Leafs help unite T.O. - bashing Canadians
Uh, Canada’s team?
The howls of protest were immediate, coast to coast, when incoming Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock described the franchise in those terms at his press conference this week.
Really, made Babcock endearing right there.
Hubris a-blooming, the vox populi sniped.
Certainly didn’t sit well in Edmonton and Ottawa and Calgary and Vancouver. In Montreal, of course, they couldn’t care less what a Leaf bench boss has to say about anything. Besides, they’re still licking their wounds over two playoff rounds and out, despite the secondbest NHL record this season and divine Carey Price between the pipes. At least the sad-sack Leafs never fostered unfulfilled hopes. Loads of vexation with Michel Therrien, who yet again failed to leverage the talents of his squad — all that defense-first vigilance stripping the “flying” out of the “Frenchmen.” In Montreal, they eat their coaches with a side of poutine, yet Therrien has been vouchsafed by management.
A friend, rabidly Habs, was inconsolable when he heard of Babcock’s hiring in Toronto. “I love the guy. I hate the Leafs.”
For me, as a working reporter, this is Coach No. 20.
It often seems like the glue holding this country together is loathing for Toronto, the true national sport. Never understood that. As someone who was born and raised here, I’m the first to acknowledge that The Big Smoke thinks ridiculously high of itself, has slunk into social decay and embraced architectural ugliness. But we’re not a bad lot and rarely engage in civic sparring with other Canadian municipalities.
As a symbol, however, the Leafs bring out the malice in Toronto-knockers coast to coast. It’s so damn easy to mock the franchise, as the social media river of vomit has demonstrated over the last couple of days. Lord knows I too have indulged, although with better spelling. Yet we don’t, say, riot in the streets when the team loses. We save that for more important occasions, like the G8 Summit.
Caterwauling notwithstanding, Babcock was largely correct when calling the Leafs Canada’s team. “And we need to put Canada’s team back on the map.”
I would remind that the blue-andwhite (previously green and white) sported an 11-point maple leaf on their jersey for four decades before the beloved red ensign appeared on a flag of our own. Conn Smythe got there far ahead of flag designer George Stanley.
I would further point out that no visiting team plays on away-ice trailing a more vocal and evident posse of boosters than the Leafs, from Florida to California, and including every Canadian NHL city, which makes owners of those clubs crazy. Even at their nadir low – as this past season might have been – the T.O. troupe was an attendance magnet around the league.
Babcock, who lived all over Canada growing up as the son of a mining engineer and attended McGill University in Montreal — never a Leaf devotee, he admitted, his loyalties segueing from Bruins to Islanders to Oilers — did nothing other than express the Leaf-ian zeitgeist.
Classy gesture, by the way, that full-page ad Toronto’s new skipper took out yesterday in the Detroit Free Press: “Dear Detroit Red Wing Fans: Thank you for an amazing 10 years! We’ll never forget the support you’ve provided us and will always cherish the memories we’ve shared together in Hockeytown — The Babcocks.”
What do you think Babcock’s farewell buss to Toronto will read eight year (or less) hence?
Toronto: The relocation city most favored by Mr. & Mrs. Babcock, where the now empty-nesters plan on buying a downtown condo and enjoying all the pleasures this metropolis affords. (Could never have happened in Motown, first among the residential donut phenomena in the U.S., abandoned by its fleeing middle class. Except for The Joe and a handful of hotels, there is no downtown in urban wasteland Detroit.)
There was much to excite and hang onto in the Thursday press conference that launched Babcock’s career here, even as he repeated over and over that the rebuild would be a lengthy process, would require patience, and “there’s pain coming’’.
I’m not sure, though, about the part where he spoke about making Toronto a more comfortable place for players to labour.
“We have to create an environment that’s safe for players. What I mean by that — when you win every day, it becomes pretty safe for the players. Right now it’s a hard spot. We’re going to change that but it’s going to take time.”
From where I’m standing — sitting, rather, in the Air Canada Centre press box — wrenching of affection, estrangement between city and team, was sparked mostly the other way. So a few morons tossed jersey on the ice, big deal. It was the players who gave their fans the finger in Salute-gate, an astonishingly adolescent display of petulance. It was the players who got a good coach fired and then turtled in the season’s waning months, disinterested and dispassionate. That’s a more grievous sin than just being lousy.
It doesn’t take much, in this hockey-mad and Leafs-besotted city, to please the masses. A respectable effort will suffice until something better comes along.
“We’re going to be men,” Babcock vowed. “We’re going to be straightup and honest. We’re going to take responsibility for how hard we play. That doesn’t mean I guarantee you success every night, but we’re going to be responsible for what we do.” Here’s hoping. If not, the sea-to-shining-sea schadenfreude will be deafening.
Not that we give a damn.