Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews during the loss to Tampa Bay in Toronto on April 18.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
In the newspaper game, the Sports section is sometimes called “the toy department.” The term originated decades ago as an insult wielded by the more hard-bitten “real” news folks, but it’s hard to be offended, because there’s also an element of truth to it: Most of us developed our appreciation for sports at a young age, and whenever we watch or play, there’s a childlike element threaded through the enjoyment. Besides, why should kids be the only ones to enjoy the simple pleasures of a well-thwacked ball, or the clang of a puck as it caroms off the crossbar and into the net?
And of course, if you’re a Toronto Maple Leafs fan, you’ve likely been in a state of arrested development since 2004, when the team last won a playoff series – if not 1967, when the Leafs won it all. Your stunted emotional state isn’t entirely your fault.
Still, it can be disconcerting, as an adult watching a sports broadcast, to be served up a fairy tale.
On Tuesday night, fans of the Maple Leafs who tuned in to Sportsnet’s broadcast of the team’s first playoff game against the Tampa Bay Lightning were greeted by an on-air crew who seemed almost exhilarated to tell a soothing new story: This team is different, they said. This time is different.
Mere seconds into the half-hour Hockey Central pre-show, Kelly Hrudey gushed about the Leafs’ chances, and was eager to dispel any memories of the team’s nightmarish first-round exit last season. “Even though they had a devastating loss last year to Tampa – and Tampa, they’re beatable – they’re not even going to be thinking about that,” he told viewers, who may or may not have sputtered incredulously in response. “They’re going to be thinking about another great opportunity.”
Elliotte Friedman chimed in, praising the Leafs for turning the tables on the Lightning in their most recent regular-season match and whomping them with an intensely physical brand of play. “I think this is the deepest team Toronto has had since it first made the playoffs in 2017,” he offered. Kevin Bieksa mentioned the Lightning’s injury-riddled defence corps, saying, “They’re a little bit ripe for the picking.”
In a separate interview, Derek Lalonde, the current Detroit Red Wings head coach and former Lightning assistant coach who has joined Sportsnet as a guest analyst for the playoffs, told Ron MacLean that he’s “impressed with what [the Leafs] have done over the last three, four years. It’s a credit to [head coach] Sheldon [Keefe] and his staff. This team is ready to win. I’m not going to say they’re going to win this series. They are ready to win.”
If you were a Leafs fan, that communal assessment – by experts, no less, not just some guys at the bar – had to put you in a pretty buoyant mood by the time the puck dropped: This will be the year. Surely Kelly, Kevin, and Elliotte – and, heck, a real head coach – can’t all be wrong.
Seventy-eight seconds into the game, you might have begun to wonder about the happy ending you feel you were promised, when Ilya Samsonov let in his first goal on Tampa’s second shot.
By the time the cameras returned to the Sportsnet studio at first intermission, with the Leafs already down 3-0, cognitive dissonance was erupting across the screen. “I didn’t see this coming,” Hrudey admitted. “I didn’t recognize the Leafs, to be honest with you.”
Friedman picked up the theme. “I’m just shocked at what we saw out there,” he said.
Still, there were two periods left to play – plenty of hockey. It would be fine, right? Right?!
Friedman had reassuring words. He admired how Keefe had kept his cool on the bench. “If the coach is freaking out, you’re even more doomed than you might look.” And just in case things continued to go sideways the rest of the night, he reminded Leafs Nation that the team had won last year’s first game against Tampa 5-0 – and had then gone on to lose in seven games. “You do get a redo, a start-over to reset the tone for the series,” he promised.
Lalonde added approvingly that Keefe will “calm that group down. That’s the experience that I’ve talked about.”
The message from the experts was clear. The Leafs would find their form.
When they didn’t, there were other silver linings to be mined. With the score 6-2 only three minutes into the third period, analyst Craig Simpson said it was still important for the Leafs to play hard. “If nothing else, you gotta’ get a couple of moral victories … establish some pressure, get [Tampa] back on their heels.” A few minutes later, Tampa scored its seventh goal.
Centuries ago, fairy tales used to be dark affairs, cautionary tales to warn children of the very real dangers of the world: Don’t wander into a stranger’s home or you might get baked into a pie; don’t pretend to be a pig if your friend has a knife and wants to pretend to be a butcher, etc. But over time, in our eagerness to protect kids, we’ve stopped telling many of the tales, and sanitized the rest. (Well, not totally: Sleeping Beauty is still pretty creepy, to be honest.)
Sportsnet knows Leafs fans need hope if they’re going to carry on – or, more to the point, if they’re going to keep tuning in. But maybe, while they’re holding out the promise of a happy ending, they could remind us there’s a wolf lurking just outside the door, and he’s hungry.