A Different Kind of Franchise Failure in Toronto

Canadian sportswriters have written plenty about the NHL's "terminally ailing U.S. franchises" and how bad they are for the league.

What about the terminally ailing Toronto Maple Leafs?

The Leafs are a huge success as a business. But they're a perpetual embarrassment on the ice.

Toronto ineptitude is a modern hockey tradition, complete with hoary jokes and larger-than-life villains.

The continuing failure of a flagship franchise isn't just bad for the city. It's bad for hockey.

Barely two weeks into the season, vultures are already circling the 2009-10 Leafs.

They're so awful that the highlight of Saturday's humiliating loss to the Rangers was a goalie fight that happened 13 years ago.

It was "90s Night", a tribute to the team's brief blip of success in the early part of that decade.

During the pre-game ceremony, fans roared for a scoreboard video showing goaltender Felix Potvin trading haymakers with the Flyers' Ron Hextall in 1996.

Then it was back to the reality of 2009, and a game that had boos raining down from the Blue-and-White faithful by the time it was over.

No wonder scalpers are taking a bath on what used to be the hottest ticket in hockey.

The NHL's other keystone franchises, like the Rangers, Canadiens, and Red Wings, have all seen their ups and downs over the years.

But none can match the Leafs' record of sustained misery since 1967.

The Maple Leaf is the NHL's most powerful brand name. Toronto is the biggest city in a hockey-mad country, and the game's unofficial media capital.

No other team inspires greater love, or deeper loathing.

When the Leafs are winning, bandwagon fans emerge across Canada and beyond. The threat of success in Toronto brings an army of Leafs haters to life.

But the Toronto Maple Leafs of recent decades are hardly worth loving or hating, and the NHL is a smaller place for it.