The Toronto Maple Leafs season has now officially been suspended for over 50 days in response to the global pandemic.
The experience of having a shared passion stripped from a fan base has been humbling for fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs and of sports teams that have had their seasons put on hold or cancelled entirely.
In the subsequent period of reflection, it has become abundantly clear that hockey is not just a game; it is a community.
Embedded in the void that sport has left for fans is an understanding that NHL hockey will return, that there will be a time when sport re-surges as part of the connective tissue of our relationships with friends, co-workers and family, when sport will again serve as an illuminating microcosm of our lives.
Hockey Is a Community
Our ties to sport remind us of the rewards of being successful and the lows of defeat.
Since the turn of the century, following the Toronto Maple Leafs has been a lesson in accepting failure. As any fan will eventually realize, the odds of being crowned the NHL’s greatest team among a field of thirty-one teams are slim, and for the Leafs, Slim had usually left town by April.
In the twelve seasons following the 2004-05 lockout, the Leafs were only able to muster one playoff appearance. As cellar dwellers in the East, most seasons remained a mere formality in the quest to “tank” for high draft picks.
Unfortunately, a history of poor management and a “Draft shmaft” mentality resulted in numerous traded picks that were used to select Tyler Seguin, Douggie Hamilton, Roman Josi, Brandon Saad, Rickard Rakell and John Gibson between 2008 and 2011. Those events fed into the existing narrative of organization-wide incompetence.
Yet somehow, as each new season began, Leafs fans approached the year with a passionate fervor that could only be explained by a hope for something more. That demonstration of hope has finally been rewarded.
The growth of Auston Matthews, Morgan Reilly, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner has reflected the team’s improvement to the point of Stanley Cup contention and three straight years of playoff appearances that should precede many more.
For many fans, tracking the Toronto Maple Leafs is an exercise in positive belief for the future. Every year brings new life and opportunities to improve. Just this season, Leafs OHL prospect Nick Robertson’s 55 goals in 46 games (1.20 G/GP) served as the highest scoring rate Canadian Junior Hockey has seen in 28 years.
With that, the prospect of a young player’s future stardom has swung into centre-view for fans in the same fashion as the talented young players that came before him; a perpetual cycle of aspiration that has existed since the founding of the franchise in 1917.
Our collective approach to sport is a reflection of the human spirit that never ceases striving.
In light of the world we face today, hope is a gift that we preserve in ourselves through our understanding that one day this too will pass, hockey will return, and that the future will be better than today.