I’m a hockey fan.

I’m a huge hockey fan.

But am I a fan of the game, the sport, the culture, the history, or all of the above?

I’m not sure anymore.

I was born in 1980 and started going to Leafs games some time around 1985 or 1986.  Back then, the Toronto Maple Leafs were one of the worst teams in the league each and every season.  But back then, 16 teams made the playoffs and the league only had 21 teams, so watching “playoff hockey” was a lot less special than it is today.

Like many Torontonians, I fell in love with the blue and white.  Sure, I went through flirtations with other teams.  I loved drawing the Montreal Canadiens’ logo in my binder when I was in grade school, and I was obsessed with the San Jose Sharks’ logo when they made their debut in 1991, but I was from Toronto and thus I cheered for the Leafs, like just about everybody else.

The early-1990’s was a wonderful time for Toronto Sports.  My family routinely attended 15-20 Toronto Blue Jays games per year from 1989 to 1994, as my father had seasons’ tickets to give to clients for promotion (would that be tax-deductible in 2021?), and we attended Leafs games much more infrequently.  Two World Series titles came around the same time as back-to-back Conference Finals appearances for the Toronto Maple Leafs.  Doug Gilmour, Wendel Clark, Dave Ellett, and Felix Potvin!  Those were the glory days…

Another fantastic run happened from 1999 through 2002 when the Leafs went to two more Conference Finals, this time led by the likes of Mats Sundin, Gary Roberts, Darcy Tucker, and Curtis Joseph.

I was an absolute die-hard Maple Leafs fan.

But then something happened: I grew up.

A family member worked for the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, who owned the Toronto Maple Leafs, and I soon learned about the business of sports.  I learned that the goal of a franchise like the Toronto Maple Leafs is not to win the Stanley Cup, but rather the goal of the owners is to maximize franchise value and revenue.

In the years that followed, I watched the business of sports and incompetent management and ownership destroy any chance the Leafs had at building a team capable of contending for a Stanley Cup, but “playing for now,” as a single round of playoff revenue was the ultimate goal of the team, and anything else was just gravy.

I have followed the game of hockey since I was five-years-old.  My family were avid sports card collectors in the 1980’s during the “boom” in collecting, and we attended card shows every Sunday for five years, meeting old-time greats like Maurice Richard, Bobby Hull, Stan Mikita, Ted Lindsay, Alex Delvecchio, Marcel Dionne, and countless others.  We had a full bedroom in our house called “the card room,” filled with memorabilia.  When I was 12-years-old, I talked my way into the Hockey Hall of Fame archives so I could look at old black-and-white players of 1920’s players and read box scores from the games, before the Internet ever existed.  I bought an updated copy of the NHL Official Guide & Record Book every year for a decade, and kept all of them on the shelf in my bedroom.

But when I was in my mid-twenties, that all faded.  The business of sports ruined much of it for me, and I watched the Maple Leafs make terrible personnel decisions to try and keep the team from missing the playoffs, when all the while, ensuring they would sink into the abyss later on.

The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan sold MLSE, including the Toronto Maple Leafs, for $1.32 Billion in 2012.  But by then, my passion for the game had already faded.

I was still a hockey fan.  Just not a rabid fan of the game of hockey as it was in 2012, or the Toronto Maple Leafs in the same way as when I was a child, a teenager, and then a young adult.

In 1985, there were 21 teams in the National Hockey League and 7 were Canadian: Toronto, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg, and Quebec.  Only one-third of the league was comprised of Canadian teams, even though it was a Canadian game, played primarily by Canadian players.

In 1992, the league, now at 22 teams, added two more, including the Ottawa Senators.  The league now had 8 Canadian teams out of 24.

By the year 2000, the league had 30 teams, but the Winnipeg Jets had moved to Phoenix to become the Coyotes, and the Quebec Nordiques moved to Colorado to become the Avalanche.  Only six teams out of 30, or twenty percent, were Canadian.

For years, Research in Motion CEO and true hockey fan, Jim Balsillie, attempted to buy an existing hockey team and move them to Canada.  Even though the Phoenix Coyotes were bankrupt, and the owner literally walked away from the team, the National Hockey League, comprised of American businessmen, thwarted Balsillie’s attempts, and other powerful club owners like Jeremy Jacobs and Ed Snider helped blacklist Jim Balsillie from ever owning a hockey team.  Meanwhile, businessmen like Craig Leipold were given sweetheart deals to hang on to the Nashville Predators despite severe financial losses, and not sell to Jim Balsillie, only to be rewarded by being able to purchase the Minnesota Wild as an expansion team.

The Atlanta Thrashers were sold and moved to Winnipeg in 2011 in what was probably the best-kept secret in sports history, so our ratio was restored to 7 teams out of 30.

But when Quebec and Las Vegas applied for expansion teams in the late 2010’s, were they both given franchises?

Nope.

Only Las Vegas, in what was a purely financial decision.

And when Seattle and Quebec were fighting for that 32nd franchise, did we get to see the return of the glorious Nordiques, who would have perhaps the greatest natural hockey rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens, amid a maniacal and desperate fan base in Canada?

Nope.

Seattle was awarded a franchise.  Seattle.  Because hockey is so big in………..Seattle.

What is my point?

Why the lesson in hockey history?

On Wednesday, half of Toronto went nuts when the Montreal Canadiens’ colours were adorning the side of the CN Tower in downtown Toronto.

For those that don’t know, the Montreal Canadiens, who have won the most Stanley Cups in the history of the National Hockey League and have the most Hall of Famers, eliminated the Maple Leafs two weeks ago in the first round of the NHL playoffs.

Talk radio, television news, and social media all lit up with the story about how a landmark in Toronto was bearing the colours of a team in Montreal.

And all the while, all I could think is: “Why is this a problem?”

I don’t particularly like the Montreal Canadiens.

But I would love to see the Montreal Canadiens win the Stanley Cup.

Here’s my point in all of this: why do Toronto Maple Leaf fans think that you have to hate all other Canadian teams?

This is supposed to be some test of loyalty, or that only a true fan despises its team’s rivals.

I’m Canadian before I’m Torontonian.

I’m a hockey fan before I’m a Maple Leafs fan.

And if the Toronto Maple Leafs can’t win the Stanley Cup, then my next choice would be any Canadian team.

When the Ottawa Senators were in the Stanley Cup Finals in 2007, some friends of mine were adamantly against seeing them win.  I asked them why.

“Dude, you’re a Leafs fan!  You gotta hate Ottawa, bruh!”

The Leafs had some unbelievable rivalries with Ottawa in the early-2000’s.  Who could forget Darcy Tucker fighting a Senators player – while that player stood on his own bench!

But Ottawa was playing Anaheim.

Did we really want to see a team based in a warm-weather American climate, in a city where nobody cares about hockey, borne from a Hollywood movie, hoist the Stanley Cup rather than a team based in our nation’s capital?  Old man yells at cloud, I know, I know.

I wasn’t able to sway my buddies.  They were die-hard Leafs fans and that meant being anti any other Canadian team.

I’ve never understood this.  I still don’t.

I would love to see the Calgary Flames win the Stanley Cup.

Or the Vancouver Cancucks, who I don’t really like, but I would have loved to see the city of Vancouver parade the Cup around the downtown core.

I have this argument with hockey fans all the time.  I had this argument with guys in my office today.

So you’re a Leafs fan, right?  A die-hard one?  So would you rather the people of Dallas Fort-Worth celebrate a Stanley Cup by the Stars, letting out a “huh, how ’bout that,” reaction on the way to their 14-year-old’s high school football game, or would you rather see the entire city of Edmonton erupt and celebrate every day for a month?

If you’re from Toronto, you consider yourself a Leafs fan, and you think you’re supposed to hate the Montreal Canadiens, what are you honestly doing?

The CN Tower lit up with the Montreal Canadiens colours on Wednesday.

Good.

They deserve it.

They beat the Leafs!

If you’re a Leafs fan, be an honest one.  Be a rational one.  Be a logical one.  Being a true fan of a team doesn’t mean turning your brain off.

The Leafs blew a 3-1 series lead to an inferior team.  Take issue with the Leafs, not the Canadiens, not the CN Tower, and not John Tory.

The Leafs haven’t won a Stanley Cup in fifty-four years.  Take issue with that, not the Canadian-based franchise that is in the Final-Four of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

The CN Tower is a federally-owned building.  It doesn’t belong to Toronto.

Not only that, do you know where CN’s headquarters are?  Montreal.

Maybe I’m just too logical, too honest, and too smart to be a Leafs fan.  Modest, humble, yeah, yeah.  But why do “true” Leaf fans have to lay down and let the franchise run over them with an eighteen-wheeler?

When the Leafs traded Tuuka Rask for Andrew Raycroft in 2006, and then one goddam year later, traded 1st and 2nd round picks for Vesa Toskala, I went nuts.  My buddy told me, “If you don’t like this trade, then get out of the city!”  But I knew that the Leafs were mismanaged, disorganized, doubling-down on mistakes like an out-of-control gambler, and playing for today, and not to try and win a Stanley Cup.

Leafs finds have been blindly-loyal to this franchise for too long.

This is why, for a full decade, the ownership group knew they could put a poor product on the ice, raise ticket prices, and still hit all-time records for revenue while increasing franchise value.

The “fans” that think they have a right to be aghast at the red, white, and blue of the Montreal Canadiens lighting up on the CN Tower are the reason I put myself in a different category of Leafs fans.  I love hockey, I love the Leafs, but I’m not a moron.  I’m not a follower.  I’m not “Nick from Woodbridge” who calls in to the Fan 590 every day to talk about how the Leafs were robbed.

If you’re Canadian and you love this game of hockey then why aren’t you cheering for the Montreal Canadiens?

Would you rather see the Stanley Cup end up in Nashville, Tennessee?  Columbus, Ohio?  Seriously?

Just because you like the Leafs doesn’t mean you have to hate all other Canadian teams.  Cheering for a Canadian team doesn’t mean you’re “cheating” on your own team.  You’re not more of a man (or woman) because you’re showing some bizarre sense of loyalty.

When the Toronto Raptors were in the NBA Finals, the entire country was behind this team.  Yes, there’s only one Canadian basketball franchise, but it shouldn’t matter.  Just because you have a “home team” doesn’t mean you can’t cheer for your neighbour’s home team in the next province, or on the other side of our country.

Toronto sports fans often get a bad rap, and at times like this, it’s for good reason.

Be a hockey fan.  Be a Canadian hockey fan.  Be proud to share something special with a major Canadian city and their hockey team.

Give your head a shake, Toronto.

And when you’re done, get on the Montreal bandwagon.  What’s the worst that can happen – you might actually have some fun? 🙂