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People in the executive offices at Rogers Media must break into tears any time Lou Lamoriello’s name is mentioned.

Two years ago, Rogers paid $5.2 billion for the national rights to broadcast NHL games for a dozen years. Rogers figured that sowing up Canada’s national game for itself would provide a guaranteed audience through most of the winter and well into the spring. And by gobbling up the rights for the whole country, Rogers reckoned to hold onto that audience no matter which of the seven Canadian teams made the final cut.

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Of course, they assumed that at least one of the Canadian teams would make the playoffs. It was a reasonable enough assumption: only once in 45 years has every single Canadian team bombed out. Until this year.

To make things worse, the most reliable money-spinner in the bunch, the woebegone Toronto Maple Leafs, are in the process of driving away fans well before the season ends. Leaf fans are famous for turning up in droves to fill the seats at the Air Canada Centre no matter how hopeless the team is. But thanks to general manager Lamoriello’s evident determination to sell off every bit of human furniture in the building, even Leaf fans are having second thoughts about another wasted evening in front of the tube – much less at the ACC itself.