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It’s a schoolyard truism that the kid who won’t stop sticking gum in your hair is secretly in love with you. Maybe that’s it.sacs louis vuitton Maybe ESPN pines so hard for Toronto that the only way it can figure out how to catch our attention is to keep tripping us in the lineup after recess. America’s loudest sports mouthpiece is at it again. In June, ESPN: The Magazine ranked Toronto the worst sports city in North America based on the aggregate performance of our pro franchises. In that case, there was a goofy sort of numeracy used to tally up the result, which kept things semi-professional. Now it’s starting to feel personal. In case we didn’t get it the first time, they upped the geographic ante Tuesday with a screed entitled, “Toronto: The Worst Sports City in the World.” This was published on ESPN’s upmarket web platform, Grantland, which makes it a little like getting punched in the nads by The New Yorker. In the coming months, they plan a 30 for 30 episode narrated by Martians called “Toronto: The Whole Galaxy Hates Your Guts.” The specifics of the case against us are familiar to anyone who follows sports in this town and, at this point, incredibly boring. The thesis boils down to this — Nobody loves hockey more than Toronto; and Toronto is terrible at hockey. At its heart is the logical fallacy that the goal of the executives who run the Maple Leafs is to lose as many games as possible. Once and for all, it isn’t. The NHL has a salary cap. Assembling a losing team is just as expensive as putting together a winning one, and a lot less fun in the bargain. If there’s a fault at the top, it’s one of incompetence, not some queer capitalist cabal. In fact, the ‘unrequited love’ model being dangled in front of us like a dead rodent is the defining feature of a great sports town. A great sports town sticks with its club despite the fact that they’re wretched. They have a term for conditional love in sports — it’s called front running. The fact that MLSE hasn’t put together a winner should not oblige fans in this city to stop attending, watching or caring about hockey games. That’s punishing the innocent. Giving up on the Leafs won’t teach anyone a lesson. It’s just going to force you to fill your empty evening hours with yoga or model ship building or something equally depressing. Would it be better if we were, say, Pittsburgh? Pittsburgh is the anti-Toronto. They’re glamorous contenders. They’ve embraced the Penguins, but only so long as it’s the Crosby/Malkin/Staal Penguins. It’s easy to keep faith when you’re on top. The soul of a fan base only reveals itself after a half-decade post-season drought. The ‘losers love losers’ assessment also assumes that Toronto fans have somehow been hoodwinked by ownership. They haven’t. They very vocally haven’t. Being a Leafs fan right now isn’t some sort of hippy celebration of ineptitude. It’s about raging against their faults. Toronto fans, there’s a reason why the Brad Richards’ of the world won’t come here — it’s because they’re afraid of disappointing you. That’s a healthy fear. As soon as that fear fades, we’re on the path to becoming Nashville or the Islanders. No one suggests that the Cowboys or the Cubs are crummy franchises because they expect success, but haven’t achieved it recently. The opposite is true. Expectation should always outstrip results — that’s the successful person’s credo right there.
