Mitch Ado About Marner: Angry Toronto Fans Needed A Scapegot

“I have never wished a man dead. But I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.” Mark Twain

We have a friend who works in the same Toronto neighbourhood where several of the stars on the Maple Leafs live. One day he came to us to complain that Auston Matthews never waves back when he greets him on the street. “What’s it going to hurt him to say hi?” he asked. “(William) Nylander always turns to hi, takes pictures and rides the subway.”

We tried to tell him about the overwhelming pressure of being a visible Leafs star in Toronto. If you stop for one fan you must stop for all fans who accost you. Or else there will be a video of you acting like as jerk.. And the Leafs, it’s safe to say, have a million fans in southern Ontario. Most are nice, considerate. But the needy ones make you want to stay in your house full-time between games. 

Nylander finds a way to accommodate his local fame. Others, like Matthews and Mitch Marner, do not accept blame for the Leafs’ entire 58-year Stanley Cup drought that tortures fans. In Marner’s case public pressure, in part, led him to leave Toronto for Las Vegas where he will be way, way down the celebrity chain behind Kelly Clarkson and Boys II Men. The gnawing blame for repeated Cups in Toronto since 1967 had to go somewhere. It was laid at Marner’s door.

For those fortunate not to live Days of our Leafs on a daily business, Marner is a skilled forward who made his living in Toronto as a setup man for others. In his career so far, all in Toronto as part of their “Core Four” players, he had 221 goals and 520 assists. He’s not likely to dig the puck out of the corner or crash the net often.  In that manner he resembles the late Johhny Gaudreau who left Calgary for similar “faults”.

In a town that loved Tie Domi and Wendel Clark this was not seen as commitment to winning in the tough zones during the playoffs. So when the Leafs boxed themselves into a salary cap hell that meant Marner was unaffordable, the resentment of his play grew. He was called effete, a whiner, a no-show for his $9.5 million salary. When the Leafs gambled at the trading deadline, keeping him to help the team win the Cup in 2025, the target on his back grew larger. Fans who dreamt he’d take a hometown discount were dreaming.

You know the rest. Toronto gakked again in the second round. Marner went to free agency, signing longterm in tax-free Nevada. The team received nothing in return for a star player. The locals needed a scapegoat for thieir repeated frustrations. So when Marner, who has kids, described being doxxed by fans, the unwanted threats, the people hanging around his home late at night, needing security, the unrelenting pressure of playing for his hometown team, the dam broke among critics .

The result was measures of spite and resentment. “Why does he always seem so full of shit?” asked one fan. “That crybaby Marner who doesn't like that his hometown hates him and has never taken responsibility for why that is, ever.” And, ”Go enjoy your millions in Vegas bro where you can underperform when it counts and the vast majority won’t know the difference.”

And that’s the nice stuff. Then there was Toronto Sun writer Steve Simmons who can always be counted on to make things more toxic. “This was classic spin-doctoring — taking a piece of slight truth and stretching it to sell a narrative that isn’t necessarily believable…And it was, or is, believed by some who must also believe in fairy tales, that Marner’s life and that of his family was in danger because of his lack of playoff performance.” Simmons apparently believes, like the mayor, that life in Toronto has never been safer.

Forget that team captain Matthews had a paltry three goals and 11 points in the same playoff swoon that Marner is alleged to have caused. Matthew’s annual $16.7 million went unmentioned. In the eyes of Toronto fans and media Marner’s departure was the purgative. (They’ll change their mind when they fully realize that a franchise player was allowed to leave for nothing.) 

The bigger picture here, easily glossed over, is that elite players like Marner now control the league. They wrap up eight-year contracts with no-trade/ no-move clauses. They and their agents talk around the NHL about places they’d like to play. For some Toronto still remains the pinnacle, but they are fewer every year who want the incessant media scrutiny, the visibility in the community and the tax situation compared to U.S. states with no income tax. To say nothing of the car-jacking that Marner suffered a few years ago.

Some of these players will dismiss Marner’s dystopian portrait of Toronto. But a growing number don’t want the hassle of Toronto— or other Canadian fish bowls. Montreal has long ago lost the lure for French Canadians to play there. Too much language politics, too many taxes, urban street crime. Ditto Vancouver, which his still in shock from the 2011 riots after the Canucks lost Game 7 of the Final. Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg are too cold and their street crime in an embarrassment.

There are better options. Play in a warm American city, collect your riches then spend the summer in your Muskoka or Laurentian cottages. Lest Toronto’s embedded sports media and fans, whose passions have often dictated the progress of their sports teams, think they are still in charge, watch this winter as the dithering Blue Jays face life without star shortstop Bo Bichette. 

Bichette is a free agent and if he’s still willing to return to Rogers Centre (no guarantees) the Blue Jays will pay another king’s ransom like the $325 M. they paid Vlad Guerrero Jr. Leaving little money for the other parts of the team. More likely they missed their window to sign Bichette and will see him return in another uniform next summer—  possibly of an AL East rival.  

So criticize Marner all you like, Toronto. He’s more likely to win a Cup in Vegas than any in Toronto. Then who will Leaf Nation send to the stocks?

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster  A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada's top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.