Toronto Maple Leafs

League: National Hockey League
Location: Toronto, Ontario
Founded: 1917
Stanley Cups: 13
Minor Titles: 5

The Maple Leafs are an interesting case study, proving that teams do not have to have smaller followings nor a complete lack of success to meet the criteria necessary to have a bred fanbase. What the Leafs have experienced however, is an extended drought of success and they are the subject of incredible animosity from fans of other NHL teams.

Toronto has won 13 Stanley Cups over the club’s history. However, when Toronto entered the NHL in 1917 the league had a total of four teams. Explosive expansion began in 1942, the NHL would see two more teams added over the next 25 seasons. Since the end of the Original Six era in 1967, the Maple Leafs have not won another Stanley Cup. Toronto has gone 39 years without a championship.

The Leafs are in an interesting position, sandwiched geographically between two areas that loathe the city they call home, the East and the West. Quebec, a fellow Canadian province, is home to the Montreal Canadians who have won 24 Stanley Cups and have made a past time of finishing ahead of the Maple Leafs in divisional play. All of Quebec hates Ontario and by extension, Toronto. The day a French-Canadian chooses to forsake their birthright and follow the Leafs, temperatures in hell will be lower than they are in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

The rest of Canada also hates Toronto, so much so that a documentary was released in 2007 entitled “Let’s All Hate Toronto.” Which presents a top ten list of why people hate Toronto, of course the Maple Leafs make the list. What does this hate for the Maple Leafs engender?

Mr. Toronto starts his journey in Hamilton after he sees a billboard boasting “Toronto Sucks” as an advertisement campaign. He finds out that some fans of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats put on bags over their heads because of the shame of losing to Toronto during the Labour Day CFL game every year. He decides to go around Canada on a fake “Toronto Appreciation Day” tour. Mr. Toronto visits St. John’s and Halifax, where Maritimes spit on his “Toronto Appreciation Day” banner.

This hate runs deep, not just in the Maritimes, but across Canada’s midsection, all the way to British Columbia. The Maple Leafs just cannot draw fans from other areas of their country, and let’s just face it, nobody in America cares about Canadian hockey teams, except for the ones that we steal. Perhaps Leafs fans have realized this, as our documentary filmmaker concluded:

At the end of the film he realizes that Toronto hates itself the most.

Perhaps with more success Toronto can win converts to the cause. Until then however, utter hatred and a 40 year drought means that Maple Leafs fans are born, not made.