Volume 88 | Issue 4 | obiter-dicta.ca
The Definitive Source for Osgoode News since 1928
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
why the maple leafs
haven’t won the stanley cup
in almost half a century
ê The last time the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup in 1967 – almost half a century ago.
kenneth cheak kwan lam › staff writer
W
ith the recently commenced 20142015 National Hockey League (NHL)
season, Leafs Nation can’t help but
think about the question that seems to
keep resurfacing since 1967: Why can’t their beloved
Toronto Maple Leafs win the Stanley Cup even though
the team is the most valued franchise in the NHL (at
$1.15 billion) according to the most recent Forbes list
of “The World’s 50 Most Valuable Sports Teams”?
The fact that the Leafs have not won the cup for the
past forty-seven years is an especially curious case
since management over the past twenty-plus years
have spent generously. To understand the reasons, let
us travel back in time to the 1980s with Dr. Emmett
Brown’s DeLorean time machine and move forward
from there...
Yes, those of us who are old enough remember
the dark days of the Leafs in the 1980s (the Harold
Ballard era) when the sole objective of the owner was
to make as much profit as possible. At the time, management would frequently “sell off” promising young
star players to rival teams so long as the latter (other
teams) were willing to pay a premium (large sum of
cash) for the asset (the rising player) to the former (the
Leafs). In order to abide by league regulations, these
transactions were usually consummated in the form
of lopsided trades. Case in point: the Leafs traded
right winger Russ Courtnall (who turned out to be
a solid two-way second-line player with respectable
scoring punch) to the Montreal Canadiens for onedimensional enforcer John Kordic and Montreal’s
» see stanley cup, page 15
In this Issue ...
editorial
OCI Tips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
student caucus
Say Hello . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
special report
Conflict of Laws . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
opinion
Humble Pie . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
arts & culture
Jurisfoodence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14