Fickle Leafs fans need to up their game
For 57 years, the Maple Leafs have been chasing the Stanley Cup.聽 And every season, we get our hopes up and every season we鈥檙e left disappointed. Yet we blame someone else 鈥 the players, the coaches, the refs, management. The fans never look in the mirror.
The simple truth is this: Leafs fans have become part of the problem.
We celebrate our players when they鈥檙e flying high, but the moment they struggle we turn on them. Booing them off the ice. Tearing them apart on social media. Demanding trades. It鈥檚 a toxic cycle, and it creates crushing pressure. Sure, the players are pros 鈥 but they鈥檙e also human. Even the best can鈥檛 completely block out that noise.
That pressure shows up when it matters most. Since 2018, the Leafs were 1鈥13 in games where they could eliminate an opponent. That鈥檚 not just bad bounces. That鈥檚 the weight of a fan base that loves to cheer 鈥 and loves to destroy.
But here鈥檚 the thing: this is not the same team anymore. This group is different. They鈥檙e learning, evolving and pushing through the adversity.
So if they鈥檙e changing, maybe it鈥檚 time we do too.
If we want different results we need to be a different kind of fan base. One that supports its teams through tough times. One that stops feeding the pressure. One that builds players up instead of breaking them down.
The team is changing. Now it鈥檚 on us.
Geoff Hilhorst, Banff, Alta.
Domi fined. Bennett skated away scot-free. Something’s wrong with this picture
So the Maple Leafs’ Max Domi is fined $5,000 for a hit that led to no injury, yet the Panthers’ Sam Bennett received no discipline whatsoever for an elbow to the head of 海角社区官网goalie Anthony Stolzarz. A hit, by the way, which might keep him out for the balance of the series.
Someone in the NHL’s head office is getting worried about Canadian teams making the Stanley Cup final.
Robert Clark, St. Catharines, Ont.
Don’t let Doug Ford off the hook when it comes to bad deals, like the spa
Torontonians don鈥檛 need a spa. What we need is funding for health care, education and mental health services. This use of taxpayers dollars on such a drastically bad deal is not just ignorant but negligent.
This isn鈥檛 the first nor last of Doug Ford’s bad ideas, so Ontarians need to vocalize their disapproval and urge our premier to pull out of the deal.
Zainab Geissah, Toronto
Bill 5 is an obscenity against all that is good and decent
I only became aware of the horrors of Bill 5 (Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act) after it passed first reading through a newsletter from Cottage Life. Since then I have made it my mission to spread the word, and I am appalled at the number of people who know nothing about this heinous bill.
The bill’s proposed repealing of the Endangered Species Act is particularly galling.
We don鈥檛 have much time to get the word out to push back against a steamrolling Ford government. This is front-page news, or should be.
People need to know what Ford is planning for Ontario’s endangered species.
Hazel Eaglesome, Gravenhurst, Ont.
Bill 5 is something you’d expect in the U.S. Not Ontario
Bill 5 (Protect Ontario by Unleashing our Economy Act, 2025) gives full discretionary power to the provincial government to declare 鈥渟pecial economic zones鈥 where no laws or regulations apply. It guts protections for the environment.
It so dilutes protections of habitat in the Species at Risk Act it will be nothing more than a list of species that are doomed. New mines will be expedited as environmental and public health approvals are swept away. The Bill is silent on whether constitutionally protected Indigenous rights will be respected.
Bill 5 represents an abuse of power. It curtails public participation, it enables unfettered and unregulated development by government decree, it threatens Indigenous rights, despoils precious ecosystems, eliminates the involvement of experts and dangerously centralizes power with political ministers who can override what little regulation remains. It also provides immunity from any complaint to hold the government and its agents to account.
At least in the U.S. they are overt about what they are doing.
In Ontario, we are dismantling our democratic systems by stealth.
Bill 5 directly attacks our system of checks and balances, our regulations and our laws and our duty to consult. It opens Ontario up for unfettered development.
Bill 5 belongs south of the border.
Ontario needs to find better ways to build economic opportunities and preserve our environment.
Lynn Eakin, Toronto
Shopper’s Drug Mart has changed. So I left them
I do not go to Shoppers Drug Mart for the very reasons stated in this article in Saturday’s Business section.
Even though I was a shareholder in Shopper’s before the Loblaws takeover and still hold my shares in Loblaws, I do not make any medical purchases there, preferring to support my small pharmacy where I receive no pressure of any kind for anything, especially a Medscheck Program.
I also receive friendly service, free consultations on my meds and no problems with coverage through my insurance or the Ontario Drug program. My local Shopper’s always gave me grief if they had to do anything extra other than sell, sell, sell. The previous owners a number of years ago were great, but the franchises now have a different vision, be it them or Shopper’s management.
Jay Martin, Etobicoke
Albertans are simply weary of centre-left federal governments
Star contributor Shara Cooper isn’t wrong about separation discussion being political theatre, but they are wrong about the solution.
Let’s face reality: the majority of Canadians in eastern Canada vote centre-left. Proportional representation will ensure an unbroken chain of Liberal-NDP coalition governments for the rest of time.
What Albertans seem to want is the occasional centre-right federal government, or at least some way to counter centre-left policy through the Senate.
Tim Ingram, Calgary, Alta.
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