I’m not an expert on Canada or Toronto, but I’ve missed the “biggest city on a Great Lake” trivia question enough times to know Toronto is large. Large enough to make me uncomfortable. I also went to Toronto once in college. We stayed in a neighborhood with a lot of Greek people. I asked someone if Toronto had a big Greek population, like Chicago does. The person glanced at all the Greek stuff around us, then replied, “No.” I realize today that they were messing with me, but the joke worked. For the last twelve years, I thought Toronto was so big it could write off entire neighborhoods of Greeks. Like how some folks in the SEC don’t recognize the existence of anything non-airport south and west of downtown Atlanta.
A week and a half ago, before the Toronto Maple Leafs took a 3–0 series lead over the Ottawa Senators then turned it into a 3–2 series lead over the Ottawa Senators, we described the Leafs as the Yankees, except if halfway through their history the Yankees turned into the New York Jets.
I don’t think this does it justice.
The New York Jets are futile. Don’t get me wrong. The Jets aren’t really the problem here. Yankees is too much, though. The Leafs’ pre- expansion success isn’t on the level of what the Yankees did before Major League Baseball expanded, and it mostly happened when the NHL only had six teams. (The AL and NL had a combined 16.) It’s a bad comparison, and I’m sorry, and I’ve spoken to the relevant powers about a proper punishment. I now owe George Steinbrenner’s ghost one troubling rumor about Dave Winfield.
The other issues with the comparison—beyond the Yankees being better pre-Beatles than the Leafs were—is that Toronto, again, is huge, and that even when baseball was the biggest sport in the United States, like hockey is in Canada, there were other baseball teams in New York to dilute the Yankees’ power. The Toronto metro area makes up about a sixth of Canada’s population, three times more than what New York comprises of the U.S.A.’s. Hockey is Canada’s identity in a way even football doesn’t represent the United States. There’s no second NHL team in Toronto. The share of attention Canada directs toward the Leafs dwarfs anything America knows. In English-speaking Canada, it’s an even bigger share.
I think the American equivalent to the Leafs in Canada would be this: Pretend football was never invented. Pretend Taylor Swift is a baseball team. Pretend that baseball team has the Yankees’ money and the 2000’s Cubs’ all-time history. Finally, pretend that baseball team plays in a city that’s somehow a combination of New York, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia. I don’t mean an average of those three. I mean a combination.
That’s the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Now.
Pretend we put our nation’s capital in Columbus, Ohio, and that we gave Columbus a baseball team in the 90’s because we got bored and they used to have one in prehistoric times. Pretend that team is societally equivalent to Fred Armisen. Pretend that team is led by a cartoon character named “Brady Tkachuk” who’s basically Popeye mixed with Bart Simpson. Pretend there’s a quick little German boy who follows Brady/Popeye/Bart around, plus a cowboy with gigantic ears who gets the gang out of trouble.
That’s the Ottawa Senators.
I still don’t think this illustrates how funny it will be in Canada if the Senators win Game 6 tonight and tie this series. I’m afraid I’m not capable of capturing this moment, that I’d need a year-long immersion program in Sudbury to even sniff what this would mean to our northern neighbors. I needed to give it an attempt, though. The Leafs are hilarious, and the Leafs are a big deal, and the Sens are hilarious, and the Sens are a small deal. Do not confuse the Battle of Ontario with something gallant and strong. This is not the Battle of Alberta. This is Yankees/Mets, but if the Yankees always sucked.
Maybe that’s the comparison I should have started with.
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