Читать книгу Hope and Heartbreak in Toronto. Life as a Maple Leafs Fan онлайн

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In the complicated world of team/fan relations, the Leafs don’t use a device normally reserved for four-legged beasts of burden; instead, their method of inflicting pain on its followers could be better described as death by a thousand cuts. That’s what it’s been akin to — a lifetime of anticipation, a bit of teasing, oftentimes utter incompetence, and, ultimately, failure. There have been reasons to be optimistic. Until the long post-lockout run of playoff misses, the Leafs could be called the most successful Canadian team in the era that ran from the 1992–93 season, which is generally assumed to be about the point that hockey started to undergo a massive transformation, until the spring of 2004, before the work stoppage.

Calling the Leafs the best Canadian team in that span does require a small leap of faith because the Montreal Canadiens won the 1993 Stanley Cup and both the Calgary Flames and Vancouver Canucks came within a game of doing the same in 2004 and 1994 respectively. The Leafs also missed the playoffs twice during that time, but that was hardly a rare event for Canadian teams, who all struggled to a degree keeping up to hockey’s changing economics. But, on balance, I would say that Toronto was the best Canadian team during that span because the Leafs did make it to the conference final four times. The club was generally assumed to be a good bet to win at least one playoff round every year it did make the playoffs. Not an impeccable record of success, but not table scraps either.