This is going to shock you, but not everyone who comes to comment on our website loves us. Plenty of people are complimentary and kind, and I genuinely am grateful for that since it’s not like the money is enough to justify this gig by itself, but mixed in with the thoughtful feedback are some people who wish we would write this or stop writing that or just lighten the fuck up, man. These people are usually Leaf fans, and we are ourselves Leaf fans, and these people think we’re doing it wrong.
You can see a similar dynamic play out on Twitter, if you’re misguided enough to go there. While every other fanbase in the league hates Toronto and Toronto at least returns some of the feeling, a lot of the anger on this corner of that very angry website is between different factions of people who support the same hockey team. Despite all ostensibly wanting the same thing—for the Leafs to crush their opponents, to see them driven before them, to hear the lamentations of their coaches—a lot of these people seem to spend much of their time sniping at each other. Or obliquely referencing each other in pointed subtweets like they’re 1780s aristocrats with phones. Whatever works.
That’s fandom on the Internet for you. But why is that? Why do we all drive each other so nuts? Beyond the fact that hell is other people.
It comes down to why people follow sports at all.
Group Identity
This is obvious to anyone who’s cheered for any team for more than a few days, and especially to Leaf fans—but the vast majority of sports seasons end in disappointment. Only one team wins the championship a year, and while you can find consolations, the last game of every playoff team’s season but one is a loss. You’re gonna be sad.
But, and here’s the consolation, you get to be sad in a group!
Everyone likes to feel part of something bigger than themselves sometimes. You feel connected to others, you have something to socialize over and talk about, you have an activity with friends, and it’s a building block of community that you can share. It’s a group identity, and most people have a few of them. While some consequences of strong group identity can be a little dicey, sports teams are usually a pretty safe thing to bond over.
All identities, though, have a positive and a negative side to them. What I am is defined by what I’m not. And plenty of people want their team to have an identity they can relate to or admire.
Bringing it back from sociology class here, maybe you want the Leafs to be tough, unfuckwithable badasses on skates. I don’t mean this is wrong, either, despite being a nerdy lib; I’ve watched every John Wick movie for what are probably similar reasons. You identify the Leafs with what you think you are or you daydream about being.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence a lot of fans like Mitch Marner as the little guy from Toronto who made it with skill, determination, and boundless energy, and who just seems excited to play the game. This image got a little dented when he negotiated hard for many times more money than most of us will make in our lives, but he was still easy to identify with for plenty of Ontario fans.
William Nylander, on the other hand, is Swedish, blonde, boy-band handsome, and looks like he doesn’t have to try all that hard. That is not the experience some traditional Canadian hockey fans feel they can take part in. The fact that Nylander has probably had to work his considerable ass off to have as much success as he’s had doesn’t register for a lot of people.
And worse, a lot of the people who like him are nerds!
Lego Fans
Some kids, when you show them a toy, want to take it apart and see how it works. Some are the type that read the inside of the top of the Monopoly box to learn the rules of the game. They want to know how and why.
That impulse pops up again in sports with the fans who want to understand the game and sort it out, make it more predictable, learn how it can be solved. Some of this is from competitive instinct (you read the rules so that you can bankrupt your friends by putting a ton of hotels on Baltic Avenue); some of it is just because it scratches an itch.
This isn’t a stunning insight, but: PPP tends to get more of this type of fan, and certainly plenty of the people who write here are this way. We’d like to be happy with the Leafs, but we really want to be right. Some of that might come from Toronto’s experience with winning a bunch of games with smoke and mirrors and then collapsing in the Carlyle years. Some of it might be that we’re insufferable know-it-alls who want to win Internet arguments.
That instinct it has the effect of softening that group identity. To pull things apart you have to try to be objective, and that means acknowledging that sometimes the Leafs are bad. If you’ve been a Toronto fan for the past 15 years it would have justified a certain amount of pessimism on quite a few occasions when more traditional fans didn’t want to hear it. That isn’t to say the nerds are always right (trust me, I know), it just takes you out of step with some of the crowd who bleed blue from the heart.
We regularly (still!) get comments from Leaf fans who tell us they don’t want to have to do math or read charts to be a fan of a hockey team. Aside from the obvious fact we’re not holding guns to foreheads to force people to look at Corsi, it actually does sadden me a bit that these people seem anguished just by us publishing a blog. But it’s not too hard to understand, either. All those numbers and spreadsheets, to them, feel like we’re changing what the identity is from passion to procedures and obligating them to like players they don’t. That feeling is why a perfectly fine scoring winger like Nylander can turn into an existential threat. If he’s good, it’s not just that they’re wrong about him. It’s that all the feelings they bring to the table are wrong too.
And that’s a scary thing, if you care a bunch about your hobby. (And we all do if we’re here, right?) People are changing the terms of engagement. And If you go online, there are fans who—most baffling of all—openly cheer for three or four teams at once.
Community
I cheer for the Leafs because my dad cheers for them and I grew up in Toronto. That’s it. I didn’t really choose them. I just grew up in them and didn’t leave. There’s still a big swathe of the Leafs fanbase that grew up this way. For them the Leafs fanbase is almost a birthright. Group identity again.
In 2021, it’s a lot easier to come to the game in different ways. You can more easily be a fan of a team that’s geographically nowhere close to you, and you can find all sorts of smaller communities of fans that don’t fit into the old-fashioned mold. I see more and more fans who claim allegiance to teams for the simple reason that they found a group they liked that cheered for them, and because they liked the players. Maybe they liked a couple of players on the Avalanche and the Hurricanes and thought, why choose? Maybe they have a really well-developed and specific interest in Travis Konecny despite not usually cheering for Philadelphia. Why not?
To a certain stripe of old fan this seems insane. The whole point of cheering for a team is to to support them to the exclusion of all others, and being a fan of, say, both the Leafs and the Bruins is a bit like supporting both France and England in the Hundred Years’ War. It dilutes the group identity, though they wouldn’t say it that way. The fact that some of these newer fans are women, younger, or LGBT brings that whole identity thing into especially sharp relief. It’s just not how things are done!
On an intuitive level it is odd for me to imagine cheering for any team but the Leafs. But that’s habit. There’s no reason it has to be. We’re cheering for laundry, like the Jerry Seinfeld line says. There’s no reason to restrict your wardrobe if you don’t want to. Pick six teams if you like, whatever.
So what’s the issue?
Go Nuts
Sports teams are a safe space for people to be crazy and irrational and even kind of chauvinistic in a way that doesn’t do much harm. That means it’s mostly emotion, for plenty of people. Having to subject your emotions to other people’s reasons or other people’s sense of identity is a threat to that. You don’t get to have things all your own way with your feelings about the team.
I’d love to end this on some everybody-comes-together note. I don’t think there is one, unless the Leafs win the Cup and we’re all too deliriously happy to care. You just have to accept that other people aren’t fans for the same thing you are, and that’s fine. It has to be said that a lot of the traditional fans aren’t good at all at living and letting live, which is lousy, but more than that?
Fandom is irrational. You can’t really fix that, even for the reason-first fans. You just have to let everyone have their lane, their community, and cheer as they see fit. And in the end, it’s only a game. As long as the Leafs don’t blow another four-goal lead to the fucking Sens.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia – Canada’s Gabriela Dabrowski and New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe remain undefeated in women’s doubles at the WTA Finals.
The 2023 U.S. Open champions, seeded second at the event, secured a 1-6, 7-6 (1), (11-9) super-tiebreak win over fourth-seeded Italians Sara Errani and Jasmine Paolini in round-robin play on Tuesday.
The season-ending tournament features the WTA Tour’s top eight women’s doubles teams.
Dabrowski and Routliffe lost the first set in 22 minutes but levelled the match by breaking Errani’s serve three times in the second, including at 6-5. They clinched victory with Routliffe saving a match point on her serve and Dabrowski ending Errani’s final serve-and-volley attempt.
Dabrowski and Routliffe will next face fifth-seeded Americans Caroline Dolehide and Desirae Krawczyk on Thursday, where a win would secure a spot in the semifinals.
The final is scheduled for Saturday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on Nov. 5, 2024.
EDMONTON – Jake Allen made 31 saves for his second shutout of the season and 26th of his career as the New Jersey Devils closed out their Western Canadian road trip with a 3-0 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Monday.
Jesper Bratt had a goal and an assist and Stefan Noesen and Timo Meier also scored for the Devils (8-5-2) who have won three of their last four on the heels on a four-game losing skid.
The Oilers (6-6-1) had their modest two-game winning streak snapped.
Calvin Pickard made 13 stops between the pipes for Edmonton.
TAKEAWAYS
Devils: In addition to his goal, Bratt picked up his 12th assist of the young season to give him nine points in his last eight games and now 15 points overall. Nico Hischier remains in the team lead, picking up an assist of his own to give him 16 points for the campaign. He has a point in all but four games this season.
Oilers: Forward Leon Draisaitl was held pointless after recording six points in his previous two games and nine points in his previous four. Draisaitl usually has strong showings against the Devils, coming into the contest with an eight-game point streak against New Jersey and 11 goals in 17 games.
KEY MOMENT
New Jersey took a 2-0 lead on the power play with 3:26 remaining in the second period as Hischier made a nice feed into the slot to Bratt, who wired his third of the season past Pickard.
KEY RETURN?
Oilers star forward and captain Connor McDavid took part in the optional morning skate for the Oilers, leading to hopes that he may be back sooner rather than later. McDavid has been expected to be out for two to three weeks with an ankle injury suffered during the first shift of last Monday’s loss in Columbus.
OILERS DEAL FOR D-MAN
The Oilers have acquired defenceman Ronnie Attard from the Philadelphia Flyers in exchange for defenceman Ben Gleason.
The 6-foot-3 Attard has spent the past three season in the Flyers organization seeing action in 29 career games. The 25-year-old right-shot defender and Western Michigan University grad was originally selected by Philadelphia in the third round of the 2019 NHL Entry Draft. Attard will report to the Oilers’ AHL affiliate in Bakersfield.
UP NEXT
Devils: Host the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday.
Oilers: Host the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 4, 2024.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Patrick Mahomes threw for 291 yards and three touchdowns, and Kareem Hunt pounded into the end zone from two yards out in overtime to give the unbeaten Kansas City Chiefs a 30-24 win over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night.
DeAndre Hopkins had two touchdown receptions for the Chiefs (8-0), who drove through the rain for two fourth-quarter scores to take a 24-17 lead with 4:17 left. But then Kansas City watched as Baker Mayfield led the Bucs the other way in the final minute, hitting Ryan Miller in the end zone with 27 seconds to go in regulation time.
Tampa Bay (4-5) elected to kick the extra point and force overtime, rather than go for a two-point conversion and the win. And it cost the Buccaneers when Mayfield called tails and the coin flip was heads. Mahomes and the Chiefs took the ball, he was 5-for-5 passing on their drive in overtime, and Hunt finished his 106-yard rushing day with the deciding TD plunge.
Travis Kelce had 14 catches for 100 yards with girlfriend Taylor Swift watching from a suite, and Hopkins finished with eight catches for 86 yards as the Chiefs ran their winning streak to 14 dating to last season. They became the sixth Super Bowl champion to start 8-0 the following season.
Mayfield finished with 200 yards and two TDs passing for the Bucs, who have lost four of their last five.
It was a memorable first half for two players who had been waiting to play in Arrowhead Stadium.
The Bucs’ Rachaad White grew up about 10 minutes away in a tough part of Kansas City, but his family could never afford a ticket for him to see a game. He wound up on a circuitous path through Division II Nebraska-Kearney and a California junior college to Arizona State, where he eventually became of a third-round pick of Tampa Bay in the 2022 draft.
Two year later, White finally got into Arrowhead — and the end zone. He punctuated his seven-yard scoring run in the second quarter, which gave the Bucs a 7-3 lead, by nearly tossing the football into the second deck.
Then it was Hopkins’ turn in his first home game since arriving in Kansas City from a trade with the Titans.
The three-time All-Pro, who already had caught four passes, reeled in a third-down heave from Mahomes amid triple coverage for a 35-yard gain inside the Tampa Bay five-yard line. Three plays later, Mahomes found him in the back of the end zone, and Hopkins celebrated his first TD with the Chiefs with a dance from “Remember the Titans.”
Tampa Bay tried to seize control with consecutive scoring drives to start the second half. The first ended with a TD pass to Cade Otton, the latest tight end to shred the Chiefs, and Chase McLaughlin’s 47-yard field goal gave the Bucs a 17-10 lead.
The Chiefs answered in the fourth quarter. Mahomes marched them through the rain 70 yards for a tying touchdown pass, which he delivered to Samaje Perine while landing awkwardly and tweaking his left ankle, and then threw a laser to Hopkins on third-and-goal from the Buccaneers’ five-yard line to give Kansas City the lead.
Tampa Bay promptly went three-and-out, but its defence got the ball right back, and this time Mayfield calmly led his team down field. His capped the drive with a touchdown throw to Miller — his first career TD catch — with 27 seconds to go, and Tampa Bay elected to play for overtime.
UP NEXT
Buccaneers: Host the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday.
