The Toronto Maple Leafs, yet again, are maple syrup.
They have famously not won a Stanley Cup since 1967. Curse theories abound. Drake, Canada's rapper in chief, proposed a new one on Instagram after the latest loss, suggesting a "Bieber curse."
That's preposterous, of course. Justin Bieber was merely in the crowd at Sunday's 6-1 washout to the Florida Panthers in Game 7 of the playoffs' second round. Toronto's Cup drought is nearly twice as old as the pop star.
Perhaps Drake was deflecting. He lost a $1 million bet on the series, which some Toronto fans see as evidence of a Drake curse. But the Leafs' 58-year Cup drought is 20 years older than Drake.
So maybe it's the curse of Harold Ballard. He is the late skinflint team owner who once lived in an apartment in Maple Leaf Gardens. Think of it as a real-life version of the dark lodgings kept inside War Memorial Stadium by the owner/villain of the New York Knights in the movie version of "The Natural."
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We told you about the Leafs' Larry Hillman curse in 2021. He was a veteran defenseman who wanted a raise, from $15,000 to $20,000, after the Leafs' last Cup. Punch Imlach, the pugnacious coach and general manager at the time, would not go higher than $19,500. When Hillman held out, Imlach fined him $100 a day for 24 days. Hillman proclaimed that the Leafs would never win another Stanley Cup until they paid back the fine.
(Fun facts: Hillman is one of 11 players to have spent parts of their careers with both the Sabres and the Buffalo Bisons of the American Hockey League. And he once had a golden retriever named Sabre.)
Fifty years later, the Leafs did refund the $2,400, plus interest. Hillman then lifted his curse, but yet on it goes.
So maybe it has really been an Imlach curse all along.
He won four Stanley Cups as coach of the Maple Leafs during the 1960s. The last one, in 1967, was the last season before the NHL went beyond its Original Six. Expansion doubled the league to 12 teams after that. In 1970 came two more expansion teams: the Buffalo Sabres and the Vancouver Canucks.
The Leafs fired Imlach after a first-round playoff loss to the Boston Bruins in April 1969. Some observers thought he would head next to Vancouver, where he had once held a small ownership stake in the local franchise of the Western Hockey League.
We know what actually happened, of course: Imlach became the first coach and general manager of the fledgling Sabres. Where better to haunt the Leafs than from the other end of the Queen Elizabeth Way?
The rival teams met for the first time on Nov. 18, 1970, at a sold-out Maple Leaf Gardens. The Sabres won in a romp, 7-2. Ex-Leafs Gerry Meehan and Larry Keenan each had two goals for Buffalo. The headline in the next morning's Courier-Express: "Sabres Spear Punchless Maple Leafs."
Toronto fans gave Imlach a standing ovation when, ever the showman, he appeared behind the Buffalo bench only moments before the opening faceoff. By the end, they were chanting, "We want Punch! We want Punch!"
"What can I say?" Imlach told reporters after. "It's all been said for me."
He brought a lot of old Leafs to the Sabres over the years, including Tim Horton, Dick Duff, Eddie Shack and Floyd Smith, their first captain. Imlach even made a 1971 trade with the Los Angele Kings for Hillman. (Punch held grudges but also lifted them - if he needed, say, a veteran defenseman.)
The Leafs' Stanley Cup drought is even worse than it appears at first glance. Not only haven't they won the Stanley Cup since 1967, but they haven't even been to the finals since then.
Imlach, by contrast, got the Sabres to the finals just five years into their existence. They lost in six games to the Philadelphia Flyers 50 years ago this month. Smith was the Buffalo coach then, but Imlach remained in charge as general manager.
The Sabres fired him in 1978. He went back to the Leafs in 1979, but it didn't last. The old magic was gone.
Is there really a Punch curse in Toronto? Nah. It's simpler than that. Bad luck and bad management explain a lot.
We know a bit about that sort of thing on our end of the QEW, too.
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