Toronto Maple Leafs' Real Bandwagon

Since the beginning of preseason, I think the Toronto Maple Leafs have been the one hockey team that is most written about here on Bleacher Report. All of the articles—with the exception of game recaps and previews—have generally had the same sentiment.

That sentiment has to do with the fan base of the Leafs rather then the team, and as a hockey fan in general, I and some other writers are getting annoyed with it. Do fans have an effect on the outcome of a game? No—and that's all that should matter in the world of sports writing.

Now, recent attention has been given to the a possible "bandwagon" of fans, as written by Tyler Hill. This is not a knock on the writer, as he has exposed some of the many things I have ranted about with my own New York Rangers.

When the team wins, everyone is a die-hard fan who loves the team.  Then a night later when the team loses, everyone hates the team and complains about how they are headed to the draft lottery, which brings me to the point of the article:

Jonathan Tavares.

There isn't a Leafs article written that doesn't mention this player or allude to the possibility of drafting him if Toronto were to bomb out and have a disaster of a season. I see more and more Leafs fans say, "I hope we lose all eighty-two games so we can get Jonathon Tavares," or "These games aren't even worth playing. Winning will hurt this franchise more then it will help."

As a hockey fan, and a die-hard one at that, I am shocked at the sentiment fans have towards there own team. With the exception of the best writer on Bleacher Report—Bryan Thiel, who actually knows what to write about—I think every single member of the Leafs' community here on BR has at least one article published about Tavares and/or the draft next year.

After the Leafs won their season opener and stunned the defending Stanley Cup Champion Red Wings, a writer (and Leafs fan) had the idiocy to leave in a comment, "Here's to hoping they go 0-81 the rest of the way..."

As a fan of one of the most respected hockey franchises ever, how can you root for your team to lose on a nightly basis? How can you hope that before the season even starts, not make the playoffs? And most importantly, how can you call yourself a fan?

Never in my lifetime have I ever witnessed something as awful as this. Even when the Rangers went through a god-awful stretch of hockey from 1997-2004, not one fan ever said that they hoped for a last-place finish. Instead, they demanded for the team to get better—and to win some games in the mean time.

After all, is Jonathon Tavares the savior for the Leafs? I certainly don't think so. And what is the guarantee that Toronto will even draft him? That's why we have a thing called a lottery now.

All fans that do think he is the savior, just remember—for every Ovechkin, Crosby, and Malkin ever drafted, there's a Lundmark, Brendl, and Stefan waiting in the wings.

So your team sucks?  Get over it! Instead of hoping for a loss to improve your team, how about a win? Let's not forget some of the biggest upsets in sports have come from the great sport known as hockey. Anything can happen on any given night, and with that said, any team can make the playoffs, no matter what the roster.

I write this as an impartial observer, as I neither like nor dislike the Toronto Maple Leafs. I'm sure what I said in this article has been brought up previously, but I would just like to bring it more attention—and hopefully more people will agree that the direction of the fan base has to change.

There's no doubt that the Maple Leafs have a bandwagon, and some times that can be a good thing. But in this case, they have one for all the wrong reasons.