Wednesday, September 20, 2006

64 Years And Counting



Today marks the end of an era. Toronto marks it's combined 64th year without a major sports title, and we here at 64 Years and Counting mark the first ever Changing Of The Title. The counter ticks forward for our first time, but assuredly not the last.

We here at the 64 Years World News Centre are a little sad to see 63 go. After all, this blog was founded on that number. It's the only one we've ever known.

Let's take a walk down memory lane. This humble blog opened its doors
April 8th, with the start of the MLB season, in which we went out on a limb, and brazenly predicted an undefeated, 162-0 season for the Blue Jays. We got burned on that one, and fittingly, it was the Jays' mathematical elimination yesterday that prompted our switch.

It was a good time to be in the business of making fun of Toronto's teams though, as both the Raptors and Leafs were stumbling their way to another lost season (In a stunning show of impressive foresight, 63 Years began on the twin assumptions that neither team would anything that year. We were right). The Jays were playing
well enough, and the NHL playoffs kept us going after the Leafs hit the links, where we went seven for fifteen in series predictions, though we did pick Carolina over Edmonton, so it wasn't all bad.

The playoffs segued nicely into the
World Cup, which was so entirely engrossing that the 63 Years staff managed all of three posts over a span of three weeks.

That led to a long couple of months, filled entirely with
baseball, with the odd foray back to hockey, whenever possible (such as making fun of Buffalo's new jerseys. What were they thinking?)

That took us to the end of August, when we came to the sudden, and stunning realization (we were in the shower at the time) that the Blue Jays were not going to make the
playoffs (Our favourite line, "We'd change the site's name to "64 Years and Counting" right now, but we figure we owe it to the Jays to at least wait until they've been mathematically eliminated. And because we still have a whole whackload of business cards. More the latter than the former.)

But that was ok, because hockey was starting to wake up from its (deep)
summer slumber.

Which brings us to today. A rather sombre day actually. 64 years. Here's to another one.

Jason

1 comment:

walkinvisible said...

ummmmm.... correct me if i'm wrong but shouldn't you add 3 to 63 ? one year each for the leafs, raps and jays ? no ? shouldn't it be 66 years and counting ??? furthermore, i presume 63 is 39 since a stanley cup + 11 since raptor inception + 13 since the last jays pennant. but if this is the case, wouldn't the ticker start counting from zero, beginning after the most recent win (1993 jays) ? i think your blog is mistitled. should be 37 years and counting (13 each for jays and leafs + 11 for the raps) ? like when the raps win the title this year, we start over at zero ? no ? :)