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

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But all three also did something else when they left Toronto: they won the Stanley Cup.

It could be that there is a different form of so-called Blue and White disease, the affliction that occurs when certain players suddenly develop a higher opinion of themselves when they end up in Toronto. Perhaps this is a different strain of the same virus, one that paralyzes certain players’ abilities and is cured only when they leave town.

There has to be some explanation. I distinctly recall arriving at Maple Leaf Gardens on April 16, 1996, for a Leafs playoff game against the St. Louis Blues. The Leafs had been through a season of turmoil: Pat Burns had been fired and the little-known Nick Beverly had taken over on an interim basis. The Leafs were at the end of their time as a solid NHL team. Doug Gilmour and Wendel Clark had regressed just a hair, but more importantly their supporting cast wasn’t nearly as adept at stepping up the way they had in the two previous runs to the Campbell Conference finals. The final standings hadn’t been decided until the final game of the season a few nights earlier when the Leafs had beaten the Edmonton Oilers to move all the way up to the conference fourth seed. Heading into that game, there had been some serious questions about whether the Leafs were even going to make the playoffs. Tickets were relatively easy to come by once the final opening-round matchups were set, and I managed to scoop up a pair in the very last row of the greys for the Game 1 opener.