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Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews figured to have the city all to himself this season, but that was before the Toronto Blue Jays captured the hearts of a country.Jeffrey T. Barnes/The Associated Press
When Mitch Marner parachuted out of Toronto in June, Auston Matthews finally had what you’d figure every hockey star in a hockey town wants – the whole place to himself.
The Blue Jays were a hopeless cause, and the Raptors figured somewhere beneath that.
Opening day of the Leafs’ season wouldn’t just be punching in for another year of well-paid disappointment. It would be a low-key coronation. Matthews was now king of the city.
He didn’t get there. Three days before Matthews punched in, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. scooped the throne.
When Guerrero hit that grand slam against the Yankees, the ground shifted. This was a baseball town now. It has become moreso with each day since.
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Losing the way they lost sanctified the ball club. The next few months aren’t hockey season. They are waiting-for-baseball season.
You could really feel that on Wednesday night – Utah Mammoth at the Leafs. Sure, it’s a club no one cares about and it’s November, but oof. It was so dead in and around Scotiabank Arena that I initially thought I’d gotten my dates mixed up.
They did a little ceremony for John Tavares pregame to celebrate his 500th NHL goal. In the room, it played like they were giving an usher a gold watch.
For two-plus hours, the non-sellout crowd reacted as if being at the game was a condition of their work-release. Matias Maccelli won it for the Leafs with about five minutes left. At that point, half the audience got up and left.
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Maple Leafs general manager Brad Treliving, left, presents John Tavares and his family with commemorative sticks to celebrate his 500th career goal on Wednesday.Sammy Kogan/The Canadian Press
If this was the cornerstone of my sports-entertainment empire, I wouldn’t panic. But I might make sure I had a paper bag and some Xanax on hand.
The problem isn’t that the Leafs are bad this year, however much everyone wishes them to be. It’s that they continue to be the most boring team in the world.
Between the on-ice results, the inability to tell a single story anyone’s interested in, the fact that their players talk like they are reading off teleprompters, and their collective tendency to sulk whenever people aren’t telling them how great they are, they’ve been boring for years.
And not just boring, but bored. None of them can make it through a two-minute scrum without starting to nod off. Tavares just had one of the milestone nights of his career and afterward he sounded like he was reading from the phone book.
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As a leader, Matthews is the worst of them. This is no babe in the woods. He’s been in the league for 10 years. He knows that if you want some slack, you have to give a little. A little anything – joy, rage, frustration. He gives nothing.
How many memes did Guerrero create this last month? How delightful was it when he negotiated his contract via Spanish-language podcast? How much do you feel it when he wins and loses?
That’s not something you’re born with. If Guerrero was an average player, he’d know better than to draw attention to himself. It’s something you cultivate because you recognize that it’s part of your job. The main guy should look like he cares. Matthews couldn’t be bothered.
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Unlike many of the Toronto Maple Leafs players, Toronto Blue Jays first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. routinely shows emotion throughout games.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
As it turns out, when you give people an enormous amount of money and expect nothing in return, they often stop trying. At everything. Regardless of recompense, there are few things more injurious to the soul than pointless labour.
When the top dog checks out, so does everyone else. There’s a reason the Pittsburgh Penguins don’t act like the also-rans they have become, and it’s that Sidney Crosby won’t permit it.
Presumably, the Leafs would have continued on in their desultory, Leafsy way for several years more, but then the Jays collided with October. The baseball club didn’t just raise the bar. They showed everyone there was a bar, and that it moves up as well as down.
Shuffling through the motions with the same guys, saying the same things, with the same results, suddenly seems like what it is – theft. The Leafs take your money and attention, and give nothing back. Whether it’s costing you a mortgage payment or a half-hour on your phone, the hockey team is stealing from you.
The Leafs’ ethos of entitlement is so infectious that the new guys have already caught it. They brought in a bunch of bruisers in the off-season, hoping to turn this into a Craig Berube team.
All of them immediately kicked off their skates and put their feet up on the coach’s desk. They’ve finally made it to the best team in the world. Time to relax.
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Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube tries to motivate his team.John E. Sokolowski/Reuters
The players come out twice a day to mumble clichés, while Berube stands up there with a ‘What does a guy have to do to get fired around here?’ look on his face. This is only his second year, and Berube looks like he’s halfway through a lifetime bid.
The head coach is the only interesting Leaf left, because you get the strong sense that eventually he will fight one of his own guys on the bench. No matter who it is, I would bet the house on Berube. That’s another problem.
Like they say in the south, hockey is downstream of culture. After one president, three GMs and three coaches, the problem isn’t the power play. It isn’t even the individual players. It’s everything.
A few new faces isn’t going to change things. Instead, they get changed. Because if the Leafs don’t care enough to fake it, how will they ever do it for real?
The bright spot here is recent history. The last time the Jays got good, every other team in town did a 180.
They could bear losing, and had done so for years. What they couldn’t bear was being made to look ridiculous. All of a sudden, they were naked in front of their fans.
It’s that time again. Someone go wake the Leafs up and tell them.
