Reward Small Wins... Phooey!

"People are driving the streets with children hanging out the windows or sitting on the hoods of their cars... They are behaving, as befitting the tourney's univeralistic claims, like the world's biggest idiots." -John Barber, The Globe and Mail.

More troubling than these incidents, is a general chickens-before-they-hatch celebratory trend, illustrated recently by Portuguese nationalists frothing onto Dupont Street to bask in a round robin victory over first-time World Cup qualifier Angola (as though colonizing the place wasn’t insult enough). For this jubilant satisfaction with small wins, I place the blame squarely at the feet of Dr. Spock and The Toronto Maple Leafs. Upon advancing to the second round of the playoffs, Leaf fans pour onto Yonge Street – blaring horns, hoisting homemade Stanley Cups, and performing minivan burnouts – in a league with more than half its teams in the postseason. So let’s all relax until we have something in which to genuinely rejoice – like the return to glory of the Buffalo Bills under their experienced, if geriatric, new leadership. In the meantime, I’ll turn up the Brooks & Dunn to drown out the excitable Europeans.