Ken Whitaker wasted no time rewording the sign outside the 17 Mile House Pub on Tuesday morning: “ANNUAL LEAFS ELIMINATION DAY.”
Note the emphasis. After Montreal beat archrival Toronto in game seven of their first round Stanley Cup series Monday night, Whitaker, the pub’s managing partner, did not display a message celebrating the victory of his beloved Canadiens. Instead, he put the focus where it belonged: the Maple Leafs lost.
This is the mark of a true fan. It’s not just about whom you love, but whom you loathe. Like the old joke says: “Who’s your favourite team?” “Whoever’s playing the Leafs.” There are Canadians who would cheer for Al-Qaeda before they would cheer for Toronto. Or Montreal. Or Vancouver.
Not only did the Leafs lose, but they lost the most-anticipated series since 1979, when Canada’s two most legendary teams last met in the playoffs. Further, it was a series Toronto was favoured to win, even before taking a 3-1 series lead, which they promptly squandered, choking as though on a coagulated mouthful of the 17 Mile’s Maple Leafs Poutine, which is described on the menu as “a cold overpriced dish served with underperforming gravy, ice-cold fries and a side of disappointment.” It is priced at $67, a reference to 1967, the year Toronto last won the Stanley Cup.
That’s not the pub’s only shot at Toronto. This past winter, the outdoor sign read something like “C’mon, they’re asking you to wear a mask, not a Maple Leafs sweater.” Inside, a No Leafs Fans sign glowers down from a wall.
If you wear Toronto gear, you risk getting a two per cent Maple Leafs surcharge added to your bill. For real. Some Leafs fans ask for it to be applied just so they can send a photo of the receipt to their friends, flaunting it like a battle scar.
But here’s the thing. Whitaker figures there are more Toronto fans than Habs fans in these parts. For Monday’s game, it was half and half in the 17 Mile. And the Leafs fans took the tongue-in-cheek ribbing in the spirit in which it was intended, or at least refrained from burning down Vancouver when their team lost, as Canucks fans did 10 years ago this month.
No, the Toronto fans, as blue as their sweaters, bore their loss stoically, as though realizing this was their role to play in the great Canadian drama. There is already enough resentment toward the Centre of the Universe. Should it be compounded by success on the ice, Confederation could fracture.
Or maybe they have just become used to disappointment. Think how long ago 1967 was. Radios were blaring that gawdawful Ca-na-da song. (YouTube it, Junior, if you want to have the worst earworm of all time stuck in your head.) Man hadn’t landed on the moon. No Trudeau had sat as prime minister. Most Canadians alive today had yet to be born. Still, Leafs fans cling to hope, year after year. It’s like watching Jimmy Hoffa’s dog sit at the end of the driveway, waiting for him to come home.
Yet despite the heartbreak — and really, we do get invested in our teams, knowing players’ numbers by heart while blanking on family birthdays — Habs fans and Leafs fans can gather in the same pub, and Whitaker can take good-natured pokes at Toronto, without anyone getting their knickers in too much of a twist. It’s good to live in a place like that.
There are parts of the world where wearing the wrong-coloured scarf into the wrong bar is a serious risk.
Here, fans tend to look at rival fans and see themselves in a different-coloured sweater. They recognize what they have in common, not what sets them apart, which is the way it should be in all of life. In reality, Whitaker had a lot of sympathy for Toronto’s disappointed supporters Tuesday.
Hang in there, Leafs fans. Your year will come.
