Joseph Woll of the Toronto Maple Leafs watches the puck go over the line at the end of the game against the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden on April 13. The goal was disallowed but the Leafs went on to defeat the Rangers 3-2.BRUCE BENNETT/Getty Images
Can the Toronto Maple Leafs beat the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the playoffs?
Sure.
Will they?
Of course not.
Before every playoffs, outfits wholly dedicated to watching, dissecting and critiquing the game of hockey pick the winners and losers. Without fail, they are wrong. Often, they are wrong from top to bottom.
Why? Because these people have faith in numbers. They believe the guy who was very good on Tuesday when it didn’t matter all that much will be that way again on Saturday when it does.
There is only one hockey pattern I believe in any more, and it’s got nothing to do with percentage of high-danger chances. It’s destiny.
The Toronto Maple Leafs are not meant to win. It would be wrong if they did.
Were they to win, this city – which, let’s face it, doesn’t have a whole lot to distinguish it in the first place – would be robbed of its identity. It would be a small civic calamity. And that’s just the first round.
What is Toronto? Toronto is Loserville, Canada, but in a nice way.
Toronto is a semi-functioning second city with one very tall building and a bad hockey team. If the Leafs are going to start winning, they might as well tear down the CN Tower. Then we can be Milwaukee.
Klinkenberg: Why the Maple Leafs will win the first round of the NHL playoffs
What was Toronto the last time the Leafs won a Cup? It was an absolute burg, a jumped-up town. The only good-looking structure in town was the train station, presumably so that people passing through would get a good impression of a place where they were never going to stay.
What did Torontonians do back then for fun? They watched the Leafs. I guess that was enough for them.
What’s Toronto since? A city on the make. Sure, it’s not Tokyo and never will be, but it’s improved. When I grew up here, you couldn’t easily get a drink on the weekend. Yes, I was 14, but still. That never stopped any famous New Yorkers I’d read about.
If you want to see what happens if the Leafs win, look at Chicago. Look at how far it has fallen.
Chicago is Toronto’s American twin. Yes, it’s taller and handsomer and better in most ways. You don’t have to scuttle under an elevated highway to get to the water. It has much better museums with much better art. Chicago has its own school of architecture. What do we have? Socialist brutalism, but without the wide avenues so that the traffic never lets up.
But for all its advantages, it used to be that when people said ‘Chicago’ to you the first thing that popped into your head was ‘the Cubs.’
The Cubs and their grubby ballyard and their curse and all the fun guys who played for them who made the Hall of Fame despite being habitual losers. The Cubs and their goofy uniforms and the apartment blocks across the street from Wrigley Field where cheap Chicagoans would congratulate themselves on watching terrible baseball for free. It was the last place on Earth that fought for decades to keep electricity out. ‘No electricity for us. We’re from Chicago, where it’s too safe to need light.’
If you’d never been there, the Cubs told you everything you needed to know about Chicago. A city that’s true blue. One that doesn’t give up on its friends, even when its friends are kicking easily catchable balls up into the stands. A place with so few problems that one brain-cramped fan reaching out to try to catch a foul ball qualifies as a crisis.
The Cubs were Chicago. Chicago was the Cubs. And then the Cubs won the World Series.
What’s Chicago now? A city that fires mayors. A place that’s sinking, literally. Another big city with big-city problems, but without the romance of a doomed sports team to give it an identity.
The Cubs are back to being a mediocre ball team with zero chance of winning anything. The only possible way to replace the shabby glamour of a perpetual loser is with a perpetual winner. That didn’t happen. The Cubs got good in a hurry, won a quick title and got mediocre again just as fast.
Now the Cubs might as well be the Miami Marlins. Their shabby ballyard is just shabby. They’re adding a hideous, glass-encased sports book to the stadium. Once the Cubs had their way with history. Now that they’ve won, history has begun to have its way with them.
Was it worth it? Absolutely not. One championship is a week-long sugar high, where a century of losses provide a lifetime’s worth of parade jokes. There’s no comparison.
If the Leafs beat Tampa Bay and then lose, well that should be fine. But what if it isn’t? Between this and the Raptors being good for eight months once way back when, what if we get airs? What if Toronto adds actual superiority to its undeserved superiority complex? That would be psychically dangerous.
Before you know it, Toronto might be coming up with nuanced solutions to its problems instead of talking about putting WiFi on the subway like it will turn us into techno-Constantinople. People might start insisting on streetcars that arrive or buildings that are nice to look at. This sort of aspiration is not sustainable in a city built on such low expectations.
God forbid, what if the Leafs win a Cup? Then what?
There is no Toronto identity after the Leafs win a title. What would we talk to each other about? Real estate? That’s all we’ll have left. If the housing market crashes, we’d have to disincorporate the city. Maybe Richmond Hill could go to war with Vaughan just so the rest of us can make small talk at family barbecues.
There is a life after the Leafs win, but it’s not one you think it will be. It’s not that the Leafs can’t beat the Tampa Bay Lightning. It’s that they shouldn’t.