NHL Playoffs: Why It Is Alright to Cry, Maple Leafs Fans

As I sit back and ponder the fact that I will not be able to enjoy watching my Toronto Maple Leafs in the playoffs yet again, I feel the strong sensation to allow the bottled depression of my teenage sporting life out with some real tears. 

A lot has changed in my life since the last time I was able to don my Darcy Tucker jersey in mid-April before a big playoff game. Naturally, of course, since the Maple Leafs team we cheer for hasn't made the playoffs since I was in sixth grade. 

It will be eight years of no postseason hockey for the Blue and White after this season. Should the standings remain the same with the Florida Panthers winning the Southeast division, the Leafs will be the only team to have not made the playoffs since the lockout.

Crying yet?

Can you believe that we are nearing the 10-year anniversary of when our beloved team faced off against the New York Islanders in a grueling seven-game series? It may be not only my favorite playoff series of all-time, but it may just be the staple of my childhood. It bound together everything I loved about sports as a child.

There was action galore in that series. The constant physicality separated that playoff series from any other, with gruelling hits that took out both team's captain in what looked more like a war than a child's game played by the pros. When it finally came to an end after the Leafs won the seventh deciding game, using my middle finger to wave goodbye to Peter Laviollete, then coach of the Islanders, is something that will remain etched in my memory forever.

And after winning that seventh game, our boys pushed past the rival Ottawa Senators in another seven-game series that was just as exciting. The buds were back in the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since '99.

When the Leafs pushed past the Hurricanes in the first game of the series and Mats Sundin returned from his injury that occurred against the Isles, it seemed like it was destiny for a Leaf return to the Stanley Cup Finals, something they hadn't done since they last won in 1967.

But sadly, it wasn't meant to be, and the men we cheered for on that journey were sent home in a Game 6 overtime loss. 

Who would have thought that it would be the last real noise the team would provide in the playoffs for the next decade? Who could imagine that this franchise would be stuck in the purgatory of mediocrity since then? 

Not me, a child who believed that the very next year would be the leap that pushed them to that next level. But so long as the Philadelphia Flyers were there awaiting the Leafs, we lost. The two next seasons ended with losses to the Flyers, and my final memory of Leafs hockey involved Jeremy Roenick skipping down the ice after raising the puck past Ed Belfour in overtime. 

But the 2002 playoff run highlights on YouTube is what kicks in my childhood nostalgia. I celebrate while watching Gary Roberts skate down the ice and tie the seventh game up and cringe watching Shawn Bates score a penalty shot to even the series at 2. Ten years later, I still react to plays I have memorized in my mind. 

It's slightly pathetic, I'm sure, but it's all we as current Leaf fans can do come April to have that same feeling that we once did. It's the only memories some of us have. And that just isn't fair.

As a Canadian from Toronto now living near Detroit (or "Hockey Town" as it's tagged), I can say with not an ounce of regret in my body that the one and only true hockey town resides in Toronto.

Yes, Red Wings fans love their team, but the excitement for their team doesn't compare in the least to the love of Toronto fans. People go about their day in Detroit during the playoffs, perhaps knowing that the result will likely favor them. In Toronto, it seemed like all that mattered on a playoff game day was the Leafs. 

It's easy to support a team that has had made the playoffs consecutively for the past 20 years as well. And even then, when you meet up with a Wings fan, they are more than likely to be cheering for the Lions or Tigers just as hard. 

In Toronto, it's the Maple Leafs, and then everything else takes second place.

Yet a team like the Leafs, with a stable fanbase of psychotic men and women just looking for that one ounce of championship glory in their lifetime, are in one of the worst situations in the league as I type this.

Fans are being forced to watch highlights of Alyn McCauley, Pat Quinn, Shayne Corson and Darcy Tucker to get that April playoff atmosphere in their living room.

The team should be forming new highlights, and we should be celebrating as our team gives it their all to take that next step. But they haven't provided that. And thus, there is nothing to cheer.

So in the next few weeks, when other teams are playing and our Leafs aren't, make sure that when you turn on your television, you turn on Leafs TV. They will be sure to replay all of the classic series the blue and white have been in recently, as they do every year.

And hey, why not try to remember the good times and see how many names you can remember from when the team was good? 

Not pathetic at all—right?

In sports, when fans use the phrase "maybe next year," it usually is in reference to the team making a playoff run and finally winning it all, whether it be an NBA Championship, the Superbowl or the Stanley Cup. In the Leafs' case, all it can stand for is making a simple playoff appearance and not being in the bottom half of their conference for yet another season. 

So for now, raise your glass of milk—it's too early to be drinking beer—and raise it to next year, Leafs fans. Maybe next year we won't have to be so miserable.