MLSE makes real Leafs fans suck the hind teat

I don’t mind if Detroit is referred to as Hockeytown, with the caveat that Toronto is recognized as the hockey capital of the world.

Sadly, it’s this insatiable hockey buzz in southern Ontario that ends up dealing Leafs fans the short end of the Easton.

I don’t like getting pushed around — I don’t think anyone enjoys it. It’s all the more frustrating when your favourite team is the one doing the bullying.

Scores of Canadians loving the Toronto Maple Leafs is a truism. It’s as certain as the sun rising every day. The team will sell tickets — the team will sell all their tickets — win or lose, rain or shine, sleet or snow. That’s how Toronto works.

Thanks to all the corporate reservations in the lower bowl of the Air Canada Centre, so many passionate Leafs fans are left out of the arena; either being priced out or purely a case of not enough supply and way too much demand.

But you know what? That’s business, I can live with that. I actually take pride in the fact the Leafs have such a die-hard fan base that the house is always packed. If you don’t have corporate connections or season tickets, it’s much more of a treat when you can wrangle a pair of seats.

The discussion gets especially frustrating for me when we talk about TV broadcasts. As so many fans can’t make it to the games, the need to catch the Buds on TV is crucial. Yet more and more, the team is phasing its games over to Leafs TV, a separate cable network you have to shell out extra for.

A lot of the craziest fans I know are either students or just entering the job market, and they might not be able to afford the extra costs. Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE) knows it can chisel us at every juncture, but why does it have to? Is there no decency left in the world?

MLSE has turned over 27 games exclusively to Leafs TV this season. It’s gone up steadily over the past couple of seasons, and all signs are pointing to Leafs TV becoming akin to the New York Yankees’ YES Network, which exclusively broadcasts all Yankees games to their fans.

Let’s wrap our minds around this: it’s not enough the Toronto faithful can’t get tickets for love nor money; it’s not enough we suffer the ups and downs with a fringe playoff team that features Nik Antropov on the top line; it’s not enough the arch-rival Senators have been handing us our asses as of late.

Now we have to pay if we want to ride this emotional rollercoaster for the entire season. Aren’t we lucky?

“Toronto wouldn’t be Toronto if they didn’t think the sky was falling.”

I think Leafs winger Darcy Tucker put it best when he was describing the paranoid, media-crazed Toronto fans. But I have a new perspective for Leafs brass:

Let us watch our team on regular network television, and we’ll be on cloud nine (as long as Ottawa doesn’t hammer us in the regular season).

As seen in the Oct. 4 edition of The (Western) Gazette