The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967. The 1966-67 season was the last season of the six-team format for the NHL, which expanded to 12 the next season.
This generation-spanning drought doesn’t phase new Leafs’ President Tim Leiweke who has already started planning the Maple Leafs’ Stanley Cup Parade. No, really. From ProHockeyTalk:
The new boss of Maple Leafs Sports & Entertainment told Bloomberg as much on Monday, saying he’s already mapped out the club’s Stanley Cup parade while suggesting images of the 1960′s-era Leafs — who won four Cups between 1962-67 — should be scrapped.
“I have it planned out and it’s going to be fantastic,”Leiweke said of the proposed victory parade. “If you can all dream about that and get that in your mind, we’ll have something we’re all driven toward.”
That’s a brazen statement itself, but it wasn’t the only one.
As mentioned, Leiweke not-so-indirectly claimed Toronto needs to lessen the focus on its glory teams of the 60s.
“I don’t want the players walking in the hallways of the Air Canada Centre and seeing pictures from 1962,” he explained. “Get rid of those pictures and tell them, this is your legacy.”
Something tells me this vote of confidence won’t sit well with Maple Leaf fans who generally are a surly, superstitious bunch and coming off of one of the worst collapses in post-season history.
