The Toronto Maple Leafs are coming off their best ever regular season and are set to play the Montreal Canadiens for four or five games, beginning tonight.
Much has been made about how the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens have not met in the Playoffs since the 1979 season. That’s crazy, but what is absolutely nuts is that they’ve been in the same division since the Leafs left the Western Conference prior to the 1998-1999 season.
How two teams can occupy the same division for 23 seasons and never meet in the post-season is almost inexplicable. Add in the fact that they are both original six teams that should be competitive ever single year, and it just about defies belief.
Though, honestly, what negative things about the Leafs are actually believable? There is a reason people think this team is cursed.
Nice Guys Finish First
Perhaps all that was missing all these years was a Disney-esque story to get people behind the Leafs. Maybe the curse will be broken by dressing an entire roster that features some of the nicest people in sports.
Not that the Leafs have cast villains in prominent roles before (though Tie Domi and Shayne Corson aren’t exactly lovable) but this year they’ve got (at least) three players who are just absolute gems of human beings, and maybe that counts for something.
Jack Campbell is possibly the nicest guy on a team that also includes Joe Thornton and Jason Spezza. If there are three better people in the NHL, I don’t know of them. These guys give even the most jaded Leafs fan something to smile about (and the most jaded Leafs fan is a very jaded person indeed).
Joe Thornton is a living legend whose only comparable earthly object is a 300 year old Sequoia tree. Jason Spezza overcame the laugh of a donkey to be one of the most likable people on the planet, and if you don’t cheer for Jack Campbell, then I assume you also hate Christmas, puppies and Falco.
Campbell was a first round bust who looked like a career backup, until this season when he stole the starters role from Freddie Andersen and didn’t look back. Posting the best numbers in the NHL (he didn’t play enough to win the Vezina) and setting multiple NHL records along the way, Campbell’s post game interviews have become legendary for their humility and change-of-pace-from the normally axe-body spray, goateed, self-centered athlete we are used to seeing.
Campbell reminds us why we like this sport in the first place, and so if you weren’t already cheering for the symbol painted in the centre of the ice, he gives you something to care about. The Toronto Maple Leafs are going to win their first ever Stanley Cup of the post-expansion era, and the nicest guy in franchise history is going to lead them there, and maybe even win the Conn Smythe.