We are looking at a new kind of "Winning"

This is going to be a good year, I think, for the Toronto Maple Leafs. Ha ha! Not in terms of wins or losses or whatever arbitrary bullshit you are used to measuring the success of your sports teams; no, this season is going to require a completely new definition of the word "good". But that's ok. If you are anal retentive or whatever I guess you might say that Leafs are in for a "bad" season, but then, what is "bad" if not a completely false idea set up by the "winners" in life to validate their own futile and largely empty accomplishments? Exactly! I'm glad you agree.

So the Leafs are going to "bad" this season, by which I mean to say that they will not win very many games, and there are those out there, still stuck measuring success in completely obsolete terms, "Games Won" and "Goals Allowed" and "Powerplay Goals For," who will see this as a failing. Ok. Not everyone is perfect, say, like me, and I understand that not every Leaf fan has quite caught up to my advanced Nirvana-esque state of Hockey tranquility. That's ok too! Don't worry about it. Leaf fans have never been noted for their intelligence anyway! So it's not personal.

If you want a playoff team to cheer for, might I suggest Montreal? They are a pretty good team, I think, and hardly anyone really cares about that rivalry anymore. I know it won't be easy, because it is easy to get stuck in the past when you are a Leafs fan. After all, some of the best moments in Maple Leaf history could arguably be said to have happened in the past! For example: Stanley Cups.

The Leafs are not going to win the Stanley Cup this year. Some people probably consider the Cup to be a measure of success. Leaf fans! Don't listen to them. It has been forty years since the last Stanley Cup, and we've turned out pretty ok. What is another five or ten extra years of waiting? Will it not taste as sweet? Sweeter even, just ask the Boston Red Sox, those famous losers who could only keep their streak going 86 years, didn't even have the fortitude to push it to a hundred, and people call them "winners". I don't know. I just don't.

Don't get hung up on Mats Sundin. He was part of the problem, remember? He's the one who picked this team up and dragged it kicking to the end of the season and for what? Just heartbreak and trauma and nothing good. We don't need that and we don't need him. If the Leafs are "bad" then there is no risk. Sundin is risk. Let him sign with Montreal or New York or Vancouver and maybe he can be happy and we can be happy and live vicariously through his new team.

The point of this season is to lose. Never forget that. It will be difficult, I understand. You will see this team rally in the third period from two goals down and force overtime and your primitive lizard brain instincts will kick in and you will want to cheer so hard. You will watch them outscore Ottawa by embarrassing margins and you will want to crow and stick it to very jerkass Sens fan you know.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Success will be measured in the Loss column. Readjust your self accordingly, savvy Leaf fan, and maybe we can enjoy this season, together.