I'm referring namely to The Toronto Star's Damien Cox, whose blog is appropriately titled, "The Spin", as well as his fellow TML-covering colleagues at the Toronto newspaper.
Like most Toronto Maple Leafs fans, I am completely disappointed, ashamed and disgusted with the Team's performance not only this year, but over the past 5 years... It's true, the Leafs are five for five over the past five years in NOT making the playoffs... A new kind of streak that we can be sure the Leafs will only increase over the next few years...
But you wouldn't think so if you read Damien Cox's or his colleagues' pro-Leafs (the franchise) propaganda columns in the Star... I say "the franchise" because it almost seems like based on their columns, they're working for the Toronto Maple Leafs, as they - just like the Leafs' front-office - continue to shamelessly promote a failing and disgraceful team, who really have not much to show to justify them deserving our attention and money...
Now yes, the die-hard Leaf fans will always support the Leafs till the end... That is easily shown by the fact that the Leafs sell-out every year regardless of the fact that they haven't won a cup in forever (definitely not in my lifetime, having been born in 1978). And believe me, this die-hard support truly only hurts the Leafs in terms of on-ice performance, it doesn't help them. As has been the argument for a while now that why should the Leafs even have to try to be a winning team if they constantly sell-out every year regardless? If you are constantly rewarded for failure, then why try to be successful? I mean, why rock the boat? Right, TML Front-Office Management and Owners?
And it also doesn't help when you have supposedly objective Sports Journalists, who are constantly feeding Leafs fans false-hopes and dreams in an effort to keep the spark of interest in the garbage team alive...
This season will be the worst season that the Leafs have had in 20 years. Here is a list of the Leafs' finishes overall in the League for every year since I was born in 1978:
2009 - 29/30 (4 games left in the season)As you can see, not since 1990 have the Leafs finished so low in the standings, where they finished in 2nd last. But, if you truly want to be technical about it, not since 1984 have the Leafs done any worse than they did this year (where they truly did finish in last place).
2008 - 24/30
2007 - 24/30
2006 - 18/30
2005 - 18/30
2004 - Season Cancelled due to Lockout
2003 - 5/30
2002 - 9/30
2001 - 3/30
2000 - 14/30
1999 - 7/28
1998 - 5/27
1997 - 20/26
1996 - 23/26
1995 - 13/26
1994 - 12/26
1993 - 5/26
1992 - 8/24
1991 - 19/22
1990 - 20/21
1989 - 12/21
1988 - 19/21
1987 - 20/21
1986 - 18/21
1985 - 19/21
1984 - 21/21
1983 - 18/21
1982 - 15/21
1981 - 19/21
1980 - 16/21
1979 - 11/21
1978 - 9/17
Now, it's true that there are still a handful of games left in the season, but really, does that even matter? If the Leafs even finish in 3rd last, or 4th last this season, it will still be the worst finish in 15 years, so regardless, Leafs fans have nothing to be proud of or to look forward to... Am I wrong?
Ok ok, I guess the old saying that, 'we can't do any worse' holds true after this season, so maybe in that, there's something to look forward to. But to people who are REALISTS like me, there's no hope. There's only fantasy.
But, if you've been following Damien Cox and the TML propaganda machine over there at the Star for the past while, you would have seen an almost eerily out-of-place and unjustifiably positive pattern in their posts:
Let's take a look (ordered from most recent, to oldest):
April 3, 2010
Leafs focused on the finish
Oh, yeah, the Leafs should be focussed on finishing 3rd last instead of 2nd last??? Give me a break...
April 3, 2010
Cox: Leafs owe their GM huge effort vs. Bruins
Leafs owe their GM a huge effort?? At this point in the season with their current record, they owe us their salaries back, not the GM an insignificiant symbolistic win for no reason, to justify his horrible decision to sacrifice our future (with those 2 first rounders), which now he's desperately trying to make up...
Apr 1, 2010
With victory, Leafs setting tone for next season
Ha ha ha!! This was soooo funny... Setting the tone for next season... Yeah, in what magical fantasy land?? The Leafs steal a few wins at the end of the season because the competing teams didn't expect any kind of fight from this garbage team, and they're supposedly setting the tone for next season?? Do you need any better example of false-hope than this??
Apr 1, 2010
Cox: Expect the Leafs to keep spending this summer
Spending?? You mean going after hockey players in foreign leagues who didn't make the NHL in the first place, but somehow are now going to save our team?? We can expect that this bargain-basement Dollar Store kind of spending that we're doing is going to continue?? Wow, that is so encouraging... Yeah, if the Leafs were serious about spending, we'd have a completely different looking team... A team that would have included Ilya Kovalchuk...
Mar 31, 2010
New-look Leaf uniforms for next season
Oh yes, throw out the red herrings to help us forget about this disgrace of a season we just had... Yeah, we know the Leafs are garbage, but next season there'll be new uniforms!!...
Mar 28, 2010
Cox: Playoffs possible (next year) for Leafs
Ha ha ha!! Another hilariously funny and depressingly impossible false-hope being spun by Cox...
Mar 23, 2010
Cox: Leafs owners not meddling with Burke's team
Yes yes, let's spare them from any blame for this disaster...
Mar 22, 2010
Leafs gaining confidence and ground in the standings
LOL!! Gaining ground in the standings... And I thought only Dalton McGuinty was full of crap...
Mar 21, 2010
Cox: Late push shows that hope alive
Hope?? What hope?? False hope, that's what hope...
So, why would they do this? Why would they keep Leaf fans going with all of this conjecture and manipulation, you ask? I'll tell you why.
What happens if the fans do finally give up on this team and finally do realize that there truly is no hope? What happens if they lose interest, and start to find other ways of getting entertainment? Well, suddenly Mr. Cox and his colleagues start losing readers, as people are tired of the crap.
The Star website starts losing hits, and finally, these TML-following journalists are suddenly reporting on something that's irrelevant and in fact a sore-touching-point for Toronto readers, and eventually they lose their jobs.
Yes, that's what it's all about, their jobs. If people don't follow the Leafs and don't care about the Leafs, then they stop reading about the Leafs, and therefore these journalists are out on their asses. And they have to do everything they can to prevent something like that from happening.
As such, we can expect that Mr. Cox will continue to spin everything to make it seem like there's still hope, and that the Leafs are turning things around, and that they'll make big changes in the off-season, and that they will make the playoffs next year... Yes yes... Just don't expect us to continue to believe it. You can only cry wolf so many times until people stop believing...
--jackandcokewithalime
(Image:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sumanch/4012148841/sizes/l/ by Suman Chakrabarti on flickr
Copyright: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)
No comments:
Post a Comment