TORONTO – The Toronto Maple Leafs have tied their playoff series against the rival Boston Bruins at 3-3, working hard to engineer a uniquely perfect opportunity to break their fans’ collective hearts by losing in seven games instead of five.
Following a slow start from the Leafs, fans reported concern that this year’s playoff run would end early, without featuring the kind of stomach-turning drama and eternal torment Leafs Nation have come to expect and somehow crave.
“Sure, it’s a given that the Bruins always knock us out in swift, almost cinematically brutal, fashion,” said season ticket holder Ray Burns. “But the idea that we were just gonna get utterly demolished without a pitifully brief series comeback first? What a letdown.”
Burns added, “Fortunately now, we’re back to playing real Leafs Hockey: getting everyone’s hopes up just enough to make it SO MUCH WORSE when we still manage to lose.”
Recent Maple Leafs playoff runs have all ended in clockwork-like high tragedy, most memorably the five consecutive losses in deciding games of first-round series from 2018 to 2022. Last year saw the team actually win a series for the first time since Mitch Marner was six years old, only to lose again in Round 2.
“It was important for us to do right by these fans and the city, by reliably ruining their lives,” explained Leafs right wing player Mitch Marner. “Toronto has come to expect a certain elite level of losing, which we fell behind on. We Leafs have a standard to not uphold.”
Marner added enthusiastically, “Leafs fans want to see us lose a four-goal lead and blow the series. They want to cry. And before that suffering can wash over us, there must come hope. It’s our job to give that to them.”
Outside of Toronto, hockey fans have reported agreement that a long drawn-out Leafs loss was far better than a short and painless one.
Ferdinand Lavalle, a Montreal Canadians fan, notes, “If there’s one thing the Leafs fans and I agree on, it’s that they deserve to feel as terrible as absolutely possible.”
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