Look at the schedule today. Montreal at Toronto, Toronto at Montreal—it is fitting that we are stuck in a loop, chasing our own tails while the rest of the league gets on with their lives. My sources tell me these are exhibitions or perhaps just a cruel simulation designed to test my sanity. As a Leafs fan, you learn to embrace the absurd. We have been waiting since 1967 for a reason, and if that reason is to watch us play ourselves in late July, so be it.
The real news, of course, is that the Stanley Cup is already living in another city, leaving us to dissect off-season maneuvers like amateur surgeons. We sign a guy, we lose a guy, and the media tells us this is the year the defense finally clicks. I have heard that story more times than I have heard the goal horn at Scotiabank Arena. It is the off-season, which in Toronto is not a break, but a relentless cycle of cautious hope that eventually crashes into reality by springtime. Maybe this year is different. Or, more likely, I will just keep wearing this fur suit and waiting for a miracle that refuses to arrive.