With great amusement I watched the tail end of a Leaf victory over Tampa Bay one night and saw what appeared to be an orchestrated team-wide snub of the fans as the Leafs elected to forgo the post game ” salute ” to their loyal fans- many of whom had ripped on the club for days prior.
I laughed.
The next morning I awoke and typically it was the MAJOR topic of discussion among the people who are paid to create and nurture such MAJOR topics of discussion.
Again. I laughed.
The reason I laughed was a decade old memory of how the post game tradition had migrated to North American.
Forty years ago I was in Mora, Sweden and as visitors, the Midland Legion Midgets were instructed, that was the established tradition after each game- salute the fans.
Fair enough, and I NEVER saw the salute again until the turn of the century when Jeff Jackson brought it to the Guelph Storm.
I laughed because one night after another in a never-ending sequence of losses at Guelph, Owen Sound Attack coach Mike Stothers wouldn’t let his team leave the bench- forcing them to watch the Lovefest at the Sleeman Centre between the Storm & their appreciative fans.
With the Attack lodged firmly on their bench, the Storm didn’t know what to do.
They tried to kill time, they looked at Owen Sound with curiosity, they awkwardly baby-stepped to center and finally saluted the crowd which touched off a glaring match with the Attack Equipment Manager Baz Haefling, and hard feelings expressed in the Guelph media.
It was an inspired piece of motivational controversy, a moment of nothing really that quickly escalated into a MAJOR topic of discussion.
Which is why I laughed at the Leaf stunt after they beat Tampa Bay that night.
I’m Fred Wallace