Toronto Maple Leafs fans celebrate a goal by Toronto Maple Leafs' Morgan Rielly in the third period of an NHL hockey game against the Pittsburgh Penguins in Pittsburgh on Nov. 3, 2018.Gene J. Puskar/The Associated Press
A number of years ago, I travelled with a group of former NHL hockey players for a book I was writing. Players subbed in and out of our travelling caravan, which gave me a chance to talk and play alongside many of the game’s greats, including many who had the good (or not so good) fortune of playing for the Toronto Maple Leafs. They included people like Darryl Sittler, Johnny Bower (who was our coach), Lanny McDonald and Tiger Williams.
They’re Leafs legends, of course. They played when Toronto’s star burned brightly in the hockey firmament – or at least brighter than it did many other years. Mr. Bower was with the Buds when they won their last Stanley Cup in ’67.
But players like Russ Courtnall and Gary Nylund played for the Leafs in the early 1980s, when they were particularly unwatchable.
During my tour, Mr. Nylund told me the story of one particular game in his full second season. The team was getting absolutely hammered. They were booed off the ice after the first period, down by several goals. He was furious at his team’s performance and, no longer a timid rookie, felt that he needed to say his piece. So he got up and started screaming at his teammates, a tirade that included expletives I can’t repeat here, demanding to know where the team’s pride was and declaring them an embarrassment.
Things got very quiet. After he was finished, a lone voice rose from the corner of the room.
“Yeah, guys,” said Bill Derlago, a forward who was one of the team’s stars at the time. “We gotta pick it up.”
As he said this, he was sitting cross-legged smoking a cigarette.
I enjoy telling this story for a couple of reasons. First, for its sheer imagery: The idea of a hockey player sitting cross-legged in a dressing room smoking a cigarette is just epic. Mr. Derlago would not have been the only NHLer who smoked a dart between periods in those days. It wasn’t common, but it wasn’t unheard of either.
Second, it just said so much about the Leafs. Here was the team’s so-called star, enjoying a cigarette between periods. No wonder they only won 20 games that season.
But in talking to these former Leafs over beers, it was clear that playing for the team was a blessing and a curse. They talked about the benefits of playing in a city where hockey is everything. You are treated like a god, no matter how significant your contribution to the team. This sort of outsized attention can mess with a person’s head – and I think all that very much remains the case.
This is why many a former Leaf has thrived after decamping to a less demanding, frantic, schizophrenic market.
As a lifelong Bruins fan, it has been easy to hate the Leafs and their followers. Every team has their quotient of obnoxious supporters; Toronto just seems to boast an unusually large percentage of them. I will say this, however: Their loyalty throughout the years has been impressive given how dreadful – even beyond dreadful – some of their teams have been.
Toronto Mayor John Tory recently released a letter to Leaf Nation urging supporters to keep the faith. The tone felt a little musty to me, like it could have been penned by a booster club president in the 1950s. It talked about how Leafs fans thought this was “going to be THE year,” and how their loss to the Canadiens would allow those “who love to hate our Buds” a chance to gloat. He urged the fanbase to get ready to “cheer on our legendary team again” next season.
All that was missing was a video of Mr. Tory with a megaphone and varsity sweater shouting, “We wear white, we wear blue, we are Leafs fans through and through!”
There is a presumptuousness that many Leafs fans have that riles people. Because they are Toronto, and Toronto is the centre of the hockey universe, it is as if they are owed another Cup – that they are more deserving than lesser markets because they put their toddlers in Leafs’ onesies and clutter the internet with pictures of them sleeping.
Well, their team is now tied with the New York Rangers for the longest Cup drought in NHL history at 53 seasons. They haven’t won a playoff series in 17 years. Sometimes you can just want something a little too much. Maybe they should give letting go a try.
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