For many, being a Toronto Maple Leafs fan has become a curse from cradle to grave. False hope, hollow promises, and a mind-numbing lack of success - these words describe the Toronto Maple Leafs and the hockey club’s inexplicable mediocrity over much of the past decade. Author Peter Robinson has attended some 100 games over the past six seasons and has little to show for it except an unquenched thirst that keeps him coming back. Why does a team that hasn’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967, long before many of its followers were even born, have such a hold on its fans? Robinson tries to answer that question and more while detailing what it’s like to love one of the most unlovable teams in all of professional sports. Being a Leafs fan requires a leap of faith every year, girding against inevitable disappointment. This book tells what that’s like, how it got to be that way, and what the future holds for all who worship the Blue and White.

A history and tribute to the Maple Leafs, straight from the mouths of players, coaches, managers, and fans who were there. Published to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the NHL Fully illustrated with memorabilia, ephemera, and photos from the Leafs’ entire 100-year history Author is a renowned hockey historian and has been featured on Hometown Hockey, with Ron MacLean Author’s last two hockey history books sold over 2,000 copies each

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Rick Vaive sets the record straight as he tells his story of turmoil in Toronto's Ballard years (and with Don Cherry's Mississauga Ice Dogs), growing up in an environment filled with alcohol and alcoholism, and his own struggles and battles. In the storied history of the Toronto Maple Leafs, no player scored fifty goals in a season until Rick Vaive in 1981-82--and he did it three years in a row. So why isn't his number 22 hanging from the rafters of the Leafs' rink and his name as revered in Leafs lore as more recent stars like Gilmour, Sundin and Clark? You could blame it on a team that lost far more than it won. You could blame Harold Ballard and his erratic ownership. You could blame the fans, the media... but Rick Vaive doesn't blame anybody. Sometimes, life just doesn't go your way. Growing up in a household plagued by alcoholism, the gifted young hockey player took shelter in the company of his grandmother and a blind and severely disabled uncle. Rick learned quickly that there are more valuable things in life than hockey. Even after his promising coaching career stopped dead when it ran into Don Cherry in Mississauga--one of the worst seasons in Ontario junior hockey history--he still doesn't point fingers. Life is too sweet for regrets, but learning that lesson can be one hell of a ride.

The Toronto Maple Leafs official book of the greatest players and coaches from yesterday and today! We Are Your Leafs is the first book in an eight-book partnership between Fenn/Random House and the Toronto Maple Leafs as part of the team's forthcoming centennial celebration plans. It is the absolute must-have for Leaf fans far and wide! The Toronto Maple Leafs have 61 players and fifteen builders inducted in the Hockey Hall of Fame, more than any other NHL franchise. Their list of team captains from the past century of hockey reads like an All-Star roster and the names of each net-minder who have stood between the Leafs' pipes include some of the game's most brilliant goalies. In hockey, there is no other club as recognized and as widely admired as the Leafs. They are baseball's New York Yankees and the NFL's Dallas Cowboys -- a team that defines the sport, is an iconic ingredient in the culture and traditions of its city, and enjoys fan support well beyond their own market. As the Toronto Maple Leafs approach their centennial season, historians, hockey analysts, and fans alike will examine this club's contribution to the game and the athletes who have given the fans so much to cheer for. In We Are Your Leafs, veteran sports writer Mike Ulmer, in partnership with the Toronto Maple Leafs, selects and profiles more than 80 of the greatest Leafs of all time. This unique and fully illustrated official publication recognizes the team's greatest captains, goalies, defencemen, enforcers, coaches, and more. The profiles -- of legends like Johnny Bower, snipers like Phil Kessel, and recent fan favorites such as Doug Gilmour -- are accompanied by entertaining stories, quotes, stats, and a wealth of Leafs memorabilia and photographs.

Chronicling the Maple Leafs for 35 years, longtime Toronto Sun beat reporter Lance Hornby provides access into the Maple Leafs' inner sanctum as only he can. From the heyday of the 1940s when Toronto won five Stanley Cups in Maple Leaf Gardens to the current star-laden era with Auston Matthews and John Tavares, this book provides a one-of-a-kind, insider's look into the great moments and interesting anecdotes from the Leafs' storied history. Read about how a lifetime pass to Leafs games was lost in a poker game; why Charlie Conacher dangled King Clancy by his feet from an open hotel window; how Mike Babcock learned he was related to Dave Keon; the wild times of the historic Gardens during the chaotic Harold Ballard era; and the legendary pranks of Doug Gilmour, whose sense of humour only was rivaled by his skill on the ice.

Hockey history like it's never been told - a chronology of the Toronto Maple Leafs Stanley Cup championships in the last six decades. The results from the efforts of the owners, managers, coaches and players in bringing the Stanley Cup to Toronto are laid bare in this decade-by-decade account of NHL championships by Toronto's most celebrated professional sports team. Delivered with an efficiency of prose that is both charming and poignant, this is a hockey book that is, like the team itself, in a class of its own. The Complete History of Toronto Maple Leafs Championships in the Last Six Decades is the ultimate reference book. Concise and thoroughly researched yet a remarkably easy read, it is a must-have addition to every hockey book collection. The Complete History is sure to be enjoyed by hockey scholars, students, and fans everywhere. WARNING: The contents of this book may cause a Toronto Maple Leafs fan to weep (while all others may laugh!). Readers are taken on a journey through the decades with the lovable losers of the National Hockey League, and discover what the longest Stanley Cup drought looks like on paper. The book contains about 1,500 words and the pages are mostly blank.

In 1967 the Toronto Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup in a stunning defeat of the mighty Montreal Canadiens in Canada’s centennial year. Thirty-nine years later (and counting), no other Leaf team has been able to do it again. As the years pass, the legend grows. The men who were the Leafs in 1967--a scrappy group of aging players and unsung youngsters--were the kings of this universe, the last hockey heroes to skate in the world's most important hockey city. They were the men with the right stuff who enjoyed the perks and privileges that went with it. Sixty-Seven is not just another hockey book about that legendary team, but a unique and total look at the contradictions, the legends, the shame and the glory of '67. Within five years of that '67 victory, two key members of the team, Tim Horton and Terry Sawchuk, would be dead due to alcohol and drug-related issues. The man who had succeeded Smythe as King of Carlton Street, Harold Ballard, was in jail. The seeds of what would become a horrifying pedophile scandal a quarter-century later were being planted. All that had been built up over the course of decades was in the process of being torn down. Sixty-Seven will tell previously untold stories, funny and tragic, from the inside of that unforgettable dressing room. And beyond the story of the team, it will tell the story of the times, a time of innocence before Vietnam and Watergate, the last year of the Original Six-Team NHL, and the last gasp of the hockey dynasty built by the legendary Conn Smythe. The story of Sixty-Seven extends well beyond that of a hockey team that found a way to win.