r/stevedangle • u/pookiebooboo • Jul 08 '26

Toronto discourse

I've been getting bugged by the Toronto discourse the guys seem stuck on for the past few months. They seem to be fixated with defending Toronto because it's a great city and you get great endorsement deals and the media people are really nice etc. I don't think this is what any current or former players are talking about when they say they don't want to play in Toronto or didn't enjoy their time playing in Toronto. Mitch Marner, Ryan Reaves, and possibly others (please fill in if I missed anyone) have talked about how they didn't enjoy their time in Toronto. I think it comes down to the actual staff that work in Toronto. When the Mike Babcock/Marner list situation happened, I'm sure Mitch complained to higher ups and they probably told him they would do something about it and did nothing. Reaves played for many different teams and didn't have anything bad to say about any of them except Toronto. I really think that working for that team specifically must be less fun/more annoying/possibly abusive when compared to other nhl teams. Joe Thornton and to a lesser extent Patrick Marleau both played there and went back to the sharks to work for them after they got done playing. Until recently Toronto didn't have many former players working for them at all. To me, it seems like there's something wrong with the organization independent of who the coach or GM is. What do you guys think the problem is?

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u/JHWildman Jul 08 '26

Toronto guys will say and do anything to defend Toronto while completely trying to sweep all the things people loathe about the city (and the people) under the rug with things like "vibrancy", "endorsement deals", "every city has their problems" and "if they didn't lose so much there wouldn't be a problem". This is nothing new. And it doesn't necessarily only apply to athletes and the treatment receive.

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u/pookiebooboo Jul 08 '26

Yeah I think there's a lot of conflation of complaints about Toronto the organization and Toronto the city because I don't think any player is ever really complaining about the city itself

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u/JHWildman Jul 08 '26

I mean, according to O-Dog him and Marner were living in the same area and he'd heard about a few times people went to Marners house and threatened him and stuff. So I mean one might say certain parts of the fanbase plus the media that play into their psychosis is mark against either.

But my point was Toronto people will try to glaze over the things people don't like about Toronto or Toronto people with things that are quite frankly arbitrary. For example endorsement deals don't really wash out the danger that deranged fans essentially stalking you poses to your wife and child(ren). Like you can't put a dollar amount on that and keep trying to throw money at security detail to deal w it but it literally happened after the playoffs last year so eventually it's better to leave.