The Dog Days of Summer...

You know what? It’s hard writing a hockey blog in August. Maybe it’s because it was 38 degrees outside when I started this post. Maybe it’s the fact that I can’t get signed up for my Friday pick-up game this fall because the guy that runs it is on vacation. Maybe it’s that the last major news out of the Leaf mothership was the Wade Belak signing. (See Wardo’s excellent comments on that subject.)
Still, I feel like I have to contribute. Wardo’s post production probably outpaces mine by about a thousand to one by now, so I’d better write something.

That’s why I’m going old school and recounting my favourite Leaf memory: The '93 playoff win over Detroit. After that I’m going to re-enact the movie Old School by streaking through the quad. It’s okay, everybody’s doing it…

That whole season was a roller coaster. Fletcher had hired Pat Burns as head coach, and picked up Fuhr. He also fleeced Calgary of Gilmour, Dave Ellett, Jamie Macon etc., for Leeman and a bunch of spare parts. To this day this stands as the most lopsided trade I can remember. (Not to mention the first one I can recall that actually worked out in our favour). I can only imagine the incriminating pictures of Flames GM Doug Risebrough that factored into that deal. We should run some sort of Photoshop contest. Incidentally, if you know any Calgary fans, make sure you recount the story of this trade to them often. They never get tired of hearing about it.

Cliff Fletcher: Leaf Nation Saviour

Back then, the Wings were the only real Leafs rival we had, and my buddy Matt is a huge Detroit fan, so we had our own microcosm of the whole Wings/Leafs rivalry at every game. Detroit had Yzerman, Federov, Coffey, and a young Lidstrom in '92/'93. The Leafs were two years removed from essentially being an expansion team, so Matt felt pretty confident. For my part, I had zero expectations, even if the Leafs did have 99 points that season. Call it conditioning. A lifetime of Ballard had pretty much crushed all of my hopes that the Leafs might ever succeed at anything. The series just kept going though, and the Leafs kept winning. It was unreal. Borshevsky’s overtime goal to win game seven was without a doubt the greatest Leafs-related moment of my life.

Ironically, whenever Jay and I play Sega Hockey '93 though, we always turn line changes off and swap Borshevsky for Wendel, so the diminutive Russian never gets to play. History may support Nik's playoff prowess, but in Sega hockey a sneeze will knock him off the puck. On the other hand, Wendel’s just awesome. He’s not Roenick, but he is the best video game Leaf of his era.

Thinking about my reaction to that goal, I wonder what I would do if the Leafs actually do win the cup. I saw the footage this spring of Edmonton fans after they took out the Sharks. Their cup wins aren't that far removed. What would Toronto be like in that situation? Would people laugh? cry? riot? hold hands and sing like the Grinch just stole Christmas? I can't even picture it.

Too bad it'll be another 10 months before we even get a chance to find out. Of course as Leaf fans, we're pretty much used to that sad fact.

AN UNRELATED TANGENT...

Since we're on the subject, here's a quick Matt story. Matt calls me up one day and tells me about these two guys he works with. "It's the most disfunctional workplace ever. These two guys fight constantly. One day I walk in and they're yelling at each other. The one guy shouts: IF I HAD TELEKENETIC POWERS I WOULD MAKE YOUR HEAD EXPLODE!"

"The other guy keeps yelling at him, but the first guy (the head exploding guy) is just standing there with his eyes closed and his fingers pressed against his temples going: NUH-NUH-NUH-NUH-NUH!"

That's just classic comedy.