“Boston Strong” emerged as a motto for a city shaken by the terrorist bombings at the Boston Marathon. You may recall seeing that ribbon projected onto the ice during the incredible mass-singing of the Star-Spangled Banner before the 4/17 Bruins/Sabres game or hanging around while David Ortiz declared Boston “our f**king city.” It’s not about politics, and it’s especially not about sports … it’s about coming together and soldiering through any adversity forced upon you by the sickest people in the world, because you’re strong, and that’s all you can be.

I reiterate, it is not about sports.

Canada did not get that memo. Please direct your attention to Monday’s NHL Easter Conference quarterfinals game 3 between the Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs, wherein a Leafs fan though it would be totally kosher to bring a Boston Strong parody sign. Again, just so I can make sure I’m typing this correctly, a hockey fan thought it would be awesome to make a parody ribbon and announce that “liking the Toronto Maple Leafs” is stronger than “rebuilding your city after an act of terror.”

Here you go:

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The Toronto Maple Leafs haven’t touched the Stanley Cup in 46 years. That’s not the worst of it — they haven’t touched the playoffs since 2004, when they went out in game 6 of round 2 in a 3-2 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. This year, the drought is over. Well, the playoffs one. We’re still a long way from the Stanley Cup. The Leafs are playoffs bound, and folks like CBC Sports are having fun pointing out how ridiculously different life is since that final, sad game 6:

You won’t see a photo of Belfour making a save in Game 6 posted on Instagram, because it was still six years away from being invented. In fact, Instagram started as an iPhone app, and the first-generation iPhone was still three years away from introduction.

No one has ever tweeted about a Leafs playoff game. Twitter was still almost two years away from launch when the Leafs were eliminated by the Flyers. (via CBC)

Hey, look, I can play: Nobody ever made a Vine video about a Leafs Stanley Cup win, because computers weren’t a thing in 1967. With Leather has never written about a Maple Leafs Cup victory because Brandon was still over a decade away from being born!

Anyway, Leafs fans are taking advantage of this playoffs miracle by getting out all the ridiculous questions, ideas and requests they’ve been holding inside since 2004. For example, have you ever wondered how far the International Space Station has traveled in orbit since then? SOMEBODY HAS.

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Any similarities between that picture and the John Cena Boner Run For The Cure 2012 are entirely coincidental.

In my continuing efforts to write stories for the two people I know in Canada, here’s a pretty goddamn amazing clip of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford celebrating his city’s hosting the 100th Grey Cup by playing football. Here’s the full recap: he takes a snap from nobody, cannot manage one step backwards, turns and hop-falls onto his face. It’s sad, hilarious and adorable at the same time, and hey, I am now more aware than ever of where the 100th Grey Cup will be.

Video is below.

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Links

Smell Their Feet: The Greatest Child Halloween Costumes That Will Ever Show Up At Your Door - If a child showed up to my door dressed as Sho Nuff (or Bruce Leroy, as long as I could tell it apart from a Game of Death costume) I’d give them ALL of my candy, plus whatever candy I could afford for the next year. [UPROXX]

Our Favorite Photos From Zombie Walk Toronto 2011 - “Our favorite photos” is so funny to me, like Robopanda is flipping through a bunch of polaroids going, “Well, I LIKE this one, but I don’t know if I love it.” (Hi, Robopanda) [Gamma Squad]

Frotcast 71: Spielberg, Voice Mails, Rum Diary, More Seagal or Porn Star - I’m going to debut our podcast at some point in November or die trying. [Film Drunk]

The Dugout: Jim Thome’s Back(yard) - In case you missed it yesterday, here’s a Dugout everybody likes because it has almost nothing to do with baseball. Comment on this thing! [The Dugout]

T.I. And Chelsea Handler Rekindle Their Late Night Magic - The “teen who wants to sleep with his friend’s Mom” in me really enjoys Chelsea Handler. Fantasy threesome: me, Chelsea Handler, Laura Prepon dressed as Chelsea Handler. [Smoking Section]

Meme Watch: Pick Up Line Panda Is Striking Out - Maybe Pick Up Line Panda should outfit himself with the latest technology from Cybertronics. Hi again, Robopanda. [UPROXX]

14 Punctuation Marks That You Never Knew Existed - I know that “schwah” isn’t punctuation, technically, but I hope it’s on here somewhere. [Buzzfeed]

Adult Swim’s Abstract Costume Corner - I don’t work at Adult Swim, but in my mind it’s just Bob Odenkirk and Starburns sitting in an office rolling their eyes while the interns come up with stuff like this and put it online. [Adult Swim]

Freddy Krueger Edges Out Samara Morgan In A Poll For The Scariest Horror Movie Character - You guys think I’m a pro wrestling hipster, wait until you hear my opinions about movies. Samara Morgan? Seriously? Yeah, I’m deathly terrified of your photoshop filters, guys. [FARK]

Regis Strips For Snooki - Regis shouldn’t be doing anything for Snooki. Nobody should be doing things for Snooki. Get it together, America. [AOL TV]

5 Bizarre Killing Sprees That Never Got Solved - An alternate title for “Regis Strips For Snooki”. [The Smoking Jacket]

The 50 Most Successful Box Office Stars of All Time in North America - Jim Varney is on here somewhere, right? He went to camp AND jail AND was scared so much it made him stuipd. [Pajiba]

Turning Movie Posters Into Cartoons - I don’t know why the Tazmanian Devil is in The Illusionist, but it instantly improves that film. [Unreality]

I don’t know much about Canadian politics, other than you get free health care if you can wrestle a moose and hockey is the national pastime and flower, and I especially won’t pretend to know anything about the politics of a single Canadian city like Toronto.

With that said, Toronto’s Councillor, Doug Ford, could be just short of Slobodan Milosevic but I wouldn’t know or care because what I do know is that his daughter Krista (right) wants to play in the Lingerie Football League and he has offered his blessing despite his critics.

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We were getting so close to Christmas and I was afraid that we weren’t going to find a story about heroics and the holiday spirit. Well guess what, friends – we’ve got ourselves a real American Canadian hero! George Atis is an attorney in Thornhill, Ontario (Toronto, says a map) and he has a kid playing for the Toronto Ice Dogs peewee A club. But all is not well with the Ice Dogs, hockey fans, because there’s a girl playing for them. Actually, there was a 12-year old girl playing, but not anymore. Because George bullied her off the team.

George, who is not a coach of the team, wrote an agenda and sent it out to the parents of all of the team’s players, and it detailed his suggested actions for limiting the playing time to completely removing Kayla Watkins from the roster. Keep in mind that the peewee A club is the lowest level of minor hockey in Toronto. So none of these kids are exactly the next Manon Rheaume.

Destroy an innocent child’s joy of an extracurricular activity, Toronto Sun…

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