Good Night, Blue and White

One of my readers--thanks for the note Aunt Cynthia!--thought she'd see more poems here. A second reader (anonymous, but I have suspicions) said fewer poems, more on the Leafs (a sure sign, I reckon, of someone chained by the neck to a favourite team, like me).
On that latter point, when every sports reporter in the land points out how many years it's been since the Leafs won, how many since they even made the playoffs, I say I don't care. In my lifetime I drove dad's '65 Plymouth to band practice or something at school, it was June, and sat there long enough to hear the end of Game 6, Stanley Cup finals, Leafs beating the Habs.
Eight or nine years earlier I collected cardboard rings on Rogers Corn Syrup jars and sent them in for 5x7 (maybe larger) black-and-whites of Brewer and Baun, Duff and Keon, of course the Big M and the rest.
More recently, my son and I (I'd claim I did nothing to influence his choice of favourite team, if anyone would believe me) felt together the trials of playoff runs in '92 and '93, the Gilmour/Potvin/Burns years. Tom made a cardboard playoff standings display, hand-coloured icons the size of thumbprints attatched with pins and slotted left or right with the fortunes of their team.
Now that I've lived such joys, no one season, even a dozen seasons, can mean much, except the year the Leafs break though, truly.