Many years ago, I used to both watch the Leafs religiously and post on this forum at a correspondingly prodigious rate. I've always been out of market but I did my best. I didn't grow up in a hockey family and have never lived in Canada, I picked the Maple Leafs as a kid because I had a Canadiens fan friend and I wanted to piss him off; I figured out that trolling him as a Nordiques fan would be less believable because I speak no French.
There were some fun moments, like that 2002 playoff series against the Islanders, but following the team became a drag after the lockout. It became tiresome to watch the team make the same short-sighted mistakes year after year (putting band-aids on wounds that needed reconstructive surgery) and watching the team really became a chore. The Kessel trade and watching Tyler Seguin go to the Bruins made me take a bit of a break; I watched the team on occasion but didn't make it a must-do. It was hard to be emotionally attached to a professional sports team that made me so miserable, and unlike NFL football (which is 1x/week and usually on a weekend) a NHL team plays a shitload of games that take up a ton of your free time.
Anyway, fast forward through the Burke and Nonis eras and eventually around 2015, I start to hear words like "rebuild", "tank", "draft" and "prospects"...words I thought the Maple Leafs didn't believe in but that I was a very strong proponent of. That got me excited, and the highest point was in April of 2016 when they won the draft lottery. I was thrilled, and I believed them when they said they wouldn't try to fast-track things. Well, that's kind of what they did when they moved picks for rentals when they were in no position to do so, but they didn't give up things of extraordinary value so while annoying it wasn't devastating by any stretch. What WAS devastating, however, was the fallout from the contract negotations and signings for Nylander, Matthews and Marner. They not only followed the Muskoka 5 Playbook step-by-step, they wrote their own brand new "upgraded" edition of the playbook. Seeing all that transpire the way it did convinced me that 1) these guys were concerned primarily with their own brand and not with team success; and 2) existing management was unwilling or incapable of making tough decisions. At this point, I'm no longer a kid, I had a family of my own and didn't even remotely have the time to spend on a team that looked like it was heading down the same dumbass paths it had gone down in the past, just with better players. So I started to lose touch with the team years ago, and given the NHL changing into a watered-down league with limited physicality and systems play above all else, I didn't really find NHL hockey very interesting to watch. So, while I never had (and never would) switched teams, I just completely lost touch with the Leafs a few years ago and I feel very fortunate that it happened that way because if I were watching every game at the time the David Ayres thing happened I would have had to go into a mental institution because you 100% knew then and there (if not before) this team would never, ever compete when the going gets tough.
I don't know how you all find the time to watch all these games, and I even more wonder how you are willing to put up with a group of players and management that very clearly do NOT "get it." I salute each and every one of you that still watch this shit. You are far better fans, and probably better people, than I. You are the guys/girls/pronouns that deserve a Cup infinitely more than any Maple Leafs employee. I truly wish that each and every one of you get to experience hockey happiness one day.
