IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT
04/26/2025

I never thought I'd be writing this. The reason being is that it goes against what is essentially a hard-coded subroutine set deep inside my psyche. One that was written by a very questionably sourced team which then left it to rot unmaintained for like twelve years. During these twelve years, the entire team has been swapped out multiple times, save for one guy who stopped giving a shit like eight years prior, but nobody can fire him because he's the only one who actually knows how the stack runs. However, history may be in the making, and I may have been given the fortunate misfortune of being in Toronto as it is being made.

Back when I played puck, as the cool kids (which I was, because I played puck) say, a key unofficial requirement of all the teams that I was on was keeping up to date with the NHL. I never understood this, because it wasn't like I was playing so why should I care, but when I brought this up, I learned very quickly that such statements were more or less the equivalent of high treason.

Fortunately for me, at around this time, a very well-known chain of events in Vancouver's history was taking place; this chain of events was so well publicized that even despite not having access to television, I was still able to follow along. Through this moment in history, which I was able to observe in real-time courtesy of the local movie theater, and the unyielding 100% unconditional support of my teammates, I was able to derive two breakthrough lines that completely revolutionized my integration into the minor hockey landscape: “Go Nucks!” and “Fuck Boston!”. For the first time in my life, I was able to truly feel like I was part of a team. Two months later we moved.

There's phenomenon known as the “uncanny valley”, wherein small levels of dissimilarity from the norm are actually more disturbing to the individual than larger, more obvious levels. During playoff season, this was non-obvious because everyone was basically running the same script. However, after a few months the servers get updated, and if the script stays the same, things start to break. The next season in the new town was the first time I observed this firsthand. When I dropped my lines, not only was I met with accusations of not following/caring about the league, but I was also accused of doing this while PRETENDING to care (which to be fair, was exactly what I was doing). It was at this time that I realized that if I wanted to keep my excuse to skate around fast and slapshot the puck, I needed another breakthrough.

This breakthrough came in the form of a relatively large teammate who referred to himself as “The Tank”, when he showed me what I later found out was called a meme, asking me if I understood it. The meme in question was the classic “Leafs fan waiting for the next cup” meme, depicting a skeleton wearing a Leafs jersey while sitting in a lawn chair. Never in my life have I understood something so clearly: everyone knows the Leafs were one of the Original Six NHL teams, and as such, their fanbase should naturally skew towards an older demographic. I was eager to prove myself to my new teammates, so I explained the full context of the joke in detail. As expected, they all laughed hysterically. Much like me, they found the idea of a bunch of geriatrics getting lit up with the boys during playoff season to be absolutely hilarious.

I wasn't going to make the same mistake as last time, however; I now knew that in order to keep up the façade, I needed a steady stream of new material through which I could demonstrate my nonexistent knowledge. Thankfully, what I had now was not just knowledge of some one-off series of events, but rather a generic template through which I could create a near-unlimited amount of tastefully crafted variations, giving my peers the impression that not only was I following the league, but that I was also a leading expert on it.

The core axioms were as follows: “Toronto fans are old”, “Old people are funny.”, “ Funny = good.” From this, a near-infinite amount of memes could be created with very minimal additional research. During this period, many absolute heaters were created; a few choice ones are listed below:

“Leafs fans when the retirement home won't let them watch the 'chel…”

“Leafs fans when the concession doesn't have oatmeal…”

“Leafs fans missing the game because they were driving too slow…”

“Leafs fans when they find out the coffin was made in Montreal…”

Of course, I didn't have a phone, so in order to have a template for these lines, I would briefly pretend to be either an old person or a skeleton depending on the context of the joke. My teammates thought this was hilarious, and as such, satirizing the Leafs became a core part of my hockey identity from that point on.

This new strategy also opened up a lot of doors for me. During tournaments, it got me into hotel rooms I would have otherwise never set foot in. Pretty soon, whenever I met someone new, I would be introduced to them as the kid with the best Leafs jokes. I even started to take pride in my craft, and I slowly but surely started conducting research on the league in order to refine it further. That was all until the coach stepped in and forbade any further mention of these jokes, he was a closeted Leafs fan and jealous of my wit.

Since then, I've learned a lot; first and foremost, I've learned that very few people actually care about the hockey itself, and the whole thing is really just an excuse to yell at either your team or the other team and their fans with your friends, as well as an excuse for everyone to in turn yell at the refs regardless of affiliation. I really wish someone would have explained this to me before, because I would have totally been down for it if knew what made it so fun.

Regardless, the past is in the past, and the only reason I'm bringing this up is to add a little context for why I don't make this decision lightly.

Life is short: It feels like only yesterday that I was pretending to be a skeleton in order to fit in with a town that loves to make fun of the Leafs, and here I am today living in the one place where people actually take them seriously. In this place, I can't help but think about just how many Leafs fans (and Leafs themselves) have lived and died, quite literally becoming skeletons, without ever tasting the lightly sweetened oatmeal flavour of victory.

It is for this reason that today I am formally announcing my temporary support for the Toronto Maple Leafs throughout this upcoming playoff season. Once again, I don't make this decision lightly, but given my unique living situation, and the possibly historic chain of events that may be unfolding, I believe that it is my duty to help out in any way that I can, even if that means de-jerseying one of the skeletons in my closet and cheering for the team that I, in a past life, dedicated significant mental resources towards lampooning with vicious enthusiasm and immaculate tact. Starting today, the Leafs will occupy my third favourite team spot, meaning that if someone asks me what my third favourite team is during this playoff season, I will say the Leafs (the first is the Canucks for obvious reasons and the second is the Seattle Cracken because the color is dope and I can misspell the name in a way that suits the city).

I seriously never thought I'd be saying this,

Go Leafs.