Philly 2-0 in the first 5 minutes of the game. Counter-intuitively, these games are hard to watch: you sit there with nothing to gain, hoping to avoid an ugly crumbling. Of course watching my Leafs isn’t just fun, it’s thrilling. Skydivers can’t imagine the adrenaline rush I get watching Kessel skate with the puck. But whether we’re winning or losing, it’s gut wrenching.

So it’s funny that when Leafs do in fact blow the lead, the reverse feeling swooshes in and immediately I feel a win is at hand. I like to attribute this curious cerebral complex to the irrationality of our species, human kind, not to Leaf fans in particular.

Yet what appears on the surface to be fundamentally nonsensical may be called instinct, as I was ultimately vindicated: the Leafs scored late in the third to take the lead, blew that lead, then won on a beautiful overtime goal by Lupul, compliments of Phaneuf. It’s possible that through our long relationship and by the sheer force of my devotion, my gut is in tune with the Leafs. I doubt the aching in my stomach for them to win causes them to win, but it probably predicts it accurately.

Game #5–Anaheim

Funny that the Ducks are supposedly among the best teams in the NHL, because we beat the shit out of them, 3-1. We scored twice in the first period–first a Bozak goal from Phaneuf (same move as the winner from the previous overtime), second a Kessel breakaway (killer speed, good shot, stopped but somehow went in). Second period saw a beauty cross-crease pass from Kessel to Paul Ranger who buried.

Ranger gets a special salutary paragraph here. Old joke: if you want to see what it would look like if you were inserted into an NHL game, watch Paul Ranger. But not last night! Ranger looked WAY better than me, really. Even if he didn’t score he was effective in the D zone, hitting guys and (actually) clearing the puck. I was stunned to find myself admiring his play, but I am glad to see it and hope it continues.

Bozak had three points and was a beast. Poor guy doesn’t get credit because he’s taking Sundin’s role. Nobody can replace the Big Swede. But Bozak was all over the ice, tipping pucks out of the zone, getting breakaways, setting up goals.

Still, I became terrified after the Leafs took a 3-0 lead in the second. The Ducks are no joke. They (Perry, Getzlaf) got shots, mostly from far away but some in tight, but really we did a good job defending the league, even if Perry scored. But there’s nothing to stop me from freaking out, so I did. That’s not totally true. The only thing that can make me finally relax is winning the Cup, and I cannot wait for this Spring, when under the influence of unimaginable ecstasy I’ll probably set a dozen cars ablaze along Yonge. Look for me, I’ll be the guy without pants.

Our Heroes: Game #3

06 Thursday Mar 2014

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Leafs beat New York in overtime, 3-2, on a day where Leaf management opted to make no moves on trade deadline day, convinced that chemistry is good and there’s sufficient firepower to win the big games come June. The game was odd.

Bozak scored a beauty on a penalty shot. He’s a breakaway artiste, I believe 3/5 in shootouts this year including the game winner in the outdoor game. Nice fake out, a clutch, and I think he went 5 hole or low glove but really he had little room to thread it and somehow he did.

Kadri scored a ball hockey goal. Kulemin made a nice patient move to the slot, waiting a while before getting a decent shot away, and Naz was there to bat the bouncing rebound home.

Things looked good for the buds when a Ranger was called for tripping with 14 minutes left in the third. But the Leafs failed to kill the power play, New York somehow scoring twice. I’d say this never, ever happens, except it happened like last week.

The first goal was the result of some miscues and diabolical puck luck. Puck went off a skate to a Ranger (a New York one, not Paul) who took a shot, but Bozak’s stick redirected the puck way wide of the net, only to hit Phaneuf’s ass (hard not to hit Dion’s ass, the biggest in the league) and got behind Bernier.

Our heroes were determined to use the power play to restore a 2-goal lead, so they went up ice with grit poise and purpose and New York scored a minute later. 2-2.

I’ve been chirping the hockey gods in this space lately and I wondered if they preferred to communicate their disgust with me this way, rather than say post in my comment section. But superstition is stupid, and I never give in to it during the regular season. So I made the hockey gods no offerings and trusted the boys to pull through.

And in overtime, the apartment line checked in. Kessel made a sharp entry into the zone. Lundqvist directed the biscuit behind the net, Phil fought for it and sent a sweet pass to the front of the net to his roommate / video game companion, and Bozak buried.

It was Martin St. Louis’ first game as a Ranger, reunited once more Richards, Cup winners in Tampa, the beneficiaries of anti-Canadian refs conspiring against the Calgary Flames. If you’ll recall, the Flames scored a goal in overtime of game 6 that should have won them the Cup, but the refs said “nah,” determined to give the Cup to a tropical hockey market filled with rich die hard fans of baseball and NASCAR.

That the Leafs stymied this Cup-winning duo, extra energized in this their first game together, speaks volumes about the Leafs capacity to win come June. I look forward to the imminent glory.

Our Heroes–A Balanced Perspective On The Toronto Maple Leafs

03 Monday Mar 2014

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The refs Saturday were more despicable than usual in allowing the perverted midgets from Montreal not just one point, but two. We can’t afford to lose games against such vastly inferior opponents.

The game begun in characteristic fashion. The Leafs were in no mood to play hockey, and a couple lucky shots snuck past Bernier. The Leafs didn’t put a shot on net for ten minutes, maybe more. This brutal hockey delighted the fiendish mtl audience. Leafs down 2-0.

Familiar with the Leaf’s heroic nature, I eagerly awaited the comeback. On cue, the Leafs restored the normal order of things by scoring three electric goals to take the lead. JVR’s finesse, determination and imagination can’t be suppressed for long, and he elegantly tipped a shot past budaj. Killing a mtl powerplay, the same JVR powered past subban and went five hole on a breakaway to tie things up. Finally, Kessel was Kesselesque, wiring a wrister a foot off the ice inside the bar in top flight.

It was gracious of the Leafs to show the montreal crowd what elegant hockey looks like, but I doubt they appreciated the gesture. They are an ungrateful lot and no doubt such gorgeous puck made them miserable. By tradition, they only applaud the most depraved, unspeakable acts.

The game’s ending proved that either there are no hockey gods, or they are a sadistic debased group of flunkies unworthy of worship. subban tied it up and the Leafs got three straight penalties. When JVR was violently hooked the ref called a penalty on the the guilty montreal runt, but called JVR too! Gleason was penalized for body checking. In overtime, an unusual delay of game penalty was called on Bernier and the habs successfully parlayed one perversion into another by scoring, winning the game. I’m not sure whether refs can be fined, suspended or imprisoned for desecrating  the hallowed game of hockey, but this should be looked into. Sometimes it feels as if the NHL scouts meth clinics in search of referees.

To be sure, the Leafs should have won, refs notwithstanding. Just sometimes fate takes pity on such ghastly underdogs.

I’m already over it, moving forward should be easy. Bernier is shaking off the rust from the Olympic break. For unexplainable reasons he wasn’t selected to Team Canada, which managed to win gold despite our glaring weakness in net.

Lupul looked lively in more ways than one. Sharp magazine named Lupul one of the best dressed athletes of all time. I believe the style and elegance imbued in all facets of the Toronto Maple Leafs organization rubbed off on his clothes. Anyway Lupul nailed a crossbar and was tough to contain.

Even Clarkson had a good night, which is to say he earned a tiny fraction of his ridiculous salary by scoring 0 points but looking less useless than normal. Kadri needs to bury again, but he was a presence and cannot be suppressed for long. Kessel and JVR are unquenchable fire.

Perverted outcome aside, things look as rosy as ever in Leaf land.

10 Strategies to Win Back Leaf Fans

17 Thursday Jan 2013

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Between the lockout and our losing hockey team, Leaf ownership might not want to test the Leaf fan’s notorious loyalty. Of course winning works, but it’s hard! In light of Saturday’s long-awaited return to NHL hockey, here are 10 other ways Leaf ownership can win over fans:

1. Schmaltzy heritage gestures should be replaced by something meaningful, especially in season where our outdoor “classic” against Detroit was cancelled. Play one game a year in Maple Leaf Gardens against the Habs.

2. To whip up cheer and excitement for the new Leaf season, burn effigies of old and new senator players, from yashin to their current Great Satan daniella.

3. The team mascot is currently a silent dancing bear named after Carlton Street where Maple leaf Gardens is located. This is safe and homely—good for kids. Replace stupid bear with a team of trashy bimbos in bikinis who shoot out t-shirts from hilarious high-powered guns during stoppages of play. Everybody loves this.

4. Retire senile Joe Bowen. His digressions are insufferable and his contribution to leaf lore, the idiotic catchphrase “holy mackinaw,” has been embarrassingly forced for years. Hire Leaf legends to comment and analyze, like in the NFL. Wendel, Dougie, and especially Mats. Do not let Sundin quietly enjoy his retirement with his beautiful wife. His weakness is his classy nature and his golden heart: bring him back by targeting these mercifully. Also, give the mic to colourful heart and soul guys Domi and Tucker. They must have countless insights.

5. The Burkie Dog concession stand in the ACC will be replaced by Nonis Nachos. Whereas the Burkie dogs represented the loud and colourful personality of our former GM by being loaded with crazy toppings, the Nonis nachos will be plain nachos without even cheese or salsa.

6. Fight the ownership’s reputation as bloodsucking corporate parasites by giving away two platinum tickets to the home opener to a couple of Toronto’s most decrepit and sympathetic homeless people. Focus cameras on them. There will be a very touching and rousing ovation from fans. Tell the announcer to have an endearing line prepared for when they’re on screen, but make it sound off the cuff. If those in neighbouring seats aren’t getting sushi but are actually watching the game, provide them with nose plugs, but do not refund their tickets no matter how grossed out they are.

7. To ensure a playoff spot, Trade Lombardi for a fourth round draft pick. Then, if the organization has any leftover Lombardi jerseys that didn’t sell, give them away to the homeless guys described above as a game day souvenir that keeps them warm through winter. Charity is great for branding.

8. Change the official Leaf slogan from “passion is everything” to “winning is meaningful, too.”

9. To increase fan confidence in team defence, release a video of Dion Phaneuf’s summer training program, including backwards skating sessions and forward skating sessions.

10. Stop showing our old Stanley Cup champions on the ACC screen and on TV. It looks like a WWII veteran’s commemoration. It’s embarrassing—hide the great Johnny Bower, but for all the glory he and the others have provided this feckless organization give them a complimentary seat to the game and a generous deal on parking and beer.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are dead to me

27 Friday Apr 2012

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The thought of the Maple Leafs doesn’t only make sick right now, it offends me. Whether it’s a corporate apology for the woes of the feckless hockey players they own (our “captain” issued no apology, banal and tacky or otherwise), or the sports media who still carry on pretending that speculation about a wasted team matters, all of it is a reminder of cynical mass exploitation and mass delusion. And yet here I am writing about them. Why? My dead team requires a eulogy.

Every article I’ve read has failed to truly diagnosis this team’s cause of death. While on the surface the Leafs selected different months of the year to implode, the catastrophe of the post-Sundin playoff drought can be attributed solely to a lack of leadership that makes them incapable of transcending a wretched cycle. To understand this cycle let’s look to Greek tragedy.

I see our “leader”, that pylonic skater with the biggest ass in the NHL, as a symbol of what the Greeks called miasma. Miasma originated after Tantalus killed his son and boiled him in a stew to serve to the gods at banquet. Though the Greeks held slaves, they regarded infanticide, cannibalism and human sacrifice with commendably low esteem, and so Tantalus started a chain of events characterized by a subversion of human decency on this scale. Miasma isn’t simply what’s illegal or immoral, it’s what’s good and righteous inverted and upside down, but it’s come to mean more generally a poisonous atmosphere thought to rise from swamps and putrid matter that cause disease. The Leafs don’t have a leader to get past their miasma.

The Leafs captain Phaneuf can’t skate backwards, he can’t skate forwards, his shots miss the net, he intimidates nobody, opposing players laugh at him and it’s safe to say the Leafs don’t rally around him. For all this, he was made an all-star, receives 6.5 million dollars per annum and was selected to represent Canada at the IIHF World Hockey Championship this summer. To be sure, he isn’t only overvalued by the Leafs, as unfortunately the fetid swamp airs have polluted Team Canada’s judgement, but Phaneuf is surely a symbol of disorder, of the inverse of what’s right. He embodies miasma.

Variations of Tantalus’ unspeakable atrocities continued in the Greek cycle: Atreus served and watched as his unwitting brother Thyestes ate his own children in a meal; Atreus’ son Agammenon sacrificed his daughter to the gods; Clytemnestra killed her husband Agamemnon (who, after all, killed his/her daughter) after returning victorious from the Trojan war. Similarly, back in Toronto, year after year the Leafs keep missing the playoffs. Athens’ cycle ended in when Athena, goddess of wisdom and war, stopped Orestes before he could avenge his father by killing his mother. When will the Leafs receive such divine intervention? Athena is nowhere to be seen, and Phaneuf is no goddess of wisdom (or war). “Mumble mumble…losing is bad…we prefer winning… mumble mumble.”

Like everyone on Earth under 90-years-old, Sundin didn’t bring Toronto a cup, but we were perennially in playoffs. Leafs fans weren’t ashamed by default. There were better teams in the league, but we weren’t hopelessly stuck in a wretched swamp.

Yet when Sundin parted from the organization, a disturbing percentage of fans booed and jeered him for refusing to relinquish his contractual rights; they expected Sundin, holder of every important leaf record, to only concern himself with the inheritance the Leafs would gain by his death to the team. He was to captain a team best by departing it. (Interestingly, this year media berated Rick Nash for voicing a willingness to waive his no-trade clause in order to help with the team’s rebuild. Sundin was booed for not doing this.) Astronomically unappreciative of the organization’s brightest spot in forty years, it was fitting that this year’s epic slide, our miasmic dip, can be traced back to the Saturday night 5-0 loss to the Habs on the very night Sundin’s number was raised to the rafters.

While the cycle as a whole is disgusting, it’s not easy to condemn any one party. As a result, nothing will change.

It’s impossible to blame the media for their ridiculous and obsessive coverage of this feckless team when the topic alone guarantees a mass audience. It’s easy to see how an old and once prestigious team in a big metropolitan city has an impossibly large, impossibly loyal fan base. It’s easy to see how a spiritless corporation (who chose for a motto “spirit is everything”) cynically exploits this base over and over. Finally, it’s easy to see (not to excuse, but to see) how celebrity twenty-something-year-old millionaires crumble under all this ridiculous, but relentless, scrutiny and pressure. No other NHL player is burdened to the same degree as Leaf players in this final regard.

This also explains why rookies don’t develop here, and why talented players under-perform. Without Athena’s divine hand or a capable captain with the psychological fortitude to handle all this (Lupul!?), this team is in a hostile landscape and they will never emerge from this cycle.

The reasonable response to this team is to finally and actually stop going to games. A close second is forming a picket line around the ACC and screaming at fans who breach its entrance before games. Don’t buy eleven dollar beers or California rolls. Don’t buy their first, second, or third jersey on sale for only $174.99. Even if they revert for a game to their 1934 sweater with an extra blue stripe, don’t buy it.

These small actions if repeated enough times will certainly do nothing to improve the team. The Leaf machine is too big, and it’s immune to shame. There is no hope for this team. The boycott will preserve your own sanity, give you opportunity to jump to another team’s bandwagon (not ottawa…never ottawa), or give you the time to read Greek tragedy.

What it is to be a Leaf fan: our condition

29 Wednesday Feb 2012

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Weeks ago, Joffrey Lupul said the Leafs should shift their focus and look ahead in the standings instead of anxiously looking over their back. It was good advice and a reassuring sign of leadership for fans who desperately hoped this team had turned a corner. Well, after that the Leafs lost 9 of the next 10 games, but still Lupul’s advice was good. So let’s take it one step further: let’s look past their 19 remaining games to see what life will be like in April when the Leafs are in the playoffs.

Thankfully this doesn’t take any imagination, as from experience we know that only one thing happens in every Leafs post-season: to look forward is to look back.

Leaf Playoffs 2012:

After days of freaking out, sporadic shakes, and ignoring life’s responsibilities in order to mentally prepare for playoffs, it’s finally game day against the senators. You watch all pre-game commentary even though experts have had nothing new to talk about for days. Normally a rational person, you’ve suddenly and unconsciously adopted several bizarre superstitions. You eat some delicious burgers, but overall life around you disappears; there is only the game and it’s still not on. Oh god, they’re dropping the puck. Oh god oh god oh god.

WE KILLED THEM! GOD THE sENS ARE CHEAP! WE MIGHT GO ALL THE WAY THIS YEAR!  Next two of three games are at home. Ahh, things look good and optimism abounds. The day after the game, you’re anxious and terrified. It’s puzzling that all around you, parents, teachers, and similar adults insist on continuing their lives with the unexplainable expectation that you will too, as if there wasn’t any hockey on at all.

It’s game day. You’re nervous and hungry for senator blood. After chicken wings and pizza, Bob McKenzie and others move their mouth but none of it makes sense. The game’s about to start. We’re gonna kill them we’re gonna kill them we’re gonna kill them.

STINKING RATS! OFFSIDE ON THE WINNER! FILTHY CHEATS! Typical. Yes, the Leafs could have used a goal, having lost 5-0. A split on the road. I can live with that. The next day you and your friends recount the incompetent refs, senator sins, and other miscellaneous abominations, each one a monumental scandal nobody else outside your group seemed to noticed. One sleep ‘til game three. You’re so overcome with anticipation and terror you could just rip out your hair and puke.

Naturally, after the highs and lows of five games and the commensurate chicken wings, burgers and pizza, the sens show their true colours and collapse, the ignominy marked by horrendous goaltending, some bizarre miscues that reflect terribly on the sens as both a hockey team and people in life, and especially the disappearance of certain key Swedish senators, or, more aptly put, there’s a hilarious and blazing spotlight on the Swedes’ conspicuous failure to merely appear after he guaranteed success and after flagrantly trouncing upon the unwritten player’s code, to say nothing of the written one. So, to Yonge Street, where the drunk and sober are indistinguishable but windows and cars remain intact, unlike in some cities—the expected behaviour during the well-earned spontaneous parade we’ve all been waiting for.

The days between playoff rounds are characterized by soaring pride, robust glee, and speculative anxiety, and there’s a total departure from the state of consciousness you had before playoffs started. It’s a new series, and Philly is going to be hard—they’re not pathetic wimps.

The daily routine during the series takes on the same shape as the last, only with more relentless gloom and foreboding; we’re getting dramatically outshot again, but we’re not getting shutouts. Optimism is difficult, but you work hard to totally divorce yourself from reality. Still, a debilitating feeling that you can’t shake off day or night keeps creeping in. Mercifully it’s over when the Flyers clinch the series in overtime after the Leafs miraculously tied the game in the final seconds—the greatest feat in 40 years.

Oh, elimination pain! The fog lifts and suddenly life has things to do. People in your life express sympathy, but they seem happy to have you back. You hold this against them—they’re not committed.  It’s impossible to process that your season is done, as your heart yearns to experience once more the restless anxiety and sheer terror of playoffs, but all that’s left is misery and a shame made more acute with the knowledge that redemption has to wait until playoffs next year. Oh, we’ll get ‘em next year!

Leafs and senators: sens players, fans, and writers are soft

08 Wednesday Feb 2012

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As the Leafs move up in the standings (last night’s aberration notwithstanding) and the Senators continue to show their true colours and lose, it seems each team’s fans are also making a parallel divergence: my last piece about the ACC needing more“fury and balls” was contrasted sharply and hilariously by Ottawa writer Wayne Scanlan in yesterday’s National Post, “who wrote about our rival needing “civility.

Scanlan takes up the cause of a “die-hard” senator fan, and season-ticket holder, who wrote to him saying she was disgusted by the behaviour of ottawa and Toronto fans, “but mostly Toronto fans.” She didn’t feel safe attending games alone, as the corridors were bedlam before and after games. “Thugs and hooligans are ruining senators games.” No. Her senators game was ruined by the senators who couldn’t handle the Leafs relentless speed, crisp and elegant passes, and bar-down snipes. If the halls were an insane asylum it was because the senators were crushed to an insane degree. 5-0! Would any die-hard fan in a rival’s building seriously keep their glee to themselves? Can this woman ask that of us?

And besides, what exactly happened? Thugs and hooligans are those who broke windows and looted stores during the G20. If there was violence at the hockey game it would surely be mentioned somewhere, as no writer excludes the main story from their story. It sounds like this fragile woman was upset Leaf fans were loud before and after trouncing her team. If the senators destroyed the Leafs in the ACC and I had to listen to their fans gloat, and no doubt they would, I’d be in despair too. But I’d blame it on the Leafs. Fans all want to cheer and brag and gloat, but it’s impossible when you lose. So while I understand perfectly well this woman’s misery, I hope she continues to suffer it for years unabated.

This “die-hard fan” should save her disgust for her team. As their losing continues she will need all the reserve she can get.

But why did a writer take up this woman’s cause? He writes, “can both sides of this Battle of Ontario clash please grow up enough to lift this debate to the high school level?” What “debate?” We hate your team, you hate ours. The players debate who is best by playing, and we respond with cheers and boos.

Scanlan is sneaky: he spends the first half of his article praising alfredsson without ever qualifying Leaf fans’ hatred. It’s disingenuous to posture like alfredsson’s booing doesn’t have origins in a catalogue of historical provocations. Yet he uses highly charged words without  ever describing what Leaf fans did wrong.

And, what’s childish is the Sens’ fans desperate grasp at symmetry, who, without a villain to offset all theirs, “mercilessly” boo Lupul, who has never done anything to deserve their ire aside from score goals.

Scanlan speculates that Leaf fans were in payback mode, avenging senator fans “behaving badly” during the all-star fantasy draft. Yes, the relentless booing, however predictable and banal, had to be innocuously redressed in the same terms–by booing back. All standard fare, and anything but surprising. But what really got Leaf fans, and what Scanlan scandalously leaves unacknowledged (omitted?) is the senator fan who suggested during the all-star fantasy draft that Lupul’s team should select Wade Belak, the ex-Leaf who was found dead in a hotel room last summer. This vile, morally indefensible outburst, more than any booing or juvenile “Leafs Suck” video created and screened by the organization, was a new low for senator fans, a group never exactly held in great esteem.

To be sure, that person was an idiot and wasn’t acting as the team’s official representative. No doubt most senator fans, Scanlan included, would distance themselves from this moron. But Scanlan’s plea for increased civility between the teams’ fans shouldn’t leave such an atrocious breach of basic decency unacknowledged. Either this is negligence or bias.

Anyway, to complain about Leaf fans cheering on their team and booing their hated rival is totally futile. Not only is this not news, but, as I argued just before reading this article, hockey arenas are the rabid hockey fan’s should natural habitat, and nobody should be told how to pray in their temple. Also revealing, while the Leafs proudly exalt “truculence, belligerence and a high threshold for pain”, die-hard senator fans submit tear filled letters about the volume of their arena’s corridors causing them high anxiety. Their writers apparently sympathize. 

The last thing I’d like is to relieve senator fans of their misery, but can they lend to us for our home games these detested Leaf fans to teach ours how to act?

That would be civil.

Leaf games are way, way too quiet. The ACC needs NOISE! FURY! BALLS!

03 Friday Feb 2012

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There’s something about the atmosphere of the Air Canada Centre during hockey games that discourages rowdiness, chirping, belligerence, and other harmless fun that used to be standard fare at Maple Leaf Gardens. Perhaps you don’t need to look much further than the names of each building to see what’s changed: one’s named after a detestable corporation and the other after the actual team it housed. “AC” is even built into the current name, suggesting its chilly atmosphere. Perhaps that’s a stretch. Maybe not.

If you colourfully voice your displeasure at the refs, or any number of the gutless pukes we routinely play against, you’re liable to arouse the ire of fans sitting next to you. But why? Aren’t we all on the same team here? Is this a hockey arena or a church? I don’t care if you’re with your child: between our collapses, refereeing travesties and the opponents’ various abominations, I freak out watching games on TV in a room by myself–I can’t be expected to suppress my rage for a perfect stranger after paying just as much as them for tickets. Kids should be introduced to real hockey fans at hockey games. Like religion: get ’em while they’re young. In fact, I am offended by silent emotionless fans. This is the detestable behaviour. If you want dignified silence take your child to Disney On Ice. Real fans should have the right of way. We have a license to be vulgar in our home arena. Up to a point. Here’s where the line is.

As a kid in the Gardens I heard a fantastic chirp aimed at one of our frictionless defenceman: “Hit ’em with your purse Murphy!” Great use of colourful language to express a point. The mild sexism was offset by the cleverness of the chirp, delivered inevitably from the nosebleeds by a drunken fan. It showed passion, if not hockey wisdom–Larry Murphy only went on to win a couple Stanley Cups with Detroit, that team who never fails to make something of our discarded players (see Ian White).

So it’s perfectly acceptable to be a boor so long as you’re drunk, somewhat clever, your voice carries conviction, or the right circumstance arises. Anyone who saw alfredsson hit Tucker from behind and score the winner of game 5 after going unimpeded to the net (that timeless demonstration of the spirit of hockey debased in full: alfredsson’s magnum opus) couldn’t have possibly been sufficiently vulgar. A crowd of Andrew Dice Clay’s might have got the right note.

Next item. If there’s a fan beside you from the wrong team and you come to severe disagreement after some beers, you should be the bigger man and avoid punching him in the face. This is pure class. It’ll wound him to the core going home having to admit that, while he suffered some chirps and other appropriate abuse, Leaf fans are fundamentally civilized.

In addition to being classy for its own sake, shouting matches give the fans in neighbouring seats a colourful story. It enhances their overall experience and they should be grateful: there’s nothing quite like the overflow of unbridled passion expressed in mellifluous swear words. That’s authentic spirit. Polite clapping grates on my ears.

But there’s one reason that trumps all others: rowdy crowds encourage the home team. They feed off it. It makes a tangible difference in the outcome of the game, and after missing playoffs several times by a single point perhaps it cost us a shot at the Stanley Cup. Ask foreign junior teams what it’s like to enter a Canadian barn full of maniacal fans. Ask an NHL player what it’s like to play in Philly. We have on obligation towards our team to give them any advantage possible, and if there’s even a 1% chance their play will be enhanced by the fury of the vociferously hostile mob, we can’t in good conscience stay quiet. And no team ever started playing better because fans suddenly cheered when prompted by a routine video of Wendell Clark. It has to be raw, uncontrived enthusiasm to inspire a team or unnerve the opponent.

I’m not the first to say the ACC is a cold hockey building, and from what I understand soccer fans in this city bang drums and have no problem freaking out at TTC games, or whatever that team is called. Voicing unrestrained passion shouldn’t be a hard sell for a team whose slogan is “spirit is everything.”

So when confronted by an ACC patron demanding silence, whether with child or clad in a suit or normal civilian clothing, remind them that they’re acting as an agent of the opponent, and kindly direct them to this article so they can feel ashamed of their tacit anti-Leafs behaviour.  Perhaps they will reconsider their prudish attitude and begin anew, hurling obscenities at loud volume like a proper Torontonian.

Let’s take back our arena.

A small but important change to NHL statistics

13 Friday Jan 2012

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I propose the need to change one aspect of NHL statistics in a small but important way that I don’t think anybody has previously considered. I write here in the unlikely hope that this humble message in a bottle reaches the shore of some influential NHL type.

Currently, if team A receives a power play, only to take a penalty five seconds later (as happens after face offs), no team really enjoys a man advantage, yet stats will indicate that both teams failed to score on a power play opportunity. Each team is 0-1 on the PP. This is wrong.

Also, if team A, in that same game let’s say, receives a power play in the game’s final seconds (as happens in those silly, harmless scrums during lopsided games where a losing team, hopeless for 59 minutes, suddenly finds their courage and “makes a statement”), they might have a ten second power play, yet the stats won’t bear this out. They may be 0-2 now, despite only having well under a minute of power play time. Also, the other team must not get 2 minutes of credit for ten seconds of penalty killing.

On the flip side, if team A fails to score on a five minute man advantage, the stats do not distinguish between this glorious opportunity and the severely abbreviated power plays mentioned above. One is five minutes, one may be five seconds, but they both count as 0-1. This is obviously not the same failure. This is very misleading.

This may seem insignificant, but consider how central statistics are to general managers and coaches in baseball and football. In hockey, it’s said you win or lose with special teams, so we ought to know precisely how they’re faring. Despite how much emphasis is put on a team’s power play, league-wide percentages seem kind of negligible: only 4.5% separates the first from the tenth best power play, and only 3.5% separates the eleventh best from the twentieth. You would expect a wider disparity, as anyone who watches hockey knows that whoever beats their opponent on special teams has a far from negligible advantage. This truth very well might be borne out in the statistics if only they were more accurate.

The solution requires a discussion. All fully served two minute power plays, or those resulting in a goal, should be recorded as before, but interrupted power plays should be tallied up at the end of the game and rounded to the nearest two minutes. Example: if a team has a 45 and a 30 second power play in the same game, and fails to score on each, it should count as going 0-1. As of now, it would register 0-2, even though this time doesn’t even add up to the length of one full power play, let alone two.

On the other hand, a 30 second power play alone would register as 0-0 on the PP; while it seems wrong to round it down out of existence, this is more accurate than calling it a full two minute power play. The injustice of not putting a brief power play on the record is offset by no longer giving full credit to the other team for killing an abbreviated penalty.

Five minute penalties should perhaps count as more than one power play, or at least must categorized differently because more than one goal can be scored during it. Whatever the solution here, and in all these examples, these PP stats should be changed.

The ramifications for the way NHL teams are assessed could be considerable, and even if the increased accuracy is only slightly beneficial it is still worth adjusting. Statistics should always aspire to be more accurate whenever possible, and there are currently some glaring problems. 

I hope that someone reading this finds it a worthy idea and is in a position to take it up. In this most unlikely event, my sincerest thanks!