I really never intended to write this much about hockey, but something quite distasteful is going down between the fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the fans of the Boston Bruins. It’s more than just the usual taunts. In Boston, a Toronto fan was knocked unconscious for cheering his team. And in Toronto, one fan’s sign has plunged new depths of offense.
The sign reads, Toronto Stronger.
Yes, in an attempt to take a swipe at an opposing team, a fan has decided to mock the Boston Strong sentiment that arose from last month’s bombings.
Can we all just hate the Leafs and the Bruins now?
If I understand correctly, Toronto has not been in the playoffs for some time now, yes? Given that I assume the city is a hockey hotbed but has been on a run of struggling, it is not wholly surprising that this is how they are responding to whatever success they’ve achieved this year. It’s a damn shame, though. In the days after Marathon Monday, a number of teams and cities made amazing gestures of solidarity and support towards Boston and its people and teams (most notably one of the major Chicago paper and the New York Yankees). Those groups appropriately recognized that support might divide us along certain lines, but there are stronger bonds that unite us all. Similarly to what we saw between LA and SF fans recently (forgive me for forgetting which side was the aggressor and which the victim, but I know it ended with someone in the hospital in serious condition), some people don’t get that. And it’s a real, damn shame.
Yes, Toronto hasn’t been to the playoffs in nine years, I believe. I understand that some fans are kind of losing their minds over this, but this gesture is quite regrettable.
On a tangential note, my friend Mike was on Play with AJ the other day (a show on MTV Canada) and he gave a rant that the outpouring of support for Boston after the marathon was wonderful, but that now we needed to help Boston get back to normalcy and the way to do that was to start hating their sports teams again. He declared that he’d hate the Bruins and the Bo Sox out of love.
forgive me for forgetting which side was the aggressor and which the victim, but I know it ended with someone in the hospital in serious condition
I’ll give you a hint. I wished you’d Googled it and named the right culprit.
My apologies, Mike. I didn’t mean to slight the victim or tarnish a fan base that had nothing to do with it. It was indeed a Giants fan beaten at the hands of a couple of Dodgers fans. I was working from my phone so the whole GoogleFu skills are weak. I was pretty sure that was how it went down but didn’t want to risk naming the wrong folks. Regardless of which way that went, it’s disgusting and flies in the face of everything sports and fandom are about.
I’ll argue sports with the rest of them, but it really isn’t something worth getting angry about and certainly isn’t something ever worth doing harm to another human being over.
If it ain’t Denver/Detroit, the finals will suck.
I can see two things wrong with this statement.
“Can we all just hate the Leafs and the Bruins now?”
Done and done. Finally something we can agree on. If you were expecting any class from Leafs fans, well I hope you have something to fill your spare time up while you wait. I can’t watch the Sens play the Leafs at home at SBP because of their booing of our captain Daniel Alfredsson. It is truly vomitous. These are mostly 20 something drunk men, that have grown up and lived in Ottawa, since the Senators re-entered the leaugue. Why exactly are they Leaf fans anyways? They are beyond horrible. I (strongly dislike because I don’t use the word hate) their whole city and most everyone that lives there.