A playoff plea from a dejected Toronto Maple Leafs fan: please, just win

As a Leafs fan, waiting for puck drop before the team's first game of the Stanley Cup playoffs is a lot like the anticipation before Christmas morning — only there's a chance that Santa punches you in the face for ever believing in him. 

I tweeted that message last year, and the sentiment still rings true. For fans of this cursed Toronto hockey team, it's more or less the plot of Groundhog Day: once again it's April, and the Leafs are about to head into a hotly contested first round series with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss — sunrise, sunset.

Every year, Leaf fans trudge to their TVs (or Scotiabank Arena, for the affluent among us) and hope that this time it might be different, that the team won't play the part of Lucy holding the football while we stand in as Charlie Brown, praying to not end up flat on our backs while other fan bases point and laugh.

Now, take what I say here with a grain of salt. I'm not a sports reporter and I don't cover the team — in this case, I'm a glorified fan with a thesaurus, lacking any knowledge of the organization's inner workings.

What I do have, however, is years of suffering at my disposal. Now I know what you're thinking: suffering? That feels a bit extreme. Isn't all sports essentially collective pain felt by a group of people wearing similar logos, interspersed with fleeting bouts of intense joy?

That's the thing: for Leafs fans, where is our joy? Where is the exhilaration that makes the suffering worth it?

Sure, there have been small glimpses here and there. After a decade of absolute mediocrity, the Leafs drafted exceptional talent Auston Matthews in 2016. He now holds the team record for most goals in a single season, with 60 in 2021-2022.

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