Recently I
read an article. The article was titled “Eternal Sunshine of the Epic
Collapse”. Many things can come to mind when seeing a headline like this. You
automatically think it has something to do with the sports world, and if you’re
a hockey fan, you know for damn sure that you are about to read about the
Toronto Maple Leafs.
Us Leaf
fans have something of a curse upon us. We love our team more than any other
fan base in the world. There’s nothing that excites us more than to see the
leafs step onto center ice. There’s nothing that invigorates us more than to
see our beloved Leafs win a game (even in pre-season). What is sad about this
fact is that we haven’t seen our beloved leafs win when it matters… ever. Most
who are reading this haven’t even been alive since the last time the leafs won
the cup (because lets be honest, those who were alive probably don’t know how
to work a computer).
As I was
reading the article, I was infuriated. The author of the piece had bashed the
leafs on and on throughout the entire article. It talked about how each and
every leaf fan has blind hope going into each and every season. It talked about
how every year is another failure that new management won’t be able to fix the
following year.
Here’s what
I would like to say to the author of this piece… You’re right. Now if you know
me, you know I hate admitting when someone is right about one of my teams.
Despite the trash talking that occurred in that article, every word of it was
true. We do have blind hope and we always think that new management is going to
change things but it won’t. What needs to change is the dynamic we are forced
into when we talk about the leafs. Someone brings up the leafs in a casual
conversation and it is instantly changes to a negative aspect.
How can we
expect our leafs to do well if we cant even have faith in them through the
entire season? We build our hope in the pre-season, they lose a few games in
the first 3 weeks and just like that the negativity starts.
Maybe the
issue is that we as fans don’t carry out that “sunshine” all season. We only carry it out when we think its the
leafs allotted “sunshine” period. Then we go back to being cynical until we see
a glimmer of hope that says “hey maybe they will make the playoffs” and we then
become negative again when they don’t and the cycle repeats itself.
Here is
what I propose: Let’s go into this season with our blind hope. Let’s show
everyone the kind of fan base that we are. Let’s let the league know that this
year we aren’t gonna bring our team down. That maybe this year will be our
time, and if not… maybe the year after that.
Let’s just
keep showing our sunshine leaf fans.
GO LEAFS GO
