Grantland recruits Torontonian writer Stephen Marche to explain why our sports teams suck so much. And for some bizarre reason, he blames it all on us.
In a severely depressing story that appeared today on ESPN’s Grantland, Toronto-based writer Stephen Marche addressed The Worldwide Leader’s claim, made last summer, that Toronto is the worst city for professional sports fandom in North America.
In the couple of hours since the story was published, Marche has been ripped apart over a few incorrect details by the mob of nit-picking, probably sabermetric-worshipping malcontents that populate Twitter. But hold on, let’s give credit where credit is due—Marche gets a few things right:
1. Toronto totally IS the worst city for professional sports fandom in North America. (With the possible exception of Seattle.)
2. Our love of hockey runs so deep that there would likely be a city-destroying riot on Yonge Street if the Maple Leafs lost the Stanley Cup. (And also if we won it.)
3. Sports fans in this city are a mean, sad, pathetic bunch of self-loathing masochists. (Undeniable.)
Marche makes a compelling case on these few points, but his central thesis on why exactly the Leafs suck is so off-base, it’s offensive to all of the franchise’s long-suffering functioning puck addicts. Yes, we habitually root for the hard-working grinder, but to suggest that this issue of fan preference—the “bush-league spirit,” as Marche defines it—is the cause of all our grief is an irresponsibly gross miscalculation of the curse that currently plagues Toronto’s favourite team.
First of all, our passion for the third-line mucker is deeply ingrained in the Leaf fan’s culture. It’s a team archetype that stretches back generations, from Doug Gilmour to Wendel Clark to Eddie Shack. These types of players are easy to root for, and we’ve (or, more likely, our parents have) witnessed players like these lead us on many a Stanley Cup run in the franchise’s long and storied history. But that’s not to say we wouldn’t embrace a “fancy” brand of hockey if it brought us results on the ice. I can say with some certainty that, if the Leafs’ championship-winning first line consisted of three fleet-of-foot ex-figure skaters who each scored 50 goals, they would be the absolute toast of the town.
With that in mind, Marche’s flippant assertion that “the city never took to Mats Sundin” isn’t quite right either. It might be easy to forget in an era of Kessel and Phaneuf jerseys, but if you’d taken a stroll around downtown in the late-’90s, you’d have been hard-pressed not to spot a number 13 sweater somewhere along the way. We might not have all-out worshipped Sundin, but to say we didn’t take to him isn’t fair. And the suggestion that Torontonians think Sidney Crosby too soft to be adored by the blue and white? That’s just ridiculous.
But the worst part of Marche’s argument is that he lets the true villain off the hook.
It’s a popular assertion that the head honchos at MLSE, basking in their bubble of Bay Street splendour, simply don’t burn with the desire to win. But MLSE is not a corporation run by evil, faceless money-burning overlords. Toronto’s GMs are hard-working execs who know exactly how much a playoff run would add to the company coffers. I’m convinced they’re striving for success, it’s just that these friendly-faced suits have thus far proven totally incapable of fielding a winning team.
Consider what we’ve endured in the last five years. Toronto FC exploded out of the gate only to become a perennial playoff-missing embarrassment. The moribund Raptors somehow left themselves completely unprepared for the moment their franchise player took his talents to South Beach, even when every citizen of this city—including my 96-year-old grandmother—knew that Chris Bosh wasn’t going to stick around a minute longer than he was required to. And the Leafs… ugh, the Leafs.
The hole only gets deeper when Marche says, “Despite having more money than any other hockey team in the league, the Leafs have not purchased any brilliant players in an era overflowing with brilliant players.” As most hockey fans know, this statement is incorrect in two ways: the salary cap, instituted in 2005 and perfectly timed with the Leafs’ tumble down the standings, means that NHL teams aren’t allowed to “purchase” any big-ticket player besides the ones they internally draft and develop. In recent times, we’ve seen almost every player worth a massive contract sign on the dotted line with the team who drafted him, leaving the Leafs, victims of Brian Burke’s absurd have-your-cake-and-eat-it-too approach to rebuilding, rich and playoff-less.
Marche also seems to forget that in the time when free spending to shore up poor drafting was legal, the Leafs did it all the time. Have any of us forgotten Curtis Joseph, Ed Belfour, Owen Nolan or Alexander Mogilny? They never won us a Cup, but damn, they were expensive.
So the Leafs suck. But the types of players the fans cheer loudest for aren’t the problem. It’s a sad reality that in this city, living requires hockey, and we’ll take winning any way we can get it.
