or so but have no plans to attend another game before returning to the land without a provincial sales tax.

My uncle, who is a Leafs fan, threatened me with “they better win or else I’ll tell them it was your fault and where you live.” So all my positive energy was directed at the Rangers goalie lol!

While turned off the NHL for several years because of the lunacy of the player salaries and poor product on the ice, I was drawn back in when the Flames made their Stanley Cup run. The Red Mile was very good for bringing the city together over more than a month. Toronto during the 2 World Series championships was different. Yes, the Blue Jays won, and there was nothing quite like sitting in SkyDome for the first win but I didn’t feel like it brought the people of the city closer together. There were only 2 series in the baseball playoffs in those years so there wasn’t the same buildup as in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The winning feeling seemed to come and go much faster. And Toronto always has a contingent on the winning World Cup soccer side. Very unique, that! But that doesn’t draw Toronto together either. But you gotta love Little Italy and St. Clair Ave. West when Italy wins.

I grew up as a Leafs fan (but didn’t mind when the Oilers won since the Leafs were so bad in the 80’s) but was recently reminded of one of my first trips to Maple Leaf Gardens as a boy.

My cousin from Winnipeg was visiting, who was a Jets fan, and he treated my Dad and I to a Leafs-Jets game. Big stuff. He was much older and cooler than me; I was very young and impressionable and wanted to be cool like him.

He taught me to yell: “How ‘bout them Jets!” and at a suitable moment in the game when all the other fans were quiet, he prompted me for my line which got all the other fans in the building booing me!

How ‘bout them Jets? How ‘bout my cousin for trying to double the number of Jets fans in Maple Leaf Gardens!