The Tragedy In Being A Leafs Fan

Every year I cheer optimistically for the blue and white. I’m not the biggest Leaf fan in the world and yet every August, before the start of every season, I drink the Kool-Aid. This year they were touted to be a top ten team, maybe even a contender! Today us fans are faced with the truth that the Leafs are, in fact, a top ten team, only in the running for the first overall draft pick. Leafs fans like myself are cursed. The season is an emotional roller coaster. Sometimes the players are likable and we need to watch them win like we need air to breathe. Sometimes the players don’t talk to the media and they are called “monsters” (although I’d prefer not to talk about entitlements in journalism here). Sometimes they beat the New York Rangers with seven goals to their four, and three weeks later lose to the Nashville Predators with two goals to their nine. Nine goals against! Last year the Toronto Maple Leafs were placed first in the Eastern Conference heading into February when the critically acclaimed “18 wheeler” fell off the cliff. They were reduced to a middling team, and then a bad team, and then to a team that was close to a lottery draft pick without actually having any stakes in the draft lottery. The worst position possible to finish in. The “highly touted” Leafs have fallen so far this year that we now have to hope they lose every game, even to the dreaded Montreal Canadians, with the hope that they improve their chances of winning one of the best prospects of all time with the first pick in the draft. And that is the Leafs fan curse: things are so bad that we have to hope they lose every game in order to have a future that we can passionately cheer for.