ON THE MARK.

TORONTO's MOST POPULAR PASTTIME.

Leaf bashing has been going on for years.  I should know.  I once organized a protest in front of Maple Leaf Gardens when the Leafs were 21st in a 21 team league. This was back in the early 1980s.  The Leafs were brutal.    I had a radio talk show at the time on 590 CKEY, and fans would call in and complain about the Leafs (sound familiar?), so I suggested if they really wanted to send a message, they should burn their tickets.  That way management might do something to improve the team.   Hah!  Not only did the protest have no affect at all, it got me kicked out of the Gardens.   As well, Leaf players were instructed NOT to talk to any CKEY microphone.  Of course, that made me even more determined to give the Leafs a hard time. It was pretty easy, believe me.  It was also kind of sad that a once-great franchise with the most loyal fans on the planet would treat those supporters with such utter disrespect.
     Fast forward to 2013.  A team that hasn't even made the post-season in 9 years gets a bit of a break with a shortened season.  Still, nobody in their right mind believes Toronto is good enough to even make the playoffs, much less scare the hell out of the Boston Bruins.  And so, against all odds, they not only make a series out of it, they actually storm back from a 3-1 series deficit to tie things up.   Whoever thought they'd get this far?  And so, instead of being happy with just BEING THERE, Leafs fans start to actually believe that their team is the second coming.  Up three goals in the elimination game and then.....poof!    But let's not give any credit to the Boston Bruins.  No.  Let's instead bash the hell out of the Leafs the same way we did when they were the first team to hit the golf course every April.  I mean, really, do we need to know the anatomy of a choke-job?    Is it that important to go over the last few minutes of the Boston game the way they pored over the Zapruder film back in '63?   
     Of course, there will always be those who complain about every little thing.  If Carlyle had called time out with the score 4-2 and told Phaneuf not to give up the puck and told Reimer not to go down so soon, would that have made a difference?   Who knows.  But I guarantee you, if it keeps getting brought up, you'll never be able to get past it.  If people continue to call it a "colossal collapse" and a "choke job for the ages", they're not seeing the big picture.   You are supposed to learn from your mistakes and learn from your toughest defeats.   When the young Edmonton Oilers lost the 1983 Stanley Cup finals in four straight to the Islanders, Wayne Gretzky recalled passing the Islander dressing room after the game and hearing the unbridled joy as the Islanders celebrated their fourth straight Cup.  Gretzky said right then and there, that it would be the Oilers making all that noise the following year.   And he was right.  The Oilers got their revenge a year later, beating the Isles for the Cup in five games.  They needed the experience of a bitter defeat to get there.
     Now, I'm not suggesting for a minute that the Toronto Maple Leafs are the 1980s Oilers.   But I will throw this out there.  That bitter defeat the other night will make them stronger, more resilient and more prepared for their upcoming 82 game odyssey.   The experience of "blowing it" will motivate them to improve next year.   And the more we remind them of their failure to play ten minutes of hockey, the more we dismiss the good work they had done over the regular season.   5th in the East.  A seven game barnburner with the Bruins.   Certainly more than ANYONE expected.