Fandemonium At The ACC

After capping off historic seasons, two Toronto teams entered the playoff dance last week. The Raptors continued this momentous trend with a win in their series-opener against Washington Wizards, which marks their first game 1 victory on home turf in franchise history. This established the Raps as the heavy favorites going into game 2 on Tuesday night and has erased the memory of a first round sweep to Washington three years ago.

However, basketball players are immune to mistakes and John Wall knows that the Wizards didn't lose because of his shooting woes going 6-20 that night.

Elite basketball players only take responsibility for wins and refs take responsibility for losses, that's the way the NBA works. But Wall isn't alone on these corrupt officiating allegations in the 6ix.

The Bruins were in town Monday night for game 3 against the Toronto Maple Leafs and the cycle continued. Toronto dominates, and the opposing team, fans and reporters blame the officials. Uncommon but not unheard of in the NHL.

Petty and harmless tweets from a former NHL player and current analyst, Ryan Whitney, and RA, a Boston sports writer. But next is a classless audio soundbite of the Boston Bruins play-by-play announcer, Jack Edwards, who is enraged at the refs blowing a whistle for an injured Andreas Johnsson on a Bruins rush and believes that an on-ice-decapitation only calls for such a whistle.

But I think there is a more logical answer to these losses in Toronto than unlawful officiating.

Well, Heater, this guy is buzzing off what we all are in Toronto, pure ecstasy (not to be confused with the colloquial term used for MDMA, the drug that is currently being abused by thousands of millennials across the globe at Coachella 2018 right now.) I'm talking about the emotion that is possessing our entire city that is behind our teams right now no matter what walk of life you come from.

The ACC was an electric circus on Saturday night and especially Monday night when the Leafs beat the Bruins 4-2. The sea of blue surrounding this hockey game was so boisterous and loud that it made the TD Garden sound like a library last week when Toronto was in Boston. AM34 and Andersen struggled in the first two games of this series, so it was up to Leafs nation to take them out of that slump Monday night. Matthews finished with a goal and the third star of the game, while Freddy got the first star finishing with 42 saves, one of them being the highlight of the night and possibly the entire playoffs.

Even with some of the most frigid conditions ever seen in April, fans still swarm the outside of the ACC on game nights and manage to drop the jaws of Toronto journalist.

The diversity, unity, and passion displayed in those 12 seconds is exactly what this city is all about and coming together in adversity is what this country is all about.

With Toronto undefeated at the ACC this post season and with both teams reaching historical highs in wins and points- there is no better time than now.