Toronto Maple Leafs Research Articles

“I Used to Love Scheifele:” Dominant Narratives on Reddit About the Canadian Division of the Stanley Cup Playoffs

The community-moderated content aggregation social media site Reddit has emerged as a popular destination for discussion of topics of interest in news, sport, and entertainment. This study explored the discourse of hockey fans during the playoff rounds of the Canadian Division in the 2021 Stanley Cup playoffs. The study analyzed fan discourse around two incidents which garnered significant media attention, and subsequent Reddit chatter—the inadvertent knee-on-head collision that knocked Toronto Maple Leafs’ captain John Tavares out of Round 1 and the deliberate late hit by Mark Scheifele of the Winnipeg Jets, leading to his suspension for the remainder of Round 2. On Reddit, both incidents revealed a community of hockey fans eager to engage in spirited, sometimes profane, discussion. Very quickly, discussion of the incidents led to the creation of a dominant narrative on Reddit, with the architecture of the site itself helping to inhibit alternative points of view. This contradicts the popular view of Reddit as a fan-powered community because of affordances which inhibit dissent and reward repeating other debate participants. This instant in-group creation could ultimately act as a barrier to fandom among Reddit’s 850 million users not as passionate about particular narratives of hockey.

Playoff Losses, Mayoral Politics, Image Repair, and Inoculation: Open Letter Sport Communication

In May 2021, the Toronto Maple Leafs National Hockey League team lost a seventh and final playoff game—again. The day after their loss, Toronto Mayor John Tory took the unusual step of penning an open letter to Maple Leaf fans in response. His two-page letter was a unique mix of communication genres, including sport communication, political communication, and, with multiple references to COVID-19, health communication. It was also, as we argue here, a unique example of image repair rhetoric in general and sport image repair rhetoric in particular. In this rhetorical analysis, we build on a growing body of sport image repair in the form of open letters, revealing how the interaction of these contexts with Tory’s main focus on the team reveals how his open letter is at a crossroads of intersecting image repair efforts in politic, health, and sport. We draw three primary findings from our analysis, including the possibility that Tory’s letter functioned as an inoculation message, preparing fans to resist discouragement and a dampening of support.

Hockey fandom on the border: an interpretive study of Toronto Maple Leafs and Buffalo Sabres fans in Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada

ABSTRACT To understand sport fandom in the unique context of living along the Canadian border, we interviewed 18 residents of the border town of Fort Erie, Ontario who were fans of either the Toronto Maple Leafs or Buffalo Sabres NHL hockey teams. They were asked to explain why they became fans and remain fans of one of these teams and not the other. As for originally picking their team, fans mentioned winning; dual citizenship, exposure to Buffalo, and American family; the team as a representation of the community; and national pride. As for continuing their fandom, fans mentioned geographic proximity and affordability, their attitude towards the United States, and the fan culture surrounding each team. The findings are understood by juxtaposing social identity theory, a knowledge of hockey’s cultural salience to Canadians, and knowing what life is like on the Canadian side of the Niagara border.

Leading With Vision and Values: An Interview With Richard Peddie, Former President and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment

Richard Peddie is the former president and CEO of Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE), the parent company of the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors, and Toronto Football Club, among other assets. In this interview, Peddie reflects on his career, which started in the consumer packaged goods industry and concluded with leading one of the most successful sport organizations in the world. While emphasizing the importance of leadership skills, he advocates meritocracy, and the application of vision and values and strategic planning to increase enterprise value. Sport management students, scholars, and practitioners can benefit from the experiences and insights that Peddie openly shares in this interview.

A Friend In Hope: a Story About Hope's Journey with a Brain Tumour by M. Zammit & E. Dornbusch

A Friend In Hope: a Story About Hope's Journey with a Brain Tumour by M. Zammit & E. Dornbusch

An Analysis of Fights in the National Hockey League

The authors use data from fight logs during the 2016-2017 regular National Hockey League (NHL) season to test for a difference in the proportion of games with and without fights for each of the thirty NHL teams. Only one team (Toronto Maple Leafs) was more likely to be involved in a fight at a home game than at an away game. Teams that fought proportionally more often in the second half of the season made the playoffs; teams that fought significantly less often did not. And, long distance air travel (flights involving more than 1000 miles or trips that required crossing at least one time zone) resulted in disproportionately more games with fights for eight different NHL teams.

(Bio)Aesthetic Geographies and the Governance of Biopedagogical Spect(ato)rs

Believing that “place matters” to biopower and to the governance of the new public health, we examine how a children’s hospital setting might be interpreted as a biopedagogical site. We take as the starting point of our analysis a treatment room in Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids)—Canada’s largest pediatric hospital. This particular room, dubbed Cujo’s Crease Satellite Anesthesia Room, was funded by donations from Curtis “Cujo” Joseph, a former Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender in the National Hockey League (NHL). Using trompe l’œil techniques, an artist transformed the room to look like a Toronto Maple Leafs locker room. We examine the range of possible meanings that might be taken up in Cujo’s Crease, paying particular attention to the biopolitical and cultural intersections among medicine, hockey, and biocitizenship. We argue that specific visual signs are employed to mobilize the discourses required by the space: masculinity, hockey as a national civilizing project, normative bodies, health care in a neoliberal age, and the NHL as benevolent care-giving corporation. We concluded that the discursive regimes of Cujo’s Crease are not innocent but are implicated in (bio)economical and biopedagogical imaginaries that render the sick child’s body as an assemblage of neoliberalism’s biocitizenship projects.

The Hockey Sweater: 30th Anniversary Edition by R. Carrier

Carrier, Roch. The Hockey Sweater: 30 th Anniversary Edition . Illus. Sheldon Cohen. Trans. Sheila Fischman. Toronto: Tundra Books, 2014. Print What can one say about “The Hockey Sweater”? Could we simply say it is “most beloved”? No, that was used by Ken Dryden. How about “undeniably a Canadian classic” or “iconic depiction of a truly Canadian experience”? Nope, both done ( by Stephen Harper and Justin Trudeau respectively). Maybe, “will always stand the test of time”? That was taken by Cassie Campbell-Pascall. Could we even go all out and call it the “Bible” of “the Canadian religion”? Roy MacGregor claimed that one. Indeed, the 30 th Anniversary Edition has these and more fascinating testimonials by a Who’s Who of Canadian culture. Perhaps, one could highlight why you would add the 30 th anniversary edition to your collection (not already having it is reason enough!). This full reproduction of the 1984 illustrated version includes some interesting background by Roch Carrier himself. For example, he reflects on the unexpected popularity of the story (it was originally a last-minute essay for a CBC radio time slot that couldn’t be cancelled) and also relates the challenge for Sheldon Cohen to come up with only thirteen illustrations out of the 10,000 he used for the animated film (the illustrated book – though not the published short story from the radio essay – came after the film). I don’t know about your copies, but mine are a flimsy paperback and a VHS tape, so a longer-lasting hard-cover and DVD would be good (did I mention a DVD of the National Film Board film is included)? If you need more, how about inspiration to do some historical digging? I was inspired to see if the University of Alberta library had the Eaton’s catalogue for the winter of 1946. Fortunately, we do have it on a microfilm (which is always fun to use); unfortunately, the focus is not great. I wasn’t sure whether to look in the Fall/Winter 1945-46 catalogue (if Roch’s story took place in January/February 1946) or in the Fall/Winter 1946-47 (if it was November/December 1946) but that’s the sort of thing historians tend to worry about. The entries are almost identical except the price had increased from $1.65 to $1.75 for “boys’ sizes 28 to 34-inch chest” – so hopefully Monsieur Eaton sent Mrs. Carrier the correct change she asked for. The catalogue text says “many a Canadian boy has his idol in the N.H.L. and wants to have a sweater to represent his favorite team or player.” How intriguing is it that this almost summarizes the story perfectly. Also, only four team jerseys are offered for sale (Toronto, Montreal, Detroit, and New York but not Boston or Chicago); why was that? I won’t even get into whether “jersey” or “sweater” is correct (hint: Eaton’s uses both). It turns out there is lots of material on the internet as well. Here are just a few: Roch Carrier reading the whole story (not the abridged text in the film) and Peter Gzowski responding with his own hockey story. From the CBC digital archives http://www.cbc.ca/player/Digital+Archives/ID/1752124840/ A virtual museum exhibit on the history of Canadian mail-order catalogues with a whole section on Roch Carrier and The Hockey Sweater . From the Canadian Museum of History http://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/cpm/catalog/cat2208e.shtml#050 A 2014 CBC interview with Roch Carrier for the 30 th Anniversary Edition of the book. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/the-hockey-sweater-by-roch-carrier-celebrates-30-years-1.2845752 The 1980 film itself. From NFB https://www.nfb.ca/film/sweater (or in French https://www.nfb.ca/film/chandail_le) A cleaner digitization (than the microfilms in our library) of the hockey sweater page from Eaton’s Fall and Winter 1948-1949 catalogue. However, the entry is completely different than 1946 with all six NHL jerseys offered and price jump to $2.15. From Library and Archives Canada: http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/cmc/009002-119.01-e.php?p throws another tantrum. The young curate orders him to church to pray for forgiveness. Boy prays for “a hundred million moths” instead. Hmm, Carrier and Cohen’s version is much better. Read and watch theirs instead! Highly Recommended: 4 out of 4 stars Reviewer: David Sulz David is a Public Services Librarian at University of Alberta and liaison librarian to Economics, Religious Studies, and Social Work. He has university studies in Library Studies, History, Elementary Education, Japanese, and Economics; he formerly taught in schools and museums. His interests include physical activity, music, home improvements, and above all, things Japanese.

The National Hockey League and Cross-Border Fandom

This article uses daily border-crossing data within the Niagara region of Ontario and New York to evaluate the Canadian market for a U.S.-based National Hockey League (NHL) team, the Buffalo Sabres. We conservatively estimate that 15% of attendees at Buffalo Sabres home games travel from Canada. This effect is heterogeneous with respect to the opponent country of origin, with higher levels of game day border crossing associated with a Canadian visiting team. We also find fan substitution effects between Buffalo and the Toronto Maple Leafs with respect to both the price of attendance and the quality of each team. Implications extend to NHL expansion near international borders and compensation to incumbent teams both within and across the national border near where an expansion or relocated team is placed.

Looking Back 50 Years in Hospital Administration

Healthcare policy and hospital administration are dynamic and growing fields, oriented toward shaping the future. In an effort to understand where these fields have come from, as well as some of the re-occuring challenges faced, we conducted a retrospective analysis. Our research identified progress and major accomplishments, as well as issues that continue to challenge the field in five key areas: (1) the evolution of nursing, (2) funding and legislation, (3) hospital design, construction and technology, (4) patient care and infection control and (5) leadership. To explore these areas, a thematic content review was conducted on the 12 inaugural issues of Hospital Administration in Canada, a hospital administration periodical from 1962. All written content was reviewed, coded and categorized into major themes that represented the major hospital administration topics of 50 years ago. In this article, five prominent themes are explored and further illustrated using key stories and milestones from 1962.

Going South: Professional Baseball's Contraction in Canada

Historically, Canada is second only to the United States as a baseball nation. The League Alliance, recognized by many as the first minor league, had the Tecumseh club of London, Ontario, as a charter member in 1877. The Ontario and Canadian Leagues appeared in the mid-188os, and before the turn of the twentieth century, baseball franchises existed as far west as British Columbia. (1) Later franchises, like the Montreal Royals and Toronto Maple Leafs, loom large in any account of minor-league history; the Royals, of course, were the AAA team with which Jackie Robinson played prior to his elevation to the major-league Dodgers. Finally, Canada remains the only nation other than the U.S. to host MLB teams. Despite all this history and cultural resonance, the professional baseball situation in Canada at present is, to put it kindly, rather bleak. Only two Organized Baseball (OB) teams called Canada home in the 2009 season: the Toronto Blue Jays (MLB) and the Vancouver Canadians (short-season Northwest League). Four more professional teams (in Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec City, and Winnipeg) can be added if independent leagues are counted (see table 1). Table 1. Canadian pro baseball teams as of 2009 Team Year began MLB Toronto Blue Jays 1977 A (Short-Season) Vancouver Canadians 2000 Independents Winnipeg Gold Eyes 1994 Quebec Capitales (Capitals) 1999 Calgary Vipers 2005 Edmonton Cracker Cats 2005 The situation was much different as recently as the early 1990s. Canada then had two MLB teams (Montreal Expos, Toronto Blue Jays), four AAA (Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, Vancouver), one AA (London), and five short-season or rookie teams (Hamilton, Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, St. Catharines, Welland) in OB (see table 2). In addition, independent baseball thrived in several other centers. Today, the decline in professional baseball's Canadian footprint is manifest; the independent Can-Am Association has only one Canada-based team (Quebec City) out of eight franchises, while teams in Calgary and Edmonton shifted for the 2008 season from the well-established Northern League (leaving only the highly successful Winnipeg Goldeyes) to the upstart Golden League. TABLE 2. Canada's pro baseball exodus since 1990 Team Life-span Relocated as MLB Montreal Expos 1969-2004 Washington Nationals AAA Ottawa Lynx 1993-2007 Lehigh Valley IronPigs Edmonton Trappers 1981-2004 Round Rock Express Calgary Cannons 1985-2002 Albuquerque Isotopes Vancouver Canadians 1978-1999 Sacramento RiverCats AA London Tigers 1989-1993 Trenton Thunder A (SHORT-SEASON) St. Catherines' Stompers 1986-1999 Queens Kings Welland Pirates 1989-1994 Erie Sea Wolves Hamilton Redbirds 1988-1992 Glens Falls Redbirds ROOKIE Medicine Hat Blue Jays 1978-2002 Helena Brewers Lethbridge Black Diamonds 1992-1998 Missoula Osprey Our paper explores some possible reasons for the decline of professional baseball in Canada. …

If brand equity matters, where is the brand strategy? A look at Canadian hockey teams in the NHL

This paper examines the strategies and actions Canadian professional hockey teams implement in order to build and exploit their brand. Data were collected during one-on-one interviews with vice presidents and marketing directors of four teams: the Montreal Canadiens, the Ottawa Senators, the Toronto Maple Leafs (TML) and the Vancouver Canucks. Our results, based on content analysis, show that Canadian teams, while aware of the importance of branding, do not have a formal brand strategy, with the exception of the TML. Consequently, their marketing actions do not contribute in building, leveraging and ensuring coherence of their team's brand. Furthermore, the NHL does not help its teams by centralising teams' branding.

CMAJ welcomes new senior editor

Winter dumped a near-record amount of snow on Ottawa, Ontario, and by late February 2008 most residents would have sooner donned a Toronto Maple Leafs jersey than seen another flake. But as far as Dr. Rajendra Kale was concerned, the more snow there was on the ground, the better. Of course, he had

Manufacturing Memories and Directing Dreams: Commemoration, Community, and the Closing of Maple Leaf Gardens

In February 1999, the Toronto Maple Leafs moved from Maple Leaf Gardens (MLG) to a modern new arena, Air Canada Centre (ACC), events that were telecast live in conjunction with Hockey Night in Canada. These were produced shows intended to highlight certain narratives, communicate certain messages, and select for viewing certain elements. An analysis of them reveals important meanings in the confluence of sport, place, and representation, as well as iconographic messages about Canadian identity. In commemorating one arena and inaugurating another, these telecasts operationalized a "discourse of tradition," which produced subjects who shared the preferred memories of MLG that were being celebrated and transferred to ACC.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Football Club Barcelona: how two legendary sports teams built their brand equity

This paper looks at how two sports teams, hockey club the Toronto Maple Leafs and Football Club Barcelona, have each built and leveraged their brand equity. The main differences between the two clubs lie in how they position their brands. For TML, the affective and experiential sides of the product are emphasised to make the brand grow; for Barcelona, the cognitive and affective dimensions of the product are prioritised to nurture the brand. Differences between hockey and soccer also contribute to branding discrepancies in terms of exposure and global influences.

Eye injuries in Canadian sports and recreation, 1972–2002

I n the past, eye injuries in hockey were not uncommon. In the 1930s Bas Bastien, goalie for the Toronto Maple Leafs, lost an eye, which ended his career. In 1939 George Parsons, a contemporary of mine, also with the Toronto Maple Leafs, had to have an eye removed after being struck in the eye by a stick. Thirteen years later Herb Dickenson, of the New York Rangers, was struck in the eye by a puck. I was doing eye care for the Leafs at that time. Dickenson was taken to Western Hospital, where surgery saved the eye but not the sight. His career ended. Blinding eye injuries were plentiful in amateur hockey, too. In his book 100 Years of Dropping the Puck, Scott Young1 reports that 12 players lost an eye in the years 1965 to 1969. The idea of facial protection came to mind, 2•3 and so when then COS president Page Harshman telephoned me in 1973 to say he had received calls from three COS members (Gord Harris, Ron Pinkerton and Sam Witzel), all concerned with the number of serious eye injuries in hockey players under their care, I was not surprised. Thus, a COS committee was formed, and the Survey of Sports Eye Injuries was born. A questionnaire was mailed to all COS members asking for retrospective reports of eye injuries in hockey players treated over the 1972-73 season. The results totalled 287 injuries, including 20 blind eyes. These statistics were reported to the COS annual meeting in 1974. A prospective study was conducted for the 1974-75 hockey season, which resulted in reports of 258 eye injuries, including 43 blind eyes. This survey was presented at a symposium at the 1975 COS annual meeting by my

Configuring Cisco Denial-of-Service Security Features, Part 1

You are watching the World Series and Matt Williams of the Diamondbacks is at bat. The count is 3 and 2, two out, and the bases are loaded. The phone rings and the ring indicates a long-distance call. Obviously, the caller is not watching the game. You answer the phone, only to find no one there. You curse and slam down the phone. Several seconds later, it hap-pens again. You repeat the process. This series of events occurs several more times until, out of frustration, you turn off the ringer and let all the calls go to voicemail. At work the next morning, your buddy says, “Where were you? I tried to call last night to make sure you were watching the game.” (If you are a Canadian, substitute Stanley Cup finals for World Series, Mats Sundin for Matt Williams, and Toronto Maple Leafs for Diamondbacks, etc. If you live anywhere else, sub-stitute World Cup, Reynaldo, etc.) The point is that the unknown caller was tying up your phone line and denying access to you. It got so bad you had to take your phone off-line. You can see that it is very difficult to protect against this type of attack, save going off-line. Well, you could take this story and create a simple analogy using your router. Someone starts flooding your router or network with dubious packets. The packets cause the system to crash or consume all avail-able resources. Your legitimate clients cannot get through or do anything. When someone hits your router with a denial-of-service attack, he or she holds up critical resources by block-ing the door to lawful business activity. A denial-of-service (DoS) attack is an attack against your network availability.

Reviewing the Past and Looking to the Future: Activists Reminisce at the Mine Mill Centennial Conference Sudbury, May 1993

ON A SATURDAY NIGHT in mid-May 1993 I was playing some eight-ball in the basement of the Mine Mill Hall in Sudbury. The Toronto Maple Leafs were on the move and the hockey game occupied considerable attention early in the evening, but as the night wore on, it was beer and sociability that were paramount Wearing a T-shirt depicting a blues guitarist, and holding down one of two pool tables with friends, I was apparently conspicuous to one young worker. He struck up a conversation with me, intent on finding out where I had purchased the shirt, what I knew about blues, of which he was a decided advocate, and what I was doing in Sudbury. I explained that I had picked up the shirt in Paris—it took a few emphatic sentences to emphasize mat it came from France and not Paris, Ontario—and that I was part of the conference on the history of the Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Union that had been going on upstairs for a couple of days. This required further explanations — which again took considerable conversational emphases — that I