Hope and Heartbreak in Toronto. Peter Robinson

      I got to the subway about five minutes late.

      Jason and I had worked together for many years at SCOREGolf, where he was that publication’s managing editor. He’s a fine wordsmith in the sense that he can polish others’ work and he’s pretty handy with his own pen. He doesn’t suffer fools to the point that he can be a bit on the grumpy side with dunderhead colleagues and late friends. And I was often both.

      This time, however, I managed to mutter something about being confused about where I was to meet him — the concourse of Jane Station or the actual platform — and he accepted the oversight. We caught the next train, and to this day he is unaware of the conundrum I faced a half-hour earlier. To him, it was just another trip down to the ACC.

      That night, the Leafs buzzed all over the place, firing forty-four shots at the net occupied by Bruins goalie Tim Thomas, but not a single one got past the burly Michigander. The Bruins didn’t have nearly as tough a task slipping the disc past their former teammate Andrew Raycroft, who is as bean-pole skinny as Thomas is squat.

      It’s amazing that Raycroft managed to accomplish three things during his two short seasons in Toronto. The first is that he won thirty-seven games his first season, which is technically a share of the team record with Ed Belfour. In reality, Raycroft won three games in shootouts, which weren’t used as a method of breaking ties when Belfour was a Leaf.

      Raycroft’s second great accomplishment is that he still makes Leaf fans’ ears burn at the thought of how he was handed the starting job in 2006–07 in order to validate the trading away of hotshot prospect Tuukka Rask. Completely incapable of stealing a win, or even standing firm in the crease in a key game, Raycroft was among the statistical minnows at his position. During his so-called record-tying season, most Leafs followers will tell you they have more memories of him looking forlornly over his shoulder at a puck that escaped his timely attention, or with his baseball cap affixed to his head, sitting on the bench, after being pulled.

      The last great achievement of Raycroft is that he managed to make a folk hero out of a man named Jean-Sebastien Aubin. Aubin was a career journeyman who had put together an inexplicable 9–0–2 run when he took over the starter’s job a season earlier when Belfour was hurt and Mikael Tellqvist wasn’t up to the job. Aubin earned a contract extension but Raycroft was anointed the starter when he arrived in town without really earning it. Aubin was forced to sit and wait for opportunities such as the one he was about to get on this night.

      With Raycroft playing against his old team, it was obvious the Bruins knew how to pick him apart, and by the start of the third period, his rear end was fastened as tightly to the Leafs bench as the customary cap was on his head.

      The Leafs lost 3–0, even though they grossly outplayed the Bruins. They missed the playoffs that season by a single point, and the loss that night was one of a handful that could be identified as crucial setbacks.

      But the Robinson household had something else to look forward to that spring, even if there was to be no playoff hockey. Baby number one was on its way. In due course the dizzying whirl that is life for young couples expecting for the first time confirmed that my balancing act on that February night really was a job well done. Even though the Leafs were shutout that night, I had managed to break one past the goalie.