PHI 7 - TOR 4

Despite the outcome, it was touch and go in the first ten minutes. Toronto sprang into the lead while the Flyers were still getting their game on, and if the Leafs had scored their third before the Flyers got their first, the end result might have been vastly different.

A wild 26 seconds saw the score change three times in Philadelphia’s favour, and after that, the Leafs seemed to quit playing. No complaints here, boy. Suddenly it was all about Jakub Voracek and Claude Giroux, the twin sons of different mothers who, last night anyway, could have given the Sedins a run for their money in the “mesmerizing-the-opposition” department.

What did I do differently? I didn’t wear my jersey and I spiked my buttered rum tea with real rum, though I’m becoming less and less superstitious about my part in how the lads play. You gotta wonder on some occasions, though. They recently eked out a win against Los Angeles, a game that would have been attended by a 26 year old hard-core fan had he not been killed in a car crash the day before. His two buddies draped a towel over his empty seat in the stands. The Flyers knew about him—don’t ask me how—and either they rose to the occasion or he was pulling for them on the other side, or both. You just don’t know.

Anyway, my father called to say well done, with the wry aside that he’d been tempted to call during Toronto’s 2-0 lead until he remembered that these are the Leafs so no counting of chickens until the final buzzer sounds. Wisdom manifests in all manner of ways. And as of this morning, we’re 24^th! Hats and horns!