RALEIGH, N.C. (Jan. 15) – It’s a concept that has become part of the vernacular among those who purport to worship the Toronto Maple Leafs, yet it has no defined meaning and it appears to exist only in the imagination. “Tanking” is a term supposedly affixed to a professional sports team that has no chance of contending for a meaningful position. Said team must therefore willfully abandon all accepted principles and nose-dive to the depths of the league in which it plays in order to secure the highest possible draft slot. At least, I think that’s what “tanking” means to the majority of people who believe in such a notion.
Chances are these people also believe that wrestling and roller derby are legitimate sports, and that politicians make good on all campaign promises. I may have stumbled upon such an individual Wednesday afternoon while waiting to board my Air Canada flight here to Raleigh. I was reading a magazine when a Pearson Airport employee in painter overalls recognized me and wondered if he could ask a few questions. I always enjoy chatting with hockey fans, so I invited this friendly chap to sit down. Immediately, he posed the question, “Do you think the Leafs should tank the season?”
“I don’t understand… what does ‘tank’ mean?” I replied.
“To lose on purpose,” he said.
“And, how would the club go about doing that?”
“By the players not trying to win games,” he explained. “It happens all the time.”
I asked my friend to cite a single example of his theory, and he proceeded to laugh nervously.
“C’mon, give me an example,” I pressed.
“Well…. you know… it probably doesn’t really happen, but the Leaf players should do it this year. The team isn’t going anywhere.”
“So, you honestly believe,” I countered, “that a group of professional athletes – players at the highest level of their sport – would make a collective decision to essentially throw hockey games for the long-term benefit of the franchise? To purposely embarrass themselves in front of thousands of live on-lookers, and hundreds of thousands watching on TV? Particularly given that such action would lead to the overwhelming majority of these players being removed from the team long before it begins to get better? I don’t understand it.”
“Hmmmm… I guess it doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?” my friend concluded after a lengthy pause.
And therein lays the fallacy of “tanking”. There is no such thing… at least, not in the way many people imagine it. The concept of bartering established players to enhance the restructuring of a sports team is a legitimate, widely-used strategy that often serves to weaken a club in the short term. It’s a plan of action that many expect Brian Burke will deploy as the National Hockey League trade deadline approaches. The potential expulsion of key players such as Tomas Kaberle, Pavel Kubina, Nik Antropov and Alexei Ponikarovsky will provide the Maple Leafs with much-needed assets to build upon. It may constitute relinquishing a season that held little promise to begin with, but it’s a valid, understandable method of moving forward in a league with a salary cap.
Under no circumstance does it imply that the 20 players who dress for Leaf games in the final month of the season will do anything but their best. Nor does it suggest that management and coaching will be at all appeased by a string of one-sided defeats. The vast majority of these people make it to the apex of their profession by thinking in the exact opposite manner. It is in their DNA to be competitive. The idea of intentionally laying down on the job is thoroughly ridiculous.
And, don’t believe – for a moment – that any legitimate fan of the Maple Leafs goes to bed feeling happy after a game such as on Tuesday, when Nashville came to town and smothered the Blue & White 2-0. Or when Bryan McCabe and the astoundingly average Florida Panthers walked away with an easy 4-2 triumph a week earlier. I often listen to fan reaction on radio while driving home after covering a game at the Air Canada Centre. When the Leafs lose, the anger and frustration is palpable. It matters not that the club isn’t expected to win on many nights, or that it may ultimately benefit from a lower placing in the standings. The natural instinct of a supporter is to be disheartened after a loss, and pleased after a victory. Such emotions are unmistakable on the call-in shows.
Those among the innumerable die-hards that suggest they happily watch as the Leafs tumble through the standings are full of baloney. It’s simply their way of masking disappointment.
In almost 35 years of watching hockey in Toronto – first, as a season-ticket holder, then as a member of the media – I’ve been party to some dreadful Maple Leaf teams. The year I landed my job at the radio station – 1987-88 – the Leafs made the playoffs with a record of 21-49-10 for 52 points. Of course, points were awarded differently back then; a team with 52 today would miss the playoffs by 40. Three years earlier – in 1984-85 – the Leafs had finished dead-last in the NHL with a 20-52-8 record for 48 points. There were many nights when the sheer futility of the Harold Ballard era seemed to overwhelm and demoralize the players. As it did the paying customers.
By comparison, the Leafs of the post-lockout NHL are Stanley Cup worthy. Young fans in the city today have no idea what a truly horrendous club looks like. Yet, there has never been a single occasion – at any time, in any year – that I’ve left either Maple Leaf Gardens or the Air Canada Centre thinking that the Leafs purposely underperformed. A lot of times, they weren’t nearly good enough. At other times, the burden of failure made it seem as if they couldn’t compete. But, I never once detected a shred of satisfaction from losing.
And, that’s why the concept of “tanking” has no merit. It’s an illusion; a cop-out for those who either don’t understand – or cannot deal with – the reality of professional sport.
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