[BRIEF NOTE] On the Canadiens' Toronto fans

[rfmcdonald]

I'm on the record as believing that Torontonians have a self-destructive relationship with their hometown hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs trade on their reputation and their monopoly over NHL hockey in southern Ontario to get away with, well, not playing a good game. Since 1969. Fortunately, Toronto fans now have an alternative.



The above is theCanadian one-dollar coin was struck in 2009 in order to celebrate the centennial of the Montreal Canadiens NHL hockey team.

Approximately 10 million Canadian dollar coins honoring the famous hockey franchise's centennial will be struck by the Royal Canadian Mint and issued for circulation.

The Canadiens have won a record 24 Stanley Cups, including their first in 1916 -- one year before the NHL was formed -- as the National Hockey Association champion when they beat the Pacific Coast Hockey Association winner Portland Rosebuds, the first American team to compete for the storied trophy.

"I think it's because of that history and the sacrifices that so many people made that we have the privilege of being able to go to the government of Canada and ask if they would stamp a particular coin for us in honor of our centennial year, or that they would come up with a stamp program," Canadiens owner George Gillett said. "This is a hockey club, and to have that kind of respect is pretty amazing."

Toronto's Maple Leafs doesn't have anything of the kind. Nor, perhaps, should it, especially given the Canadiens' recent excellent performance.

This has not exactly been an easy decision. As a journalist, I am not supposed to root for any one specific team. And as someone who grew up in a suburb just outside of Toronto, I am especially not supposed to root for the hated Habitants.

But can you really blame me? I mean, even the most hardened Toronto Maple Leafs fan has to admit that watching the underdogs of the Stanley Cup playoffs knock off Goliath after Goliath has been pure joy.
[. . . W]hat I really love about the Canadiens is that they are this year’s Cinderella team. Every playoff needs one. Last year, it was the Carolina Hurricanes, who fluked their way to the Eastern Conference final thanks to some last-second heroics. In 2006, the eighth-seeded Edmonton Oilers made it all the way to the Stanley Cup final.

And now, we have the Canadiens. A team whose general manager resigned in February. A team that qualified for the playoffs on the last day of the regular season. A team that is being outchanced two-to-one in these playoffs.

A team that just might go all the way and win the franchise — and Canada — its first Stanley Cup since 1993.

It's worth noting that the list of Stanley cup winners was dominated from 1975 to 1990 by Canadian teams, whether the Canadiens or the Edmonton Oilers in the Wayne Gretzky years or the Calgary Flames, and that the Canadiens were the last Canadian team to win the Cup in 1993.

Writing in eye weekly, Rob Duffy made the point that, really, the old Toronto-Montreal rivalry in sports is irrelevant, and that we just need a winning Canadian team.

So let’s stop calling the history between the Habs and Leafs a rivalry and hop on the Canadiens bandwagon, because it’s possible that Jerry Seinfeld had it right — when it comes right down to it, we’re really just rooting for the clothes.