The Toronto Maple Leafs Leaf Themselves Into A Leafy Oblivion

Perhaps the Toronto Maple Leafs should have chosen a more ferocious avatar than the maple leaf.

What else could it be? The Toronto Maple Leafs can change the cast, but each season is filled with the same crazy hijinks of seemingly unrealistic occurrences that are just not explainable, let alone understandable.  Such things as failing to win the Stanley Cup, make the Finals, win a scoring title or major individual award since the league expanded beyond six teams.

Things like failing to make the Finals because of a fake high stick, or trading for a superstar only to find out you traded two superstars for him, being the team that almost got, but did  not get Wayne Gretzky, Joe Sakic, Eric Lindros, Scott Niedermeyer, Robert Luongo and Connor McDavid.

And who could forget losing to a Zamboni driver, or seeing Michael Hutchinson win two games in the playoffs, or failing to make those same playoffs after you lose to some of the best goaltending the NHL has ever seen.   No, you can’t forget any of this stuff, but tonight’s loss was special.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Will Never Let You Down

It was special because it takes something truly insane to completely deflate the hopes of your fanbase while still being in first place.

Tonight’s debacle would be upsetting if it wasn’t just so deliciously Leafy.  I can’t think of a single game that better personifies the Toronto Maple Leafs franchise or what it’s like to be a Toronto Maple Leafs fan.

But here’s the best part: when your team is the Leafs, you enjoy everything you get, taking nothing for granted.  The team scored five goals and it was a fun game to watch. Sure, the game was both demoralizing and humiliating but we’re lucky just to have hockey now, so who cares? I was thoroughly entertained, and I loved every minute of it.

This is the Toronto Maple Leafs way, and you embrace it.  Or you can’t take it and you defect to a lesser team with lesser fans.  This is just another thing that is going to make it that much more sweet when we finally taste the tantalizing nectar of victory’s capricious embrace.

We shall let the losses and the taunts of other teams fans bath us in glory as we  once again stare down a loss so preposterously improbable that it’s meaningless, and despite knowing that, overreact with a vehemence more properly reserved for things of actual import.

And as the boos, and the waffles, and the jerseys, and the anonymous comments, rain down from the rafters we shall look upon high and see one Jonathan Tavares, strode upon a glorious white steed, clad in his childhood pajamas, charging down the imagined foothills of our collective minds onto the ice to beseech the vainglorious Senators and win back pride for all.

Or you know, it’s just one game and every single team who has ever had a 5-1 lead stopped playing   and called it a day early.  No worries.