As a lifelong Toronto Maple Leafs fan, I have almost certainly described the Buds in every way imaginable. Whether praising them as the greatest, or calling them a bunch of lazy assholes when their penalty kill fails (which I seem to be doing more often as of late), I, like thousands of other Leaf fans, call them the works.
But I never thought I'd have to call them losers.
Not losers in the literal sense...because let's face it, they are losers in every literal sense of the word.
But this is more like the loser you knew in high school: the one who thought his shit didn't stink, who was the coolest guy in school...until he decided to throw a party, and nobody came. The loser who acted like everybody was his best friend, everybody loved him, when in fact almost nobody did.
That's our Leafs!The new ad campaign for the Leafs this year has focused on the phrase "
Spirit Is Everything," trying to capture the spirit and tradition of the Leafs to attract apparently the few millions the Leafs haven't already managed to suck out of a struggling city. But apparently the GTA, or even Ontario, is not enough, as these TV, radio and even sidewalk(!) ads have been broadcast across the country...declaring the Leafs as Canada's team. Oh, Taxi 2, I had such high hopes for you...
what's Taxi 1 been up to lately?Now, while it is true that up until NHL expansion in 1967, when Canada only had the Leafs or the Montreal Canadiens, a good chunk of Canada were behind the Leafs; anyone west of Ontario, or just against French Canadians, were virtually an automatic Leafs fan. But now in an era when Canada has had 8 total teams in five provinces play across this great land, the fact that the Leafs consider themselves so loved, when they are basically the exact opposite, is almost laughable.
(And while it shouldn't be rocket science that non-Ontarians obviously don't bleed blue and white, I got to learn firsthand through my website Colberta.com this past fall just how much the rest of Canada hates our Leafs - in fact, I got more hate mail from Albertans over the fact I support Leafs Nation than over the actual concept of me orchestrating a takeover of Alberta by Stephen Colbert!)
Is this some sort of desperate ploy by the Leafs, to try and expand their fanbase into hostile territory? Are they so strapped for cash (
they're not) that they need to look beyond the Greater Toronto Area for some affection? Is their ownership so desperate for attention (
they are) that they actually need to advertise the most impossible ticket in town
up and down Yonge Street?
You are pouting to a city very upset with you, Maple Leaf Sports & Ent Ltd. Inc. whatever whatever...first you run our team into the ground, still manage to raise ticket prices
to even higher astronomical levels, trade away our next two first rounders
for WHO?, and now have the audacity to waste more money advertising to a market that clearly despises us - we declare ourselves Hockeytown for decades, and Brian Burke even today declared T.O. the "centre of the hockey universe."
So why wouldn't a family from Kenora want to make the trip and plunk down $2000 to stay in a downtown hotel, pay our now $15-per-ride subway, and watch Vesa Toskala pull another muscle joint?Quit the bullshit, Leafs - stick to organizing your hockey team first, then worry about your P.R. Because no spin doctor in the universe will be able to justify year after year of losing (and not failing to win the Cup - I mean LOSING) before heads start to roll at MLSE.
We know you thought you were cool, we really do...but as you can see, nobody's interested.
For us Torontonians, spirit is nothing - RESULTS are everything.
I guess this article, besides being a hell of a lot funnier, really nails the issue down on the Iran election controversy, as my initial article was about eight months too early from the Ahma-tweet-ijad issue. While obviously turning Facebook/Twitter/clothing green to show solidarity with Iran, the "movement" could have just as easily been mistaken for a delayed St. Patrick's Day reaction. While there were small patches of protest in Iranian communities in North America and Europe, they reached nowhere near the capacity of those who showed passive support online, as the majority was evidently at home, according to the article, watching Conan O'Brien.
And while the Coco campaign obviously pales in comparison (no pun intended) to the situation that still today is a major issue in Iran, we see the same thing again. While there are small patches of rallies in some American cities, evidently slapping a black-and-white of Conan into your display picture in some way, through the myriad of internet servers and cable that run across America, tell Jeff Zucker in NBC to go fuck himself. Letters (even emails!) or phone calls be damned - let Facebook lead the way!
