Toronto Maple Leafs: My Game Seven Story

For five long years, fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs have been defined by two simple words.

Game seven.

May 13th, 2013 serves as a seminal moment for this fanbase. An instance when, upon reflection, you know exactly where you were, who you were with, and what went through your mind as the horror occurred.

The image of James Reimer sprawled out on the ice, puck firmly tucked in the net behind him, the black and gold crowd rising to their feet in elation, is seared so deeply into the collective memory of those who witnessed it, it might just stay that way forever.

Until now.

When the Leafs meet the Bruins tonight for game one of their first-round playoff series, only the team names and building they’ll play in will be the same. Five players from that 2013 Leafs group remain with the team today, with three of them all but certain to depart at playoff’s end.

The slate is clean.

As a new era of the Toronto Maple Leafs dawns on the horizon, an opportunity to rewrite the collective narrative of an entire generation’s worth of game seven stories becomes clear. Every fan has one.

This is mine.

Teenagers are Dumb

I was 17 years old. It’s funny how impressionable a 17-year-old can be.

Despite the fact that I just had spent the previous 48 games (thank you lockout) watching the Leafs get utterly annihilated on the shot clock while still miraculously squeaking out victories (thank you Reimer), I genuinely believed they could contend for a Cup.

I blissfully ignored every red flag. The lopsided possession totals. Fraser MacLaren and Colton Orr logging regular minutes. Most egregiously, I failed to even bat an eye as the Leafs sent a fourth-round pick to Colorado in exchange for Ryan O’Byrne.

Game seven, by the way, would serve as O’Byrne’s last in the NHL. Case in point, I was dumb.

And yet, there I was, riding the subway downtown, en route to join the massive crowd forming in Maple Leaf Square. Although, this was no ordinary subway ride for me. In fact, it was the first I was medically allowed to take in what felt like ages.

Nearly four months prior to that fateful day, I was diagnosed with mononucleosis.

Mono

Now, this doesn’t seem too serious. People get mono all the time. They just rest up, drink a ton of fluids, and they’re back on their feet in two weeks, tops. No biggie, right?

Well, the thing about this particular case of mono was that it paired up with strep throat to launch a tag-team assault on my immune system. And while I tried to tough it out at school for roughly a week after the fact, that turned out to be a monumentally bad idea.

An aspect of mono that avoids discussion is the effect it has on the liver.

Once diagnosed, if you refuse to treat mono properly, it spreads, seriously damaging your both kidneys and liver. Those just so happen to be the organs of your body tasked with filtering out toxins. And guess what? Mono brings with it a plethora of toxins.

Because I was 17, and an idiot, I did exactly what you shouldn’t do. And I paid the price.

Hibernation

After eventually passing out at school, my parents and doctor forced me into hibernation. For four months I could barely muster the strength to get out of bed.

That’s four months of missed school work. Four months of lost social interactions, inside jokes with my friends, and basic human connection. I withdrew from everything. Partially because I lacked the energy to maintain a simple conversation.

But, mostly because I was, in the broadest of terms, sad.

So complete was my self-removal from all lying beyond my bedroom door that, without any semblance of hyperbole, a rumour permeated my school claiming I had died. Keep in mind, this wasn’t the dark ages. Social media existed. If I had actually died, there likely would’ve been a post about it.

Then, on May 12th, 2013, the darkest period of my life was briefly interrupted by a ray of light. After coercing my doctor into granting me temporary parole from mono jail, I was free.

Donning my fraying Phil Kessel jersey, I hopped on the subway.

10:43 of the Third Period

The first 50 minutes and 43 seconds of Game Seven were the happiest of my life.

In the immortal words of Bob Cole; everything was happening. And when Nazem Kadri, a rookie at the time, buried a Phil Kessel rebound on a two-on-one, extending Toronto’s lead to 4-1 with less than 10 minutes remaining, I genuinely didn’t think life could get any better.

At that moment, every rumour of my death, every shooting pain in my side, every thundering pang of loneliness, it was all worth it. All of it. The Leafs were headed to the second round of the playoffs for the first time since I was eight years old.

Nothing could stand in the way of my unabashed happiness. Remember what I said about 17-year-olds being idiots?

The crowd in Maple Leaf square was too busy losing their minds to notice Nathan Horton scoring to make it 4-2. Making matters worse, chants of “Nah, Nah, Nah, Nah/ Hey Hey/ Goodbye” floated throughout the crowd.

To me, that was the first sign that the Leafs might be in trouble.

The last time this franchise had so much as tasted post-season action, Jeremy Roenick was still an insufferable forward for the Philadelphia Flyers, prior to his turn as an insufferable commentator for NBCSN. Such cockiness was quite the gamble for a fanbase bread on failure.

Frankly, we should have known better.

Just over nine minutes later, with Boston’s goalie on the bench, Milan Lucic pounded one past Reimer, pulling the Bruins within one. Suddenly, those chants seemed a heck of a lot quieter.

The Nail in the Coffin

What most fans forget about the collapse is just how fast it happened.

Yes, the 4-2 goal came at 10:43. But the 4-3 marker was scored with 1:22 left in the third, followed by the tying goal a mere 30 seconds later. Overtime lasted fewer than six minutes. In all, a span of 10 minutes was how long it took for an entire city’s elation to morph into scarring despair.

As the puck left Patrice Bergeron‘s stick, crossing the line and evening the score at four apiece, I knew. I knew it was over. The grave had been dug. Now, 5,000 tortured fans were forced to watch in agony as the last specks of dirt were padded on top.

You all know what came next.

Zdeno Chara planted himself in front of the net, proving himself as too immovable of an object for Dion Phaneuf to handle. As the puck pinballed inside the crease, Bergeron miraculously got his stick on it, sending the TD Gardens crowd into an unparalleled frenzy.

Back in Maple Leaf Square, not a peep was heard.

I think most watching from afar anticipated a sequel to Vancouver dropping the 2011 Cup Final, where fans proceeded to turn their city into something straight out of The Purge. Not the original one. One of the bonkers sequels where everyone wears creepy masks and kills each other in ridiculously inefficient ways.

Silence

That’s not what happened.

Watching the NHL’s most hated team celebrate the culmination of the worst night of my sports-watching life didn’t muster any anger. I just felt sad. Only, this was a different kind of sadness. A sadness motivating you to do something about the horror you had witnessed.

The following image is one I’ll remember until the day I die. A death that will likely stem from repeated cases of cardiac arrest in the upcoming two weeks.

Over 5,000 people, each one dressed head to toe in blue and white, walked in dejected unison towards Union Station. No one spoke. The only sound audible was the shuffling of footsteps and an occasional sniffle from someone holding back tears.

Moving Forward

I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason.

If I had never been diagnosed with mono, I would never have been forced into taking a fifth year of high school. And if that fifth year never occurred, there’s no way I would’ve been forced into actually growing up, culminating in my acceptance to the University of Toronto.

Had the Leafs hung on and bounced the Bruins in 2013, you better believe Dave Nonis would still be running this team.

There would be no Auston Matthews, no William Nylander and certainly no Mitch Marner. Remember, Nonis notoriously detested any player under six feet. Kadri would be long gone, along with Jake Gardiner, who had been buried in the AHL for most of that season.

In fact, these alternate dimension Leafs would probably look a lot like the current Montreal Canadiens. Desperately clinging to aspirations of contention, while simultaneously dealing skilled players and high draft picks for “grit” and “pugnacity”.

Without Game Seven, this franchise would never be forced into moving forward. The failure of that May night five long years ago was a necessary step, igniting a top-to-bottom organizational turnaround of unprecedented scale.

There’s one thing I know for sure. Without Game Seven, I wouldn’t have decided to start writing about the team I love. Such a decision is one I’m grateful each and every day that I made.

Next: Leafs Forward Grades

I’m ready for my Game Seven story to be rewritten. Are you?