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| Jersey: $150. Tape: $3. Completely wasting said jersey: Priceless. |
I was born in Oakville, Ontario, in 1985. I didn’t move to Vancouver until 1999, so I grew up in a Toronto Maple Leafs market, and ever since I moved, the Vancouver-Toronto rivalry has perplexed me. Two teams separated by not only geographical distance, but separated by division and conference in the NHL, and yet, so much hate. To my eyes, so much unnecessary hate. I think that now is the perfect time for Canucks fans to start to look at the rivalry a different way, and it might just be time for our own Treaty of Versailles between Canucks and Leafs Nation.
First of all, I have to admit that I have a whole lot of trouble calling it a “rivalry”. While rivalry is defined as two teams competing for the same object or goal as one another, and both teams are theoretically competing for the Stanley Cup, I think the best rivalries in sports are the ones founded on mutual hatred. And I don’t know if you Vancouverites have noticed this, but...Leafs fans could care less about the Canucks. Not because they hate Vancouver, not because “Toronto doesn’t care about the West or anyone”, they just simply care less because, well, that’s what makes sense. And it makes sense that we should care less about them.
I fully understand that a large portion of this hate that Canucks fans have for the Leafs comes from the city’s massive chip on its shoulder about Toronto’s high opinion of itself--”the centre of the universe”, as it were--and I get that a statement like “Leafs fans could care less about the Canucks” seems to fuel that fire. But it’s the truth, and face it: that’s how it should be.
In the grand scheme of things, the two teams play each other once or twice a year(if that), and that’s really only because the Toronto game in Vancouver is such a hallmark on the calendar that the NHL scheduling gods throw Vancouver a bone every year and give them a hot ticket(and the arena is half-filled with Toronto ex-pats anyway). Most Eastern and Western Conference teams meet once each, regardless of location. The two teams will never meet in the playoffs unless it’s the Stanley Cup Final(which is highly unlikely), and even when they could meet earlier in the playoffs, it only happened once, during the Canucks run to the Cup in 1993-94. The closest the Leafs and Canucks have come in recent years is when aging Leafs captain Mats Sundin signed here for the most meaningless half-season played since the lockout in 1994-95.
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| No matter what happens...I am also bald. And look like Nosferatu. |
Given that, this hate that Vancouver fans have for the Leafs seems not to stem from number of games played, playoff history, or anything else other than their inherent hatred of Toronto as a city. But Toronto is still in Canada. Washington is in the States, and we hate the U.S. more than Canada, surely? So why don’t we hate the Capitals? I mean, we play them the same number of times a year as the Leafs, AND there’s an excellent chance we might see them in the Stanley Cup Finals, certainly far sooner than the Leafs. You’re sitting there saying, “hate Washington? But they have Ovechkin and Backstrom and jeez, Cullen, that really makes no sense!” To me, the overt hatred of Toronto makes almost as little sense.
While columnists were penning columns across Canada last year saying that fans in Toronto and other cities were not adopting Vancouver as “Canada’s Team” in the Stanley Cup Finals, I can assure you that was not the case. I have a ton of friends still living there and they love Vancouver, picking even the most bargain-barrel Canucks(Dan Hamhuis in fantasy? Love the guy, but come on) in playoff fantasy pools and watching games with the rapt attention they’d normally pay to the Leafs. The fact remains the Leafs haven’t been a good team for quite some time, and during that time, the Canucks have not only been a fantastic team, but have been great to watch with the Sedins putting on a puck movement clinic night in and night out and Ryan Kesler vaulting to the top of hockey mancrush lists worldwide.
People in Toronto are jerks. Well, so says Mr. and Mrs. Lululemon from Kits, drinking their $5 Americanos while buying a dog sweater. That’s the general perception, and it’s not too far from the truth. If nothing else, people from Toronto think that their city is the greatest place on Earth. Don’t you think YOUR city is the greatest place on Earth? Why get mad at someone for that? I feel we can all agree that Canada is the best place on Earth, and it seems that no matter what city I chose to live in in this country, I’d think it was the best.
Even given all that, you say Toronto looks down on everyone, but guess what? They don’t even look down on Vancouver! In fact, very few people in Toronto outwardly hate Vancouver as a city. Like the rest of the world, many fell in love with it during the 2010 Olympics, and you can hardly walk down the street in Vancouver without bumping into someone who is either visiting or moved from Ontario, much like myself. Toronto has a lot of rivals already: they battle with Ottawa for Ontario, the history between Montreal and Toronto is well-documented and originally started due to language discrepancies; hell, Toronto even has a fight over a highway that connects it to Buffalo. And this is not to mention that Toronto has all its Original Six rivals to worry about.
I think now is the perfect time to bury the hatchet. The Leafs don’t need another rival, and if they did, it’s not us. All we do when we hate them is foster a poor reputation for our city, and if we really want to look like the class of the league both on AND off the ice, it’s never made more sense to quit the insane hate of the Leafs. I’m not ever suggesting you should like the Leafs, God forbid. But if you’ve paid any attention at all, the Leafs are finally, FINALLY showing signs of life as a team and are fun to watch again, and the Canucks have been successful for so long and show no signs of slowing down. It’s time to stay classy, Vancouver. It’s time to make the right choice.
Besides, that Bolland is a complete a-hole, you know?
I'm a Canucks fan living in Toronto however I like Leafs fans more than Canucks fans. A Leafs fan will blindly follow their team like a group of lemmings. I see Canucks fans online already calling for Luongo's head and I have no doubt that some of these people own Luongo jerseys (which they probably purchased sometime in the 3rd or 4th round of the playoffs last year).
It isn't that Torontonians don't care about Vancouver, we just see it as a large city in Canada with an even larger serious superiority complex. While I appreciate your sentiment I say let the hatchet remain, even if it's terribly one-sided. I'll still root for the Nucks (and the Habs), despise the Leafs and laugh at the notion that Vancouver worries about Toronto that much.
My hate for Toronto dates back to when they had a better team, and if you went to the games, these guy's were all wearing TO jersey's and rubbing it in our faces. One game really stands out for me, it was early day's of GM place downtown and the leafs came in here and beat the Nucks 3-0. The leafs fans were celebrating all game long, and I had a miserable time. Lately it's ok because the Canucks have a better team, and there are not so many leaf jersey's in the rink. Now we are seeing Canuck jersey's in all rinks too when they visit, not just Habs and Leafs.
I also have a bad taste in my mouth about the Oilers, who in the 70's and 80's, used to come in here and just destroy the home town team. Of course they had Gretz, Mess, Anderson & Fuhr etc. Oh man, they spanked us...
Another fantastic entry. I want to continue to read this guy's thoughts - whoever he is. He's totally right. There's no reason at all to hate the Leafs. I like Canada, so I want the Canadian teams to win. A guy like this John Cullen has his fingers on the pulse of the city. I don't wanna overstate things here, but if everyone were a little bit more like John Cullen, the world would be a better place.
Toronto is one of the best teams in the league no they will be in the race for the playoffs
wow...can I have a hug now? Can't we all get along? I rank the leafs as my 45th team in the NHL (yes 30 teams I know). The only time I ever cheered for the Flames - when they play the leafs. I get as much pleasure from a leafs loss as a Canucks win. A year ago a friend challenged my hatred of the leafs and I came to conclude I blame the CBC for shoving leaf hockey/centre of the universe down our throats. We get it every year when they come to town and the Canucks 7:00 start time becomes 4:00. Do you not remember every lead off story last year as the leafs went 4-0, they were talking Stanley Cup! I remember before the double-headers on Saturday HNIC rarely showed the Canucks (for sure when they played the leafs). I remember having to watch the leafs play horrible expansion teams instead of division hating rivalry games (Canucks-Flames, Oilers-Flames) I remember hearing about the Toronto leafs and Blue Jays during the intermissions of the 94 finals. In fact it is the very indifference the Toronto based media has that fuels the hate for Toronto and its beloved leafs.
Your friends do not represent the majority of leaf fans. Don't you know about Damien Cox and his hate for the Canucks and the city, and how Toronto was routing for Vancouver to lose in the playoffs? The Toronto reporters who would personally attack the players that they never even met and trashing Gillis as as a Burke freeloader? Leaf fans on message boards(hf) even use a meme of Nuck players crying after their cup loss with the word "Life is good". Its time to bury the hatchet when they decide to stop acting ignorant and juvenile against the Canucks.
I was not feeling this article.
This guy just should not be writing about the canucks in any way, shape or form unless its for the Toronto Star, covering a leafs/canucks game.
Bury the Hatchet?
Leafs fans could care less?
seriously?
Only from a Torontonian....go back home.
Maybe some day you'll truly become a Vancouverite and you'll share our passionate distaste for all things Toronto. If you want to learn about rivalries, you need to look at european soccer, where you see that the biggest rivals are the derbies, games between neighbours. It has nothing to do with frequency (derbies are only twice a year, 1 home, 1 away) or equality of talent. It's all about needing to beat your neighbours for local bragging rights. Here in the vast and sparsely populated land of Canada, Vancouver's "local rivals" are Calgary, Edmonton and Toronto. Those are the games the Canucks MUST win. Any Vancouverite would know that.
@DanNucklhead: Show me an article where people were talking Stanley Cup when we won 4 games last year. I'd absolutely love to see it. Even if it exists(which it doesn't), the Canucks planning the parade in the second round two years ago was far worse than that.
@Momo: How do you know? You think Damien Cox represents Leaf fans? Everyone in Toronto absolutely hates Cox. And I absolutely adore that you call Leafs fans "ignorant and juvenile", and then the very next commenter tells me to "go back to Toronto". Fantastic.
@Anonymous: Sorry that I don't pander to my audience. I don't think writing this article makes me any less qualified to write about the Canucks than anyone else. Go back to Toronto? Really?
@Steve: All teams in European soccer play each other once at home and once away. Period. So the frequency of games does matter in the NHL where some teams play 6 times a year and others play once, especially when you factor in the fact they can't meet in the playoffs. If the Canucks play Calgary in the playoffs in a 7-game series, they could play 13 times in one season. The Leafs they'll never play more than 9, and that's assuming the unlikely probability they meet in the Cup Final. Maybe then we can build a true rivalry. And I don't buy the argument that because they're both Canadian teams, they're "local rivals", because I can assure you that no one in Ottawa, Montreal, or Toronto considers any of Edmonton, Calgary, or Vancouver a "local rival", so why do people here? That's what I don't get, and why I wrote this piece.