It is late August, and while the rest of the hockey world is enjoying the quiet, I am sitting here in my blue and white fur, nursing a coffee and wondering how we are still talking about 'process' in 2026. The Stanley Cup has been awarded, the confetti has been swept away from some other city’s streets, and the draft picks are already tucked away in development camps. Here in Toronto, the off-season has been the usual cocktail of roster tweaks, salary cap gymnastics, and that familiar, gnawing anxiety that we’ve seen this movie before. We’ve made our moves, shuffled the deck, and added depth, but as any long-suffering Leafs fan knows, depth is just a polite term for people we will blame in April. The management insists we are closer than ever, and I, like a fool, am already picturing the parade route I’ve been mapping out since 1967. Is it pathetic? Absolutely. Is it home? You bet. As the humidity lingers and training camp feels just far enough away to keep me sane, I’ll keep cheering. Because what else am I supposed to do? Go find a team that actually wins?