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Why do
Toronto sports
teams suck?
A meditation on the
longest losing streak in
North America
by Laura MitcheLL
f you cannot be good at what
“Iyou do, then you should try to
be pleasant while you’re screwing it
up.” According to Cathal Kelly of the
Toronto Star, this is the sole rule for
Toronto’s sports teams.
Toronto has a self-defeating mentality
when it comes to sports; we
seem to be convinced that we are
the underdogs. We believe that
we are the downtrodden, the long
shots, the-little-city-that-couldn’t.
Is it our lack of confidence in our
teams that causes the losing streak?
Or is it the losing streak that inspires
our lack of confidence?
For many of us, disenchantment
with the Leafs started in childhood.
Each season we continue to delude
ourselves that this will be “the year”
— and each season since 1966–67,
we’ve been wrong. The lack of skill
with which the Leafs continually fail
is particularly embarrassing because
we’re Canadian. And one of the fundamental
stereotypes about those of
us who are up here in the Great White
North is that not only are we supposed
to be nuts about hockey, we’re
supposed to be good at it too. To add
insult to injury, if the Maple Leafs
don’t make the playoffs this season
(they won’t) and the Florida Panthers
steal their spot, we will officially be
the team with longest drought of playoff
appearances in the league.
So much for hockey. Steven Spielberg
would have us believe that
raptors are among the scariest creatures
to ever have walked the Earth,
but much in the way that you felt let
down and injured when you found
out that a velociraptor was about as
big as a full-grown cocker spaniel,
you’ve been duped and disappointed
by the Toronto Raptors: duped
into believing that they’ll succeed
and disappointed when they don’t.
Teams who have an approaching
game with the Raptors must feel a
lot like teams who played my old
high school’s football team did: they
would have to seriously screw up in
order to lose.
And the Blue Jays? They’re not terrible,
but they’re not that good, either.
And frankly, I don’t know that
many people who care either way.
I’m not the only one who’s noticed
that our sports teams are less than
glorious; other people have taken
note of our poor performance. For example,
in June 2011, ESPN: The Magazine
awarded us the title of “Worst
Sports City in North America” based
on the performance of all of our professional
teams. With that kind of
press, it’s not surprising that our
teams and our morale aren’t so hot.