Riley died shortly after his fifth birthday, on February 1, 2011.
It’s a question that confounds many people across the hockey world and even some who consider themselves Leafs fan: Why? What is it about a hockey team that makes Angus Ronalds’s story so common, even with its extraordinary and utterly sad details? Ronalds wasn’t the first father to bring his terminally ill son to see a Leafs game, and he certainly won’t be the last.
The team has been mostly a losing or mediocre club on the ice for the past four decades and is owned by a largely faceless patchwork of corporate interests. So why does the club have such a hold on its fans? It is supposed to be in the business of winning hockey games, yet business has thrived despite the fact that the team has never been so unsuccessful on the ice in its near century of existence.
With the possible exception of the LA Lakers and one or two National Football League and Major League Baseball teams, there is no North American sports franchise that can count on unconditional support from its fans the way the Leafs can. But all those others franchises, aside from possibly the Chicago Cubs, win.
So what is it that makes the Toronto Maple Leafs so popular?
To a certain degree the need for us to share a common goal or interest with others keeps fans coming back in any sport. That’s been especially true in the past fifty years or so because sports have in many ways filled a void that was previously taken up by the sheer struggle to survive.
It’s a vexing question — why do we need to support anyone? Is it a primal need, a longing to belong to a group? Whatever the answer to that question, many professional sports teams in leagues around the world have stepped into that void created as our lives have evolved for the better. But beyond that, there is still something different when it comes to the Leafs. They have crept into, if not their collective fans’ soul, at least into that grey area that lurks between it and our DNA.
They are there and they’re not leaving.
Given everything Leafs fans have been through — the Harold Ballard years, the inexorable, corporately funded march toward and obsession about fattening the bottom line that started soon after, and now the post-lockout drought — if they were going to take their leave, they would have done it long ago. These otherwise intelligent people, who, frankly, ought to know better, wouldn’t even consider switching their allegiance. The bond is so strong, it’s almost scary.
A few years ago, a particular man in his fifties died from cancer. In every way, he was an average Toronto-area man except that he died too young. A passionate Leafs fan, he had been a solid hockey player in his youth and a quality recreational player right up until soon before he passed away. Not a religious man, he was seen off from this world in a secular tribute; anyone who wanted to speak was invited to say a few words. One man stepped forward. Clearly shaken, he swallowed hard, pulled out a beer and cracked it open, and raised it in a toast to his friend: “You were the best fucking defenceman I ever seen,” he said. He then took a drink over his friend’s Maple-Leafs-flag-draped casket and sat back down.
Another example: back in the early 1990s I was attending my then-girlfriend’s high school prom. The tuxedo I wore to the festivities for some reason came without cuff links. I borrowed some from a friend, who had gotten them from his father as a birthday gift. His father was in the early stages of MS, a disease that claimed his life about a decade later. “Robinson,” my friend said to me as he was showing me how to put them in my shirt, “I’m not going to be getting too many more gifts from my father, so make sure they get back to me.”
The cuff links were adorned with the Maple Leafs logo, a simple gift from a father to his son that meant infinitely more than the few dollars they cost. Back then, still a teenager, there was little in my life that I took seriously, but I made sure I got those cuff links back to my friend.
About ten years later, his father having died two years before, that same friend and I were in a Toronto bar watching Canada defeat the U.S. and win gold at the Salt Lake Olympics. In the glorious moments that followed that victory — it came fifty years to the day since Canada had last won Olympic men’s hockey gold — I glanced over at my friend. I could see tears in his eyes. I instantly knew that he was thinking about his dad and how much he would have liked to watch that game with him. Both having been Leafs supporters, if my friend is fortunate enough to witness a Toronto Stanley Cup win in his lifetime, I know the first thing he will think about is his father.
The bonds go beyond death.
As any Canadian knows, the story is pretty much the same across the hockey-obsessed nation. It’s difficult to imagine the scenes that will unfold when a Canadian team finally breaks the two-decade hex that the country’s NHL clubs have experienced since the Montreal Canadiens last won the Cup in ’93.
Leaving Canada Hockey Place on February 28, 2010, after watching Canada defeat the U.S. to win the men’s hockey gold medal at the Vancouver Olympics, I had one overriding thought: I hope to live a charmed enough life to experience the same thing someday when the Leafs win the Stanley Cup.
Aside from getting married and the birth of my children, I haven’t experienced that feeling of sheer joy I did in Vancouver that day. I can’t imagine feeling it again, aside from being able to witness seminal moments in my own children’s lives.
But what if the Leafs did win the Stanley Cup? When and if that day finally comes, it goes beyond words to describe how happy I will be. That would be especially true if I could experience it with my son, who I hope, selfishly perhaps, grows up to be a Leafs fan.
As we all know, Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal in Vancouver. Permanently etched in my mind, as it is for so many other Canadians, is the image of Crosby crouched down, looking almost in disbelief as he waited for his teammates to pile on top of him. It was as if for the first time in his life, Sid the Kid’s remarkable physical gifts had failed him and he just sat there, overcome with the moment. That image is now on par with the grainy black and white pictures of Paul Henderson’s goal in Moscow in 1972 and Mario Lemieux’s in Hamilton in 1987.
Imagine if the Leafs ever win the Stanley Cup in a similar manner. What kind of iconic image of the goal scorer will live on? And who will that goal scorer be? As unbelievable as it sounds, he could be playing on the Leafs right now. Or he could be a little boy who goes to bed every night in some place like Peterborough, or Penticton, or Pardubice dreaming of doing it.
If it ever happens, there will be a lot of people, both alive and no longer with us, who can rest in peace.
2
Long Walk in the NHL Desert
Like a lot of enlightening moments, mine came to me at the oddest of times. I was overseas in Germany in the spring of 2001, desperately trying to find a venue to watch the Leafs play the New Jersey Devils in a conference semifinal playoff matchup. I was covering the men’s world hockey championship, a work trip that sounded agreeable in theory, but in practice it was proving painful and not particularly lucrative. It was also conflicting directly with the NHL playoffs.
Done work for the night, I was winding my way through a collection of back streets that were notable for their medieval feel and the Second World War bomb damage that was still faintly visible on some of the buildings. The time difference between Europe and North America would let me watch the pivotal Game 5 of the Leafs–Devils series if I could only locate the bar where it was alleged it was to be shown. During my search, I began to realize that my meandering had taken me to an area
