A Leaf Nation on its knees
You know it’s over when hockey fans start singing ‘Let’s go, Blue Jays’
Mississauga’s Adrian Macintosh quit caring on Tuesday, when the Toronto Maple Leafs were bounced from the NHL post-season for a seventh straight year.
“I’m embarrassed they didn’t make it to the playoffs again,” says the 15-year-old.
Still, Macintosh and buddy Adam Holwell of St. John’s, N.L., also 15, went to Thursday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers saucily wearing paper bags with tiny eyeholes into the Air Canada Centre.
But even their limited bag-o-vision couldn’t hide the nasty truth. When the Flyers slapped around the home side, 7-1, Leaf Nation surrendered completely. But is this truly a final surrender? Well, when hockey fans start singing about baseball, maybe the Leafs have been tossed their third strike by disgruntled followers. In a new low, ACC fans began chanting “Let’s go, Blue Jays” in the third period.
Yearning for the Boys of Summer while the Boys of Winter are still punching the clock is tantamount to sporting adultery. Leaf fans, in moving away from head-splitting booing to warbling about baseball, are suggesting the grass might indeed be greener at the domed diamond across the street, a place with different men to love.
“I’m annoyed,” said Toronto’s Klint Ginn, 39, during the Flyers game. Across the back of his Dion Phaneuf jersey, Ginn wrote “new Habs fan” on masking tape.
“I’m a Leaf fan. I’ve got a tattoo here on my arm and I’m annoyed. And something has to be better than this, what’s happening.”
There have been many Leaf eras of fan disgust since1967, Toronto’s last Stanley Cup win. Yet the blue-andwhite faithful, like baseball counterparts loyal to the Chicago Cubs and Bambino-cursed Red Sox, have always returned.
Susan Krauss Whitbourne, a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, says a strong emotional connection between fan and team can sustain some disappointment.
“The true fans are most likely to stick with their team regardless of how the team is doing, because being a fan of the team is part of their identity,” Whitbourne says in an email.
“In a sport like hockey . . . in which players show a high degree of aggression, fans may experience a form of emotional catharsis and the rush of feelings may serve to bond them to the experience of watching the game.”
However, Whitbourne says emotional trauma “can be significant for ‘true fans’ compared to fickle fans” from sustained losing or subpar effort.
“Even though they’re not losing anything tangible, constant disappointment can be wearing on the true fans.”
Especially when there isn’t the sideshow of a good dust-up. When Leaf tough guy Mike Brown and Flyers tougher guy Scott Hartnell squared off to fight late in the second period, the officials broke it up before a punch was thrown.
Fans booed lustily. For once, they weren’t mad at the Leafs.
But there is no downside to losing in Leafland. The team doesn’t have to win for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment to cash in. The ACC brims with patrons. There are long lineups for MLSE’S restaurant, Real Sports, just steps from the arena. Leafs attire and goodies are piled in kiosks ringing the concourses.
Fans can watch NHL hockey in luxury, ordering booze and meals from their seats. Is this sedating the former fanatics who are now demanding less from players, less from management, less from ownership?
Amid the fan fury, David Mac- Pherson remains hopeful.
On Thursday, the 40-year-old sales professional brought his son, Graydon, 2, to his first Leafs game — just as Macpherson’s dad took him to his first game at old Maple Leaf Gardens.
“It’s heritage,” Macpherson said, explaining his Leaf love as Graydon caressed a $5.99 puck, a gift from dad. “We keep the faith.”