Why Do You Hate the Leafs So Much?

You’re askin me
        You’re askin me why?
     You’re askin me why
         Get my liver pills

I know someone’s going to wonder or ask so I’ll answer as briefly as I can.  First off, no, I don’t hate the Leafs.  Ok.  Yes, I hate the Leafs.  But it’s not like you think.

I grew up in Quebec and I always had a fondness for cities, especially big ones like Vancouver or Chicago or Boston and, of course, Montreal.  Toronto was always on that list.  And, as for teams, I never really learned to hate a team til one caused me pain.  Well, that was a long time coming but it finally happened in 1980.  And I hated the Minnesota North Stars for a number of years – the number of years it took for the Quebec Nordiques to become a legitimate threat (and not the fortunate outfit that knocked out a far superior Montreal team in 1982) and begin eliminating the Habs regularly.  By the late-eighties, I had pardoned Minnesota and convicted the Nords.

In the meantime, hatred became a commonly quaffed elixir for me to deal with other end-of-season elimination spectacles that saw the Canadiens go from common champion to chump commoner.  I learned to resent the other teams that eliminated us, the teams that won our Cup and still more teams because of local chatter, boasting and vain-glorious but inappropriate statements.

Forgive me.  Most of this happened when I was twelve.  And I was twelve for a long time.

So I learned to rue the Islanders, the Nordiques, the Flyers, the Nordiques, the Flames, the Nordiques and the Oilers.  Say, did I mention the WHA-escaped con artist Quebec Nordiques?

I moved to northern Alberta and suffered Oiler glee and also spent nine years off and on in Calgary and couldn’t get over Willie Plett and Tim Hunter.  I would even have added Boston to the list (four games to one in 1990) but they had been so gracious to us so often in the past that I didn’t.

So, Toronto.  They had never given me a reason to feel anything but neutrality, occasional pity and a warm, historic deference and respect for being an original six team and for being the number two team on the list of all-time Stanley Cup-winning teams.

Then I moved to Toronto.

Toronto.  Toronto.  Toronto!  Great city.  The fans?  Eeegh.  Well, to be fair, they’ve had it very rough.  And to be even more fair (gasp!), a bunch of them, maybe even over fifty percent are actually quite reasonable when discussing their team.

My basic theory when discussing hockey with Leaf fans is this; one beer in and they “don’t really watch hockey.”  By the third beer (if you can keep the fact that you’re a Hab under wraps) it’s “that @#$% Harold Ballard” and if they’re a bit older it’s “that @#$% Conn Smythe”.  The passion is there.

The reality is, the Toronto fans most of us don’t like aren’t the majority.  But man, they’re loud.  And some of em have television crews serving them.  National crews.  But put that aside.  For a moment consider (and I’m being unexpectedly gracious here and I don’t know why – maybe it’s cuz I just turned forty and have matured) how deeply embarrassing it must be to have to have the kind of passion Leaf fans share and to have endured 42 years, Cupless.  No.  Really try.  Consider that pain.  Believe me, after thirteen years in Ontario and about thirteen thousand personally developed anti-Leaf fan rants, I’ve been reduced from irritation to outrage to numbness, and now, to my current state regarding Leaf Nation; basic compassion.

It may not seem deserved.  But inaccurate, unresearched barbs and emotional exaggerations of greatness aside, Leaf fans are a loyal lot and they (probably) deserve better.  For young fans today it’s, “that @#$% Richard Peddie”.  And this is the key.  The young fans.  I think enough is enough.  And the Leaf is turning (sorry).  More recent books (Leaf Abomination) and articles (Why the Leafs Stink) are normalizing a now-growing critical public Leaf discourse.

This is a new thing.  And it is a signal that the old thing (42 Cupless years) is finally going to come to an end.  Oh, it will take time.  Maybe years.  But once public perception starts to swing in another direction, action will follow.  Or so the optimist might have you believe.

Is this good news for the rest of the NHL?  Should Hab fans who have drunk far more elixirs of hate be concerned?   Maybe.  Maybe not.

What really matters is that a segment of fans (the reasonable ones, remember?) are going to get a reprieve.  And even if it might hurt to see the Cup in Blue hands it may hurt less to know that it got done the right way.   And not by the “bad guys”.

Let’s hope they’ll be nice about it.  Or I’ll really have something to hate.

Related posts:

1. The Black Hawk and the Leaf
2. The Leafs, the Canadiens and the Big Blue Helmets
3. The Leaf and the Statue
4. Quinn Hiring a Mistake
5. Toronto Media Overlooks Code, Pardons Kubina
6. Toronto Musings, In-Game Scribbles