One day, when they write about the death of men's recreational hockey in Toronto, they may trace the fatal blow back to 2009-10, when a fiction was created about girls being denied ice time at city-owned rinks, politicians wrested control from the best of those arenas and men's leagues began getting the boot.
This is all rooted in the unmitigated horse manure surrounding the Toronto Leaside Girls Hockey League, a story first raised last year in The Toronto Star.
The central figures were all variously conflicted.
The writer of the original piece failed to declare that her own daughter plays in the Leaside league.
Under a headline that read "Mayor blows whistle on arenas over girls' hockey," she described Mayor David Miller as merely "responding" to a threatened human-rights complaint from the Leaside organization, the suggestion clear the mayor was merely reacting to a crisis he came to with clean hands.
Mr. Miller singled out three of the city's eight board-operated arenas - North Toronto, Forest Hill and Ted Reeve - for criticism in that story, saying the rinks weren't complying with the city's equity policy.
Turns out, the mayor had divided loyalties up the yingyang, in that John Piper, his long-time waterfront adviser, and Nick Lewis, his senior man on economic development, both have strong Leaside connections. Mr. Lewis was then even coaching one of the Leaside girls' teams.
(My own conflicts are that my late father once ran North Toronto and that my dear friend Moose Anweiler runs the place now. My hands are NT green alright, but they are transparently so.)
Anyway, this spring, Mr. Miller convinced council to have parks and recreation take over as the supervisor of ice allocation at the eight board-managed arenas in the name of equity compliance.
Now, these are the same parks and rec bureaucrats who have already buggered up the 42 other rinks that the city not only owns, but also operates.
For instance, in a five-month period ending April this year, these clowns had 8,907 hours of unsold prime ice time - the figures from the city's own website.
In other words, if the girls' league was short of ice time, which as you will see it never was, it wasn't because there wasn't any available, but rather because it wasn't available where and when Leaside wanted it.
The North Toronto board asked the parks and rec boss, Brenda Patterson, how much ice Leaside was getting at those 42 rinks. After all, if North Toronto was expected to fairly allocate ice by quota, surely they had to know how much ice Leaside already had elsewhere.
Ms. Patterson refused. North Toronto then asked Leaside officials for the same information; they declined, on the advice of the city, they said.
Think about that for a second: Council was forcing the board-run rinks to submit their ice-time allocations to parks and rec for approval, but wouldn't make public how well, or if, its own 42 facilities were following the same rules, let alone how the poor Leaside girls were faring.
The board then submitted a freedom of information request and soon discovered what parks and rec and Leaside already knew - those girls already had more city ice than just about any other hockey association in Toronto.
Last year, for instance, Leaside girls had 66 hours of ice time at city-run rinks, plus another 20 to 25 hours of ice at board-run facilities - for a total of between 86 and 90 hours a week - and that, using the most generous count, for 650 girls and 250 women.
By way of contrast, the North Toronto Hockey Association, with 1,650 youth players, had 45 hours total from the city, most of it at board-operated rinks.
As North Toronto board chair Gord Thompson once remarked, "The only inequity here is the fact that Leaside has a disproportionate amount of city ice."
But the fiction having been established, council established minimum 60-per-cent "targets" for community youth groups in the coming season - and some of the board-run arenas then had to shuffle rentals about.
The most vulnerable, of course, were the recreational men's leagues: The players are men and they're old.
Lest anyone believe for a minute that the city directive is actually aimed at equity for other groups of ice-starved youth, consider the letters Ms. Patterson dispatched to several of the board rinks who were not coming to heel.
Forest Hill, for instance, had cancelled ice for several adult private rentals to meet its youth target.
Grudgingly admitting that Forest Hill had done that, Ms. Patterson nonetheless sniped, "I would appreciate understanding your rationale for not allocating any time to Toronto Leaside Girls Hockey Association … it would appear you have allocated time to all other groups in the 'Community Youth Category.' I would appreciate your response on this matter."
Or consider the Ted Reeve Hockey Association, which announced a new girls' program, which would run Sunday morning, a time slot previously held by Leaside girls.
Imagine the cheek? Someone else other than Leaside daring to field girls' teams?
Ms. Patterson suggested Leaside get that time slot back, and noted helpfully, "You may wish to consult directly with Toronto Leaside Girls Hockey Association."
You know, like Ms. Patterson does.
It was never about fairness. It was about a well-connected group in Leaside wanting a better deal for girls than boys get, making up a phony crisis as a cover, and selling it (with the help of a public relations agency) to press and politicians either compromised or asleep.
Among the latest casualties at Forest Hill is the Nice Guy Hockey League, where several of my Globe colleagues are among those who have played for almost three decades on Sunday evenings.
One of them is a Globe editorial writer, who just happens to live in Leaside. Perhaps, with that all-knowing wisdom unique to his breed, he could write a thundering denunciation of this entire fraud and the disgraceful results.