Wow. Long time
no see Underdogs. Sorry about the
hiatus, and for missing the rest of those promised NBA articles the past three
months. All I can say is I’ve been
in Hockey Country and that isn’t an easy thing to shake. Toronto, and all of its historical NHL
swagger, even if it hasn’t been good history as of late, is the real culprit. It seems that one comes to this town and
suddenly loses the will to write much about American Sports.
Obviously, here, hockey is king and the town makes no
attempt to hide it. Let’s say the
NBA’s Raptors get 4% of the pie, the CFL’s Argonauts get 8%, and the Blue Jays
get 18%. The Maple Leafs get the
rest, and that’s 70% if you’re scoring at home, (of my fictitious Sports Fans
Awareness Pie Chart.) The point is
that they love their hockey here and
they love it so much more than any other sport. It’s not even close.
So of course, you can only imagine how much was riding on the Leafs
climactic game seven Monday night in Boston. The entire city was abuzz with possibility. Ready to erupt in the glorious
coronation of a long awaited return to playoff relevance! The dreams seemed justified though,
because after two straight must-win games, the team was bristling with
confidence and had positioned themselves as a shining example to underdogs
everywhere; a team of destiny.
The night before I had been at a comedy show at Second City,
with some friends from the Book of Mormon touring cast, and the theatre’s lobby
spills directly into Wayne Gretzky’s Hockey bar. So on our way out we found ourselves swarmed with jovial
Leafs fans, all decked out and cheering at level 11 volume, as their boys tried
to close out game 6 at home. And
just down the street a few blocks south and east, the Air Canada Centre was
rumbling. Throngs of fans lined
the closed-off streets to watch the game all night on the Jumbo-tron, jumping
up and down screaming and waiving flags, and they seemed to get just as much TV
airtime as the paying customers inside.
One of the commentators noted, “There’s an estimated twenty thousand
fans outside watching, and undoubtedly later on, there will be another twenty
thousand that will claim they were.”
It was a glorious time. And
as the final buzzer sounded, I couldn’t tell if the eruption was coming from
inside Gretzky’s or in from outside on the street! The Leafs had done the extremely improbable, they came
back to tie the series after going down 3-1, to force the most thrilling game
in all of sports; Game 7!
I’m not sure what happened with the scheduling or why, but
it was the very next night in Boston that they played it, and the city of
Toronto was basically shut down to anything else. The throngs of fans were back at the Air Canada Centre but
even more this time because there was no
one inside. I opened the
window of my apartment balcony and you could hear the ups and downs from the
fans, as if the entire city had a sole consciousness, united in willing the
Leafs to the next round.
And midway through the third period it had been working
extremely well. A couple of goals early
the period had extended Toronto’s lead in the game to 4-1, with only about seven minutes to play. You could feel the heartbeat of the
city. It pounded louder and louder
as the minutes ticked away, and victory almost seemed ordained. They were moving on. They had defied the odds and done the
impossible, and… oh wait. The
Bruins scored. The Boston fans
came to life again, but it was still subdued. The collective conscious of Toronto conceded the goal with a
mild wince. It was unwelcome, but
not overly, because a 4-2 lead still felt good. But then with 90 seconds to go, fortune changed once
again. Two Boston goals tied the
game with 20 seconds to go, and later a golden goal in overtime, ended the 2013
season for the Maple Leafs for good.
Wow. An unbelievable
finish, and yes, that word is overused.
And where did it leave the Underdogs. Crushed. Where did it leave Toronto?
A much deeper question.
Thanks for reading.
Underdogs out!
