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

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Another example: back in the early 1990s I was attending my then-girlfriend’s high school prom. The tuxedo I wore to the festivities for some reason came without cuff links. I borrowed some from a friend, who had gotten them from his father as a birthday gift. His father was in the early stages of MS, a disease that claimed his life about a decade later. “Robinson,” my friend said to me as he was showing me how to put them in my shirt, “I’m not going to be getting too many more gifts from my father, so make sure they get back to me.”

The cuff links were adorned with the Maple Leafs logo, a simple gift from a father to his son that meant infinitely more than the few dollars they cost. Back then, still a teenager, there was little in my life that I took seriously, but I made sure I got those cuff links back to my friend.

About ten years later, his father having died two years before, that same friend and I were in a Toronto bar watching Canada defeat the U.S. and win gold at the Salt Lake Olympics. In the glorious moments that followed that victory — it came fifty years to the day since Canada had last won Olympic men’s hockey gold — I glanced over at my friend. I could see tears in his eyes. I instantly knew that he was thinking about his dad and how much he would have liked to watch that game with him. Both having been Leafs supporters, if my friend is fortunate enough to witness a Toronto Stanley Cup win in his lifetime, I know the first thing he will think about is his father.