I'm back: Re-entry into Leafs Nation

You could argue it happened during that first game in Detroit. In fact, I wrote over 2500 words on that game detailing just what had happened and why it happened. You could also argue that it never really went away; trust me, for a while it did. The big shift happened last Saturday night when the Maple Leafs hosted Ottawa. I was at work and as usual the game was on the TV’s in the background. Only this time I found myself infinitely more interested in the game than I had been in years. I wanted to see a Toronto win and inexplicably began cheering when they scored a goal. I asked myself after the 3-2 win over the Senators “Could it be? Am I back?” I decided I needed further proof.

For the first time in five years I sat down and watched a Leafs game on my own time (the loss against Tampa Bay) and then the next night kept a close eye on the game in New Jersey. The way they came back against the Devils and eventually won the game in a shootout confirmed what I suspected after that first game in Detroit three weeks ago. Something has happened; the Toronto Maple Leafs have become a team worth rooting for once again. Not because they are better than they were from ’03-’08 (which they’re not; they’re a fun bunch, but definitely are a year or two away from being a contender) but because finally moves have been made in which all the things I hated about this team during that era are gone and in their place are a mix of young players and veterans, all of whom want a shot to play on an NHL team and all of whom exhibit the kind of spirit that the Maple Leaf players used to have during the late ‘80s and ’90s when I began watching them.

I grew up watching Hockey Night in Canada, most notably the Toronto Maple Leafs. This was back in the days of Ed Olczyk, Gary Leeman, Al Iafrate, Daniel Marois and Allan Bester and his horrible brown goalie pads. I remember in ’88 when the Leafs fought back from a 5-1 1st period deficit against the LA Kings and won 6-5 in overtime. I remember a couple of years later during their offensive explosion of 1990 when Wendel Clark scored the tying goal against the Bruins forcing overtime in a game that was 6-2 Boston heading into the 3rd. I can tell you how proud it was to be a Leaf fan in 1991 when our own Vinny Damphousse scored four goals in the All Star game in Chicago and won MVP honours. There was Mike Gartner’s “in off the post” goal in game 6 of the West Conference Semis in 1994. The ultimate highlight obviously was Nikolai Borschevsky’s game 7 winner against Detroit the year before. (It’s amazing that a player could be so forgotten in the league yet absolutely have unlimited drinks bought for him in this city more than 15 years later)

Lowlights included the six shot performance in the deciding game against the Devils in 2000; Gretzky’s ability to not get penalized for high sticking Doug Gilmour in the ’93 Campbell Conference finals; the second Leaf game I ever attended live in 1990 when the Winnipeg Jets scored six second period goals en route to a 10-2 drubbing; how about the entire Mike Murphy era of the mid 90s? The low lights always outweighed the high lights, but one thing remained constant: The players were likeable, hardworking and genuinely enjoyed doing what they did.

The Top 5 Maple Leafs in terms of ability, leadership, class, and love of the game were (in no particular order) Clark, Doug Gilmour, Mats Sundin, Curtis Joseph and Damphousse. Nobody (of players after 1980) could argue against Wendel. He was the fan favourite and combined scoring, agility, toughness and brought a level of energy unparalleled to anyone to ever wear the jersey in my lifetime; possibly only Cam Neely in Boston was a greater example. Everybody loved #17 and had he not suffered chronic injuries throughout his career could have rivalled Sundin as the top point getter in team history.

Gilmour came to Toronto in the massive trade of 1992 that involved ten players and the Calgary Flames. #93 was a solid player in Calgary but turned into a beast after donning the Blue & White. The summer of ‘92 was filled with optimism after seeing what the team turned into the previous spring. Gilmour delivered 127 points his first full season and 111 the following year; both times the Leafs went to the final four. He racked up the greatest personal seasons in team history and was instrumental in the teams turn around 15 years ago into a decade long (save a season or two) tenure as a contender.

Sundin famously was involved in the trade that sent Clark out of town. (Remember the outcry at this trade? People were furious; it was like GST all over again but turned into one of the best trades the organization ever made) He’s led the team in scoring every year since 1995 (save 2003 when Alexander Mogilny led) and has been the captain longer than anyone in team history. He makes every winger he plays with better (Steve Thomas, Sergei Berezin (he scored 37 goals one year!), Nik Antropov etc) and yet some people still question his leadership ability. He was injured during the 2002 playoffs run and still managed to come back in the 3rd round against Carolina. He bleeds blue & white and has been the only player worth mentioning the last 5 years.

Goaltending has always been a problem in this town. Ken Wregget? The aforementioned Bester? Peter Ing? Felix Potvin? (Man did he drop off; he’s like the NHL goalie equivalent of Malcolm in the Middle) It wasn’t until Joseph came into town in the late 90s that Maple Leaf goalie jerseys began being seen around. (Who can forget Joseph going crazy on referee Mick McGough during the ’00 playoffs against Ottawa?) Every goalie the team has had since then has wished he was as loved in this city as CuJo was. (Actually, the respect for CuJo could be sensed years before he actually began playing here; during the 1993 playoffs he put on a display still talked about while playing for the Blues)

Damphousse was the best Leafs player during a time when good players were few and far between. His Leaf career reached its zenith during that ’91 All Star game. Even after he was shipped to Edmonton in ’92 Leaf fans held him in high regard and though the Canadiens won the ’93 Stanley Cup it was nice to see Vinny holding it. We knew how good he was and how much of a heart & souler he was in Toronto. 1986-1991 was a horrible time to dawn the Maple Leaf jersey; he did it with class and always put forth the effort that at the time was clearly lacking on the ice and in the front office. If you’re like me, you remember him scoring his 1000th point as a member of the Sharks and were happy for him.

Why am I bothering to discuss all this history? Aside from taking any opportunity at all to bring up Gary Leeman, the fact remains that until 2003, I was a huge fan of the team; charter member of what has become “Leafs Nation” (modelled after Red Sox Nation I assume; the term was unheard of until about 4 or 5 years ago) and wore the blue & white proudly. It didn’t matter that a championship hadn’t been won in 35+ years. All that mattered was that the team was fun to watch, gave a great effort, and finally there was stability in the GM and coach positions.

In 2003 however, something changed. For one reason or another, I began feeling disinterested. Sundin was the only bright spot left. Clark had retired, Joseph was gone (and in Detroit) and we were left with a constant barrage of new players who would be signed to these ridiculous contracts year after year as well as so-called stars like Darcy Tucker or Antropov who were basically fringe players who in any other organization would have been traded or bought out long ago. (I love the old April Fools Day headline in the Sun: Antropov traded to Ducks for bag of pucks. Ok, so that never happened but still it would’ve killed!)

I couldn’t get into any of the new players brought in to help “win the championship”. They were all faceless individuals who had no spark, no jump and most of all no heart for what the Maple Leafs embodied. They tried, I mean a few of them even had great years, but it wasn’t the same. I didn’t like cheering for a bunch of free agents that couldn’t gel together. The team lost its chemistry; it’s allure. And so after the 2002 season, unable to bear the fact that this team that I had loved more than any other in the world had begun a decline into a “pay now, develop later” team I felt the need to move on.

I became an NHL widow of sorts; a fan without a team. I began to follow the most unlikely of teams in the hopes that I could become a part of something better; something that wasn’t driven by an organization that wanted success so badly yet knew so little about how to obtain it. Case in point: the last Leaf draft pick to become anybody with the team was Tomas Kaberle, who was drafted ten years ago.

The Leafs had become so inept at drafting that they decided to try and build a team via the free agent market; which is fine if you know what you’re doing, (like the ’94 New York Rangers who yes won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 54 years yet also had the entire core of the 1990 Edmonton Oilers team on their roster) however the Maple Leafs were clueless. This led to Leaf teams from 2003-08 which varied in personnel from year to year because most of the free agents tanked. You could blame this on John Ferguson Jr, but that would be unfair. He had NO prior experience! This would be like catcalling a stripper on her first night for not “selling the fantasy” enough. The man was faced with a monumental challenge: Bring the Leafs, the continents most successful sports franchise with a championship drought, success. Neither you, nor I would have been able to live up to that challenge, but he did what he could. He signed a bunch of washed up players for average money with the hope that they would be able to duplicate their earlier successes. A couple did, most did not. Here’s a partial list

Robert Reichel (where they found him I have no idea)
Mikael Renberg (way past the legion of doom)
Shane Corson (you know Darcy got him in because of the family code)
Mariusz Czerkawski (really??)
Owen Nolan (not a bad gamble actually)
Jason Allison (chronic injuries ruined a potentially good career)
Jeff O’Neill (that “92” on his jersey always looked weird didn’t it?)
Bates Battaglia (forever a trivia answer to “name the 3rd member of the BBC line”)
Phil Housley (old)
Glen Wesley (old)
Mike Peca (washed up and old; and never really that good)
Eric Lindros (maybe the biggest cry for help signing in NHL history)

Not listed: door stops including Ken Klee, Aki Berg, Wade Belak, Karl Pilar, Tom Fitzgerald, and Mark Bell.

So yeah, not a pretty picture painted by any stretch of the imagination. (Seriously, Aki Berg HAS to be working as a street sausage vendor in Germany somewhere right? It’s a no brainer right???)

I gave up. After over 15 years as a loyal fan I had had enough. I was too young to appreciate the garbage teams of the 80s that infuriated Leaf fans. I liked hockey and the Leafs were the team that was always present on Saturday night, the only night a nine year old boy could stay up long enough to watch a full game. By the time the ‘90s rolled around the Leafs were the talk of the town; a fun team to watch loaded with talent and just plain interesting to follow.

And so the 2002-03 season began and I was busy following my new team. The Leafs made the playoffs in ’03 and ’04 and yet none of the Leaf fans I knew really seemed to get fired up by this bunch. It was as if they knew as much about the team as I did; a group of players put together right before the season in an effort to bring the city a championship yet at the same time lacking the substance and personality of the teams that preceded them. In other words: a group of boring hockey players.

When I arrived in Toronto prior to the 2005-06 season I expected to be engulfed in Leafs Nation. I expected to be bombarded with news, stats and general interest of a team I had lost touch with some three years earlier. I got nothing of the sort. Sure, every now and then the energy would be present. For the most part however, the people I encountered were only somewhat more into the Leafs as I was. I didn’t get it. With all the media in this city surely a huge amount of attention had to be paid to the team. What I didn’t realize at the time and didn’t realize until now perhaps, was that the city had also become tired of the state of the team. Every week the Toronto Sun would be littered with letters ranging from how the team had lost touch with the fans to how the team sucked in general. Writing in saying how your favourite team “sucks” is one thing; it lacks general sports knowledge and maturity. However complaining that the team has lost touch with the fans speaks volumes: it says that there is something fundamentally wrong with the way the team goes about their day to day business; that there is something wrong with the way they go about putting their team on the field; that there is something wrong. (The New York Knicks are in the same boat; signed too many “fringe players” and had a horrible General Manager running things for the last few years. If Gus Johnson’s “Hell Yes” is any indication, they’ve been waiting for something positive to happen for a LONG time much like us here in Toronto with our hockey team)

The most interested I ever saw a group of people concerning the Maple Leafs came not during a Leafs telecast, but the next day during a New Jersey-New York Islanders game. It was spring 2007 and the Leafs were one point ahead of the Islanders for the last playoff spot. The Devils had secured their spot weeks earlier so they started their backup goalie. The game went to a shootout leaving the Islanders victorious meaning that for the 2nd straight year the Leafs would not be playing spring hockey. The previous night however (when they eliminated Montreal and put themselves in position to make the playoffs) there wasn’t a sense of celebration as there was a sense of relief. Nobody wanted the Leafs to miss the playoffs for (gasp!) a second straight year. It didn’t matter that the team assembled was littered with "has been”s and overpaid “fringe” players. They were going to make the playoffs because they were the Leafs damn it!

Well what happened? They failed to make the postseason and displayed ineptitude for competing in this new era of hockey. The NHL instituted a salary cap during the strike of 04-05 meaning that teams could no longer simply buy players in an attempt to make a Cup run. It didn’t matter that the Leafs had proven unable to buy such a team on the grounds that they play in the most lucrative hockey market on planet earth. All of a sudden what mattered most was the ability to formulate a team based on salary, skill, age and above all else: tenacity (players who love the game; five or six skill guys and a bunch of rough and tumblers who cost next to nothing against the cap). The Leafs were in way over their heads as teams such as Detroit, Montreal, Atlanta (yes they DID win a division title; go figure) and Buffalo created teams which became the most prolific and entertaining in the “new NHL”. The draft mattered again; the Leafs and the NY Rangers were left as bottom feeders. (Although the Rangers got their act together in 2005 and now thanks to a rock solid goaltender and ridding themselves of horrible contracts like Bobby Holik are near the forefront of the league)

I went over the Maple Leafs and their horrible draft history in my Tankapolooza column back in August. I’ll just sum it up by saying it doesn’t look good.

Coming into the season I, along with numerous other media personnel (not to mention the Leafs front office) believed that the team would be near or at the bottom of the standings for the season. I picked them to finish last in the East. Even the most optimistic media outlets had them picked no higher than 12th. But the group of boys put together by GM Cliff Fletcher have overcome the odds during this first month of the season. (Think about that term for a minute. The Maple Leafs epitomize everything the term “boy” encompasses from their age and inexperience right down to their care free, rough & tumble, “give it your all” and “never say die” attitudes. Win or lose, this team is just all about fun.)

It was evident right from the start and has not cooled off after twelve games. There are so many reasons to be a fan of this franchise again. Let’s start with the coach. Ron Wilson is an offensive coach and had nothing to work with this season. The only player on the roster with a mild history of scoring goals was Jason Blake who tallied 40 in 2007. After registering 1 in the first two weeks of the season Wilson scratched him. Not necessarily a move many would make with “supposedly” your best scorer or someone who is near the top of the team’s payroll. Other players were scratched at different times as well and the message was received loud and clear. (It was like that baseball episode of the Simpsons when Mr Burns begins his tirade “No one is assured a spot on this (power plant) team. I don’t care if your name is Darryl Strawberry, Roger Clemens or… (to Smithers softly) Smithers what’s one of the bad player’s names??.... (to everyone) or Homer Simpson!”) If you were ready to play, you played. If you remotely represented anything that was present during the last tenure you were out. Blake still only has two goals, but the team has scored 14 in their last three games (as of Nov 2) and it’s the overall effect on the team that these benchings have achieved that is remarkable; not the effect on the individual.

Another reason this team has won me back is they’re on ice attitude. They’re impossible not to like. They bust their ass, never give up and genuinely enjoy playing the game. That said, I absolutely LOVE John Mitchell. He can skate, he can hit, he grinds it out in the offensive end, he back checks, he can play on the power play and he understands what is expected of him and all the rest of the players on the team: Play hard, go to the net and good things will happen. How many goals have the Leafs scored this season by simply jamming the puck to the net? 50%? More? It’s not a highlight style game being played by this team; it’s garbage hockey. It’s “cycle it down low, throw it to the net and hope someone on your team gets to it before someone on their team”. But it’s working.

This attitude was never more apparent than on Saturday night against the New York Rangers. For about the eleventh time in twelve games, the Leafs found themselves down 0-2 only this time there was only about a dozen minutes left in the whole game. This young eclectic mix of players didn’t roll over, yet didn’t take any dumb chances which could make it 0-3 and popped in two quick ones to tie the game. You know the rest. The Leafs poured it on and won 5-2. Even if they had lost 3-2 it would have been a satisfying game for a Leaf fan. The players are out there representing not only our city but themselves at the same time and they’re having a great time doing it. Even when this team loses you can’t argue that they didn’t grind out every shift and do so with the boisterous spirit so clearly lacking the past few years. (This attitude will hopefully carry over to future seasons and once they get some high end skill players will be a VERY fun team to watch.)

Case in point: The only time this team has been blown out this season was the “how the hell did we beat Detroit??” hangover game against Montreal. They’ve been in every other game since. Last season they suffered 5-1 or worse losses 13 times. It all comes back to the player’s attitude.

Even the players who last season and the year before were hated by the media or dismissed by fans as “second rate players given ice time for no apparent reason” have stepped up their game and seem to be contributing to this energy ridden team. Antropov and Alexei Ponikarovsky are prime examples. There’s more spring in their skate this season; Antropov especially has relished his role as the team’s offensive leader and 7 of his 9 points this year have either tied the game or put the team ahead. Pavel Kubina who spent most of last year as the answer to “worst off season signing in the league” has emerged as the kind of defenseman who you want taking the shot from the point on the power play. Coupled with Tomas Kaberle (perhaps the most underrated Leafs defenseman virtually unknown around the league since Dave Ellett) and there you have two players who can jump into the rush, get back and help and above all else serve as role models for the younger players on the blue line. This brings me to the Leafs backup goalie.

When Curtis Joseph was brought in this summer to serve as the Leafs backup I, along with many of you, questioned this move greatly. He’s in his 40s, hasn’t been a starter in years, is five years removed from being an adequate player in the league and above all else he goes 100% against this “young team” concept that we’d been hearing about all summer. It wasn’t until a few weeks into the season that I realized exactly why he was brought in: His only role on the team is to serve as a representative of the good ol’ Leaf boys of yesteryear that I begun this column discussing. He embodies everything that used to be right with the Leafs. His job is to get these players thinking about the city, the uniform, and the fans. The Maple Leafs became so disconnected with the fans in 2004-08 that they had to bring someone back. Wendel, Dougie and Vinny are all retired and Sundin is shopping at Ikea somewhere so the only one available was Joseph. (Plus it had to be someone from the past; Sundin wouldn’t fit the description. If there was ONE player from 03-08 right now you’d want in a Leafs uniform it would still be Mats.) It was a small move but a masterful stroke. It is paying dividends. (Even Mike Van Ryn has been playing well. Jeff Finger has been injured most of the season thus far but he’ll pick up. Niklas Hagman has been a beast, and Luke Schenn might finally be a draft pick the Leafs got right. Things are looking up.)

The look and feel of this hockey club is what has brought me back. The teams of the last few years lacked the energy and fun loving atmosphere that I used to enjoy. This is the kind of team you watch play and you’re happy with the work ethic and get excited when things are going well but not overly irritated when things aren’t. The team assembled by the men in power has brought a level of respect back to the Maple Leafs. These boys, through their playing style and energy level, make you proud to be a hockey fan, proud to be a Torontonian and most of all: proud to be a member of Leafs Nation. You can argue that they might not make the postseason, but you can’t question their heart and soul. That’s what’s been lacking around the city for these last few years. They may never win a Stanley Cup again, but every single night out you know that the 25 guys in the dressing room gave everything they had representing the city, the sweater and most importantly themselves. Basically what I’m trying to say is that I’m back. I’m totally back. Let’s start it up. Yes, we can. Yes, we can.