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The Rog's Rant

There is no end to passion for hockey in Toronto

There is no professional sports franchise like the Toronto Maple Leafs anywhere in Canada.

It is being demonstrated this week as the club pays tribute to the 1967 Stanley Cup champion Maple Leafs, the last Toronto team to ever win the Stanley Cup (and great to see the return of Dave Keon as part of the festivities!).

The Maple Leafs play on the road, and half the crowd in a lot of cities is cheering for the Leafs. Despite the fact it’s been 40 years between Cups, tickets to Leaf games are still impossible to get unless you know somebody who isn’t using theirs. TV ratings for the Leafs are by far the highest across the county, even when they are mediocre or worse, and Hockey Night in Canada takes a nosedive when they miss the playoffs.

They are like the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs – they have legions of fans everywhere. They transcend the league and the sport, as do the Red Sox and the Cubs. And the fact that the Leafs also haven’t won for decades, like the Red Sox until 2004 and the Cubs up until this day, just makes that interest even higher for some reason.

By the way Leaf fans, if you think 40 years is a long time to wait for a title, 2008 will mark the 100th anniversary of the Cubs last World Series triumph. Think about that!

I had the opportunity to interview Marcel Pronovost, Dick Duff and Jim Pappin on a Leafs special I did on the Fan 590 recently with Howard Berger, and it was great to reminisce about that great team, an “Over the Hill Gang” that upset the Chicago Black Hawks in the first round and then the Montreal Canadiens in the final.

You would think that four decades without another Cup would take some of the lustre off the franchise. You would think that nobody would want to talk about not winning the Cup for so long. You would think at some point the Leafs talk would be over-saturated, even in hockey mad Toronto.

You would think wrong on all three counts. The fact that the Leafs haven’t won a Cup in 40 years doesn’t diminish their place in Canadian sports culture any more than the Red Sox or Cubs aren’t diminished in the U.S, by not winning. Talking about the last Cup team never gets older, especially since fortunately so many of the players on that team are still with us. And Leaf talk in good times and bad times in Toronto – and across the country – just never gets old.

I’m just stating facts here, that’s just the way it is. Other sports have their day in the sun when the team is winning (like the Blue Jays for instance), but hockey and the Leafs always bring out the passion in Canadian sports fans.

It is what it is, as the saying goes. And the Leafs are a team like no other in this country’s history, with the events of this week showing that clearly.

So “happy anniversary” I guess to all leaf fans, although having to wait 40 years for another Cup sure makes the celebration a little bittersweet.

Make that 41 by the way – because they aren’t winning the Cup this year either. But Leaf fans can always hope, can’t they?

And because they can, the passion for them in this country will never die.    

Comments on The Rant of February 1 on the Super Bowl:

“Americans just know how to do it right The Rog. The Super Bowl is the best hyped event in the world, that’s why we all watch it.” – Steve in Toronto.

“Gambling. The success of the NFL is all about its relationship with gambling, it’s that simple.” – Chris in Oshawa.

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