I stopped watching hockey on a regular basis last year. This year I didn’t even manage more than five minutes of in-game time.

I am sick of putting my heart into a team that doesn’t treat it’s fans like anything more than a paycheck. That’s what happens when sports and business intertwine, you get bullshit. There are many fans who love the game of hockey, I know I did. I was on my instagram feed (@andeluuu) and just looking around the discover tab, I came across a picture of Nathan MacKinnon and a quote saying that he would be willing to take less so the team can be better equipped to acquire what they need to win (I assume he means a Stanley Cup).

Respectable, maybe, I don’t see why a hard working player has to take less so you can acquire other players who aren’t as good and won’t take less. Then you have Mitch Marner and Austin Matthews, two really high paid players, making up the better part of. Toronto’s Salary Cap, and year after year they don’t produce.

I know how we’re going to solve this, let’s just keep paying them more!

Toronto fans are not really the smartest people, yet they will fight to the death that this year is their year. The majority of the fans crapped all over Nazem Kadri when he took that penalty and suspension in the playoffs, the Toronto media outlets even ripped on Kadri, calling him an immature player. I know I have harped this tune before, over and over, but this isn’t something that is going to disappear from consciousness, just like when Dion Phaneuf messed up a play that let to Boston take the series.

My two leaf Jerseys are Kadri and Phaneuf, and trust me I get my fair share of heckles.

So the Leafs made a couple of trades and acquired a few players, yet they are still always being beat out first round. After 5 seasons of the same effect, while switching out players and coaches, they have finally decided to take a deeper look at the team? I don’t buy it, I don’t even think that is enough, they should start to look at the whole organization.

Wayne Simmonds stated that “this is a business”, referring to the Leafs, he also expressed that he is open to return next year, during an interview on Sportsnet.ca (Just because I don’t watch hockey any more, doesn’t mean I don’t like to know what’s going on). To me that is the ultimate sound of defeat, with all those analytics and metrics, I don’t think Toronto puts enough emphasis on playing the game. Toronto’s fan base is too loyal in my opinion for there to ever be a drastic change in the way the MLSE even approaches hockey. Most people are always looking for the ways they are right and you are wrong for their to be any growth anyway.

It’s like Toronto has a system and they are going to stick by it, because it’s always been that way. I think Kyle Dubas is so analytical he is forgetting that the players are still human! It’s easy for me to sit here and criticize, when there are all sorts of factors that contribute to the success of a national hockey team, but before we start using metrics and analytical data, why can’t we just get players who want to win? Instead of throwing large sums of money, and fancy perks (I wish we kept the Gardens).

Maybe Nathan MacKinnon is thinking in the direction that athletes need, then again I’m not one for selling yourself short. I read that they were burning jerseys and smashed televisions (I paid like $200 dollars each for my jerseys, I’ll just stop watching them instead), but how many fans are just going to realize they were just having a tantrum, and will most likely be back watching them again. I am not even talking about the pricing of seats, why don’t you learn to change Toronto?

What a gift we gave those nurses.