The Sound of One Team Sucking: Mindful Meditations for Recovering Leafs Fans

by Christopher Gudgeon, Tavish Gudgeon (With), Joey Mauro (With), Yusuf Saadi (With)

Overview

A hilarious self-help book for recovering Leafs fans everywhere.

We’ve all heard it. The sound of one team sucking. Our team. The Leafs. It starts as an almost imperceptible hum, a month or so after the home opener, once the shine of the new season wears off, building in intensity with each defeat until the sound explodes like the noise a star might make if you ripped its heart out. Fact is, being a Maple Leafs fan is a kind of addiction: irrational, compulsive, dependent. You can’t just quit cold turkey. You need help …

And that’s where The Sound of One Team Sucking comes in. Think of it as your own portable support group, designed to accompany you through another disappointing season (plus draft day!), and guide your recovery as you strive to live a more emotionally and spiritually balanced life. Written by Leafs addicts, The Sound of One Team Sucking is a hilarious meditation on the futility of Leafs fandom.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781459738379
Publisher:	Dundurn Press
Publication date:	02/25/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
File size:	874 KB

About the Author

Christopher Gudgeon is a bestselling author, award-winning screenwriter, and recovering Leafs fan. He owns seven pairs of Maple Leafs underwear. Writers Tavish Gudgeon, Joey Mauro, and Yusuf Saadi all love the Leafs and refuse to admit they have a problem.

Christopher Gudgeon is a bestselling author, award-winning screenwriter, and recovering Leafs fan. He has written twenty books, including Behind the Mask (with Ian Young), The Naked Truth: The Untold Story of Sex in Canada, and You’re Not As Good As You Think You Are: A Demotivational Guide. He’s contributed to numerous magazines, including MAD, National Lampoon, Playboy, and Hockey Illustrated. He lives in Victoria, BC.

Tavish Gudgeon is a producer and screenwriter. He loves the Leafs and refuses to admit he has a problem.
Joey Mauro is a writer, sports junkie, and aspiring mamma’s boy. He likes the Leafs but thinks they should draft way more Italian-Canadians.
Yusuf Saadi is an award-winning poet, a Raptors lover, and a recovering Leafs fan. He is waiting for the Leafs to sign him to a PTO.

Read an Excerpt

GAME 3

The past is your lesson, the present your gift,
the future your motivation.
— Anonymous, internet hacker and quote machine

Being a Leafs fan has never been easy. In fact, things were tough even before the Leafs were the Leafs. Take the team’s very first franchise owner, Eddie Livingstone, for example. He was a blustery renegade, whose o -ice antics would have given Harold Ballard a run for his embezzled money.
Livingstone entered the picture in 1914. After a successful stint in amateur sports — his Toronto Rugby and Amateur Association team won the Ontario Hockey Association senior championships two years in a row — he bought the Toronto Ontarios of the National Hockey Association (NHA), precursor to the NHL. Livingstone got rid of the Ontarios’ gaudy orange sweater, dressed them in emerald green, and the Toronto Shamrocks were born.
Livingstone had a number of legendary battles with players, co-owners, and the press. One of his most famous feuds involved the legendary Cy Denneny, the leading scorer on Livingstone’s rechristened Toronto Blueshirts team. After getting a civil service job in Ottawa, Denneny demanded a trade to the Senators.
Livingstone first refused, then — faced with Denneny’s threat to sit out the season — capitulated in Ballardian fashion, asking for either Frank Nighbor, the Senators’ star player, or the unheard-of sum of $1,800 in return. Livingstone nally settled on a lesser player and $750 for Denneny, but the damage was done. Livingstone lost his best player, and the Senators gained a star who would help them win four Stanley Cups over the next dozen years.
Livingstone followed this disaster by publicly badmouthing amateur star Lionel Conacher, one of the most famous athletes in the country, because the player refused to sign a pro contract with Toronto.
After Livingstone questioned his character, Canada’s future Top Athlete of the Half Century successfully sued … and then went on to enjoy a great NHL career, without ever playing a game for his hometown Toronto team.

GAME DAY AFFIRMATION
Today I will remind myself that for every Harold Ballard, there is an Eddie Livingstone waiting to take his place.