While I don't have a specific reason, what return are you looking for? What return are you looking for in any of your hobbies?
That is the path of thinking I started going down on the weekend. I look at the Leafs as entertainment. This would put it in the same category as a T.V. show or a movie I think. Maybe the same as a video game.
If it's compared to a T.V. show, I tend to see a show out until it is cancelled regardless of how bad it gets, although as I get older I have started to become more discerning with my time, as I don't have as much of it left as I used to. There is usually a light at the end of the tunnel with shows though, as the show provider will usually take care of that problem for me.
If it's compared to s video game, when I play video games, I want to play them to completion. Typically, with the games I play, there is usually one part of the game that is a slog. It's tough to get through, it's not fun, it's brings the rest of the game down, etc. I'll get through that one part, and then when you accomplish completing the game you typically feel pretty good.
Here's where I am at with the Leafs. They are like a T.V. show, because I have no control on what gets put on the ice at all, not that I need that, but that is a fact. If the team continually puts out a product that I don't enjoy, the only recourse I can see that I really have is to stop investing my time and money in that product. That's how I feel right now. And I somewhat feel that way about the NHL as a whole. The hypocrisy and inequity around the league seems worse in the NHL. However that is probably fueled by the fact that I am currently invested in one team. Other sports that I watch, like the NFL or the EPL, I don't really cheer for a team. I just watch it to see what happens. I want to see if Erling Haaland is going to continue to be this goal scoring machine, or if Arsenal is going to win the top of the table. I don't care if either of those things do or don't happen. I am just watching to see what does happen. Same with the NFL. I would like to see what happens with the Lions or the Bills, but it doesn't really affect me if it doesn't happen.
With the Leafs it is different for some reason, because that is the flag I have chosen to fly, which makes it feel like a video game that I have chosen to play. It's like there is a different type of investment, different than a T.V. show. So when the Leafs inevitably screw things up, and it's been pretty inevitable over the last 40 years (the amount of time I have roughly been watching them), it hits a little harder. I'm not watching to see what happens. I am watching because I am hoping for a particular outcome. Now the outcome can't be guaranteed, I understand that, but it seems like the Leafs are the team that more often than not flames out hard. It flames out in the most spectacularly stupid way possible. They hire the wrong coach, they hire the wrong GM, they make the wrong trade or they sign the wrong player. It's just built up year after year, so it's like video game that is a constant slog. It's almost like the inverse. The entire game is a slog, and there are these small ray's of light every so often that make you think it's going to get better and then it never does. I look back at the optimism I had 9 years ago. They had drafted Matthews, they had drafted Marner, they had drafted Nylander. They seemed to be making smart decisions. They seemed to be putting smart people in decision making positions. And then the mistakes started to happen, and they compounded, and now a team that was comprised of the three most talented players that they have had in their entire history failed to make it past the second round of the playoffs even once.
I am having a hard time reconciling that. I really do think I am at the end here with this team. I quit smoking when I was 22. I was always amazed at how the addiction to cigarettes tried to convince you that you needed it. That the habit would drive you back even though you knew, rationally, that it was killing you and making you feel horrible.
While I don't think that the Leafs are killing me, I mean I hope not, they do make me feel horrible more often than not. I have to watch as other fans rejoice in the Leafs comeuppance when ever it happens, even though, those same fans wouldn't enjoy going through what fans of this team have had to endure for the last 60 years. I'm starting to think that this habit is convincing me that I need it when I really don't. I guess I am just trying to see if others feel the same way.
