MONTREAL (Feb. 6) -- Near the end of a weather-beaten, traffic-snarled odyssey from my home in Thornhill, Ont. to downtown Montreal today -- a journey that lasted almost seven hours; only 46 minutes of it in the air -- I was asked an interesting and seemingly heartfelt question. It came from the limousine driver that took me to my hotel from P-E Trudeau Airport in Dorval. A French-Canadian man, nearing retirement age, but with an exceptional grasp of the English language, seemed terribly impressed when I told him what I do for a living. It was instantly clear that he was a long-time follower of the Canadiens -- dating to the Toe Blake-Jean Beliveau-Henri Richard-Gump Worsley dynasty of the 1960s. Accordingly, he spoke in glowing terms about the current Habs, threatening to overthrow Ottawa for the Eastern Conference lead, and hosting the Maple Leafs here on Thursday night.
After chatting in detail about my long history with the Leafs -- from days as a fan and season-ticket holder at Maple Leafs Gardens in the '70s and early-80s, to 15 seasons travelling with and covering the club for The Fan-590 -- the limo driver suddenly grew silent and introspective. I was wondering if I had said something that might have offended him. At a traffic light moments later, he looked back at me, shook his head, and simply asked, "How you people do it in that city?"
"How do we do what?" I replied, naively.
"Put up with that hockey team. It doesn't seem like it ever changes in Toronto. The Leafs are always bad. Every year, it's the same thing. The Canadiens haven't won the Stanley Cup for the longest time, but we usually have a respectable team here. And, if it's bad for a few years, it gets good really fast. In your city, it doesn't seem to matter. You have an awful team, year after year, but that arena is filled every night. Don't the people care? If we had that kind of team here all the time, there would be riots on the streets like in 1955. Canadiens' fans wouldn't put up with it, I can assure you."
My limo driver didn't understand, of course, the familiar tone of his commentary. What he considered mildly intriguing has long been a hot-button issue in Toronto -- a talking-point with little or no action. The 1955 reference was about the so-called "Richard Riot", when fans of the Canadiens rampaged along Ste. Catherine St. -- looting stores and over-turning automobiles -- after Rocket Richard had been suspended for the Stanley Cup playoffs by NHL president Clarence Campbell. The Rocket had punched a linesman by the name of Cliff Thompson during a Montreal-Boston game in mid-March, and Campbell barred him from playing for the balance of that season. The driver seemed to indicate that a similar demonstration would have occurred in this city long before the Canadiens had followed up a 40-year Cup famine with the type of nauseating season the Leafs are having this year.
"Our level of tolerance isn't even close to what it is in your town," he said to me. "The hockey fans in Montreal obviously like to see the Habs beat the Leafs because of the history between the teams. But, I honestly believe there are Canadiens' fans who feel sorry for you people there. They have some sympathy. It's amazing how you can be so loyal."
This has been a subject of intense bewilderment for as long as most Maple Leaf fans can remember. Readers of this column, and listeners to The Fan-590, often become upset with me for harping on the issue, for I believe it's the root-cause of all the garbage Toronto hockey fanatics have been subject to over the years. The actual cause, of course, is inept management that trickles down from indifferent ownership. That indifference, however, is a direct result of the absence of any challenge from hockey public. No person ever put it more accurately or plainly than former Canadiens' goalie Ken Dryden, when Dryden was operating the Leafs as president and GM.
"Watching the Leafs and attending their games is simply a habit," he said a few years ago. "A habit that no one can or, seemingly, wants to break."
And, that's the essence of it, in a nutshell. Leaf followers are the champion of two-faced sports fans. They bitch and moan and curse at their team; even cheering for the opposition as in the late stages of the Florida massacre Tuesday night. But, they have no capacity to offer meaningful resistence. Like sheep, they mindlessly flock to the arena every hockey night, in every disastrous season. It's much the same in New York, where the Rangers can miss the playoffs for seven consecutive years and not lose a single ticket-buyer. The difference between New York and Toronto, however, is that hockey attention and reverence largely begins and ends at the walls of Madison Square Garden. In our town, the Leafs are an all-consuming subject whose fans are caught in an endless cycle of carefree mediocrity. It's an extremely sensitive subject that engenders fury among those who are most hopelessly entrapped. My e-mail box will be shrieking with these folks minutes from now.
It's a topic, however, that is rarely offered up by people outside Toronto.
That's why I found my limousine driver's emotional dialogue so intriguing earlier today.
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