Thread by @qdsworld

So #Leafs, #MapleLeafs and #LeafsForever fans, since you’ve had just over 24 hours to fully digest what happened - yet again - to your beloved team, let’s talk about the why, shall we?

Thread time. 🧵

So, every year, y’all approach the year that most hockey fans do - “We got a great team, can’t wait for the games to start,” but y’all do it with a Biff Tannen Twist:

Y’all believe that your names are already engraved on the Cup, as does the Toronto Sports Media.

And so y’all go into the regular season with some deluded idea that your best hopes are inevitable and that your crown is just that - yours. And this idea foments, grows, and festers as it is pumped up by Leafs fans and Toronto Sports Media all season long.

You then proceed to write, produce, consume, and create articles, graphics, and ghost stats to put your team in a positive light, all for clicks, views, likes, and everything else so that you feel like the crumb of that idea is being accepted by the masses.

Then the playoffs hit. Trial by fire - 16 teams in, 1 team left standing, and absolutely anything can happen.

And it does, yet again. The Leafs come out of the gate like a rodeo Cowboy riding a 4 tonne Bull, only to be thrown off and gored just before the 8 second mark.

And so the fans, media, and everyone else who has an ounce of care regarding the #Leafs winds up looking like Lois Lane on the Death Of Superman comic book cover, cradling the body of your beloved team, as the remnants of what used to be your cape lies torn in the breeze.

As Radiohead once said, “You do it to yourself, ya do…”

And the rest of Canada gets the pleasure of schadenfreude - every single year - when it comes to you. We see the fans giving up and leaving the arena, or Maple Leaf Square, early, we see the tears and the jersey burning…

And the regret of fans who swear up and down that they’re done supporting this team, as they talk about free agency, the draft and who they should trade.

The rest of Canada hopes that y’all get the mental help you need, after yet another reality check from the hockey gods.

Y’all remember those Hockey Canada ads that had the tagline “Relax, it’s just a game?”

Y’all need a set of those ads to run ad nauseam throughout Toronto. Seriously.

Stop being the Biff Tannen of the story, the bad guy on the board. Be realistic about your chances every year.

If you change that mindset, if you actually accept that your team is, dare I say it, human, you may actually get a chance to enjoy the drive to the store to get the fertilizer for your garden, instead of speeding in your convertible and sliding sideways into the manure truck.