Leafs fan? Stop watching.
I blame George Armstrong. And me. I shouldn’t have been watching.
I have some advice for you if you're a Toronto Maple Leafs fans. Stop watching.
Let me explain.
I watched the Raptors win the NBA championship in 2019. Well, I watched the last 0.9 seconds of it live. By accident. After all, there are rules. The key rule is, if I watch the Raptors play on TV while by myself, they will lose. I have tested this hypothesis many times and the evidence is overwhelming. Even watching for a few minutes is a jinx. They immediately start losing a lead, playing poorly, doing something that… “Come ON. Move your FEET.” …prompts me to revert to my coaching days and start yelling at the TV.
It's hereditary. Beautiful Daughter won the 2004 World Series for the Boston Red Sox, finally putting to rest The Curse Of The Bambino.
Yeah, I hate capital letters anywhere except at the start of the sentence too. But when you sell Babe Ruth to the Yankees, after winning the championship three times while he played for you, it gets the capitals treatment.
The Red Sox sold the Babe in 1920. The Yankees became the Yankees, winning and being smug about it for, well, it seemed like forever.
Boston spent the next 84 years paying for their stupidity. That is not a typo.
They were finally rescued by Beautiful Daughter. Turns out – it was news to me, but that was all part of the plan – BD was a big Red Sox fan.
If she'd asked me, I could have saved her some pain. Actually, a lot of pain.
The 2004 Red Sox were doing everything they could to hold up their part of the curse, losing their first three playoff games against the Yankees, including the third at home in Fenway Park by the oh-so-close score of 19-8.
Get out the golf clubs and call your buddies with the Maple Leafs, they know all the best tee times on all the best courses. Too soon? Sorry. Yeah, right.
BD watched all three games. BIG mistake. Then she missed game 4. A rookie would think, so what? Ha!
Down 4-3 and in their final turn at bat in game four, Red Sox magic ensued. A walk. A stolen base. A single and it was tied. David Ortiz, he'll never be able to pay for a beer in Boston again in this life, stepped up and drilled a homer in the 12th inning and… BD figured it out.
Her beloved Red Sox would lose if she watched. So she did what any decent fan would do, she stopped watching. And she told nobody, because that's a rule too.
The Red Sox didn't lose another game. They took three in a row from the Yankees. How sweet that was. Then four in a row from the St. Louis Cardinals, road kill on the way to baseball history. And the curse was dead.
I'm allowed to follow Raptors games on my phone using the NBA app. That doesn't count, so that's what I did in 2019.
And with time expired in the deciding sixth game of the finals, I turned on the TV to watch the celebrations, only to realize in horror the referees had put time back on the clock because of a foul.
“NO,” I screamed, scrambling for the remote.
Too late. Foul shots made, the game was over. The Raptors won. I almost blew it.
The Leafs last won the Stanley Cup in 1967, stealing it from my – at that time beloved, now I can't name a player on the team – Montreal Canadiens. I'm old enough to remember watching it on TV.
I blame George Armstrong. And me. I shouldn't have been watching.
And if you're a Leafs fan, it's your fault too. You need to stop watching. Either they'll finally win, or you won't have to endure watching another collapse. Either way, it's all good.